Lesson plan
Contextual objectivity
Contextual objectivity is a principle with roots in quantum mechanics that was adapted and applied to explain and describe the operations of news media organizations during times of war. Proposed by Adel Iskandar and Mohammed El-Nawawy in their analysis of Al-Jazeera as a case study, the term expresses the attempt "to reflect all sides of any story while retaining the values, beliefs and sentiments of the target audience". The concept has been applied by some scholars to explain Fox News Channel's news programming in the 2002–2003 run-up to the Iraq War. Other studies used contextual objectivity to describe differences between mainstream media and alternative ethnic media's coverage of post-Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
Article summary
Contextual objectivity is a principle with roots in quantum mechanics that was adapted and applied to explain and describe the operations of news media organizations during times of war. Proposed by Adel Iskandar and Mohammed El-Nawawy in their analysis of Al-Jazeera as a case study, the term expresses the attempt "to reflect all sides of any story while retaining the values, beliefs and sentiments of the target audience". The concept has been applied by some scholars to explain Fox News Channel's news programming in the 2002–2003 run-up to the Iraq War. Other studies used contextual objectivity to describe differences between mainstream media and alternative ethnic media's coverage of post-Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
Key claims
No claims recorded.
Discussion questions
- Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
- Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
- If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?
Bibliography
No sources recorded.
Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.