![Hallin's spheres](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Hallin%27s_spheres.svg)
Hallin's spheres is a theory of news reporting and its rhetorical framing posited by journalism historian
Daniel C. Hallin in his book ''
The Uncensored War'' (1986) to explain the
coverage
Coverage may refer to:
Filmmaking
* Coverage (lens), the size of the image a lens can produce
* Camera coverage, the amount of footage shot and different camera setups used in filming a scene
* Script coverage, a short summary of a script, wri ...
of the
Vietnam war
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...
.
Hallin divides the world of political discourse into three concentric spheres: consensus, legitimate controversy, and deviance. In the sphere of consensus, journalists assume everyone agrees. The sphere of legitimate controversy includes the standard political debates, and journalists are expected to remain neutral. The sphere of deviance falls outside the bounds of legitimate debate, and journalists can ignore it. These boundaries shift, as public opinion shifts.
Hallin's spheres, which deals with the media, are similar to the
Overton window
The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse.
Background
The term is named after American policy analyst Joseph Overton, who stat ...
, which deals with public opinion generally, and posits a sliding scale of public opinion on any given issue ranging from
conventional wisdom
The conventional wisdom or received opinion is the body of ideas or explanations generally accepted by the public and/or by experts in a field. In religion, this is known as orthodoxy.
Etymology
The term is often credited to the economist John K ...
to unacceptable.
Hallin used the concept of
framing to describe the presentation and reception of issues in public. For example, framing the use of drugs as criminal activity can encourage the public to consider that behavior anti-social. Hallin also used the concept of an
opinion corridor
Opinion corridor ( sv, åsiktskorridor, no, meningskorridor) refers to a sociopolitical phenomenon that has been observed during the beginning of the 21st century in Sweden, and to some extent also in Norway. The expression itself was originally ...
, in which the range of public opinion narrows, and opinion outside that corridor moves from legitimate controversy into deviance.
Description
Sphere of consensus
This sphere contains those topics on which there is widespread agreement, or at least the perception thereof. Within the sphere of consensus, 'journalists feel free to invoke a generalized "we" and to take for granted shared values and shared assumptions'.
Examples include such things as motherhood and apple pie. For topics in this sphere, journalists feel free to be advocating cheerleaders without having to be neutral or present any opposing view point and be disinterested observers."
Sphere of legitimate controversy
For topics in this sphere rational and informed people hold differing views within limited range. These topics are therefore the most important to cover, and also ones upon which journalists are seemingly obliged to remain disinterested reporters, rather than advocating for or against a particular view.
Schudson notes that Hallin, in his influential study of the US media during the Vietnam War, argues that journalism's commitment to objectivity has always been compartmentalized. That is, within a certain sphere—the sphere of legitimate controversy—journalists seek conscientiously to be balanced and objective.
Sphere of deviance
Topics in this sphere are rejected by journalists as being unworthy of general consideration. Such views are perceived as being out of hand unfounded, taboo, or of such minor consequence that they are not newsworthy. Hallin argues that in the sphere of deviance, 'journalists also depart from standard norms of objective reporting and feel authorized to treat as marginal, laughable, dangerous". They either avoid mentioning or ridicule the controversial subject as outside the bounds of acceptable controversy. And censor the individuals and groups who are associated with it.
A simple example: a person claiming that aliens are manipulating college basketball scores might have difficulty finding sports media coverage for such a claim. A more political example: the US media regulator
FCC
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdictio ...
's
"Fairness Doctrine" aimed at radio stations, advocated balance between right and left political news and opinions yet specified that broadcasters didn't have to reserve any space or time for Communist viewpoints.
Uses of the terms
Craig Watkins (2001, pp. 92–4) makes use of the Hallin's spheres in a paper examining ABC, CBS, and NBC television network television news coverage of the
Million Man March
The Million Man March was a large gathering of African-American men in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1995. Called by Louis Farrakhan, it was held on and around the National Mall. The National African American Leadership Summit, a leading ...
, a demonstration that took place in Washington, DC on October 16, 1995. Watkins analyzes the dominant framing practices – problem definition, rhetorical devices, use of sources, and images – employed by journalists to make sense of this particular expression of political protest. He argues that Hallin's three spheres are a way for media framing practices to develop specific reportorial contexts, and each sphere develops its own distinct style of news reporting resources by different rhetorical tropes and discourses.
Piers Robinson (2001, p. 536) uses the concept in relation to debates that have emerged over the extent to which the mass media serves elite interests or, alternatively, plays a powerful role in shaping political outcomes. His article reviews Hallin's spheres as an example of media-state relations, that highlights theoretical and empirical shortcomings in the 'manufacturing consent' thesis (
Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...
,
McChesney). Robinson argues that a more nuanced and bi-directional understanding is needed of the direction of influence between media and the state that builds upon, rather than rejecting, existing theoretical accounts.
Hallin's theory assumed a relatively homogenized media environment, where most producers were trying to reach most consumers. A more fractured media landscape can challenge this assumption
because different audiences may place topics in different spheres, a concept related to the
filter bubble
A filter bubble or ideological frame is a state of intellectual isolationTechnopediaDefinition – What does Filter Bubble mean?, Retrieved October 10, 2017, "....A filter bubble is the intellectual isolation, that can occur when websites make us ...
, which posits that many members of the public choose to limit their
media consumption
Media consumption or media diet is the sum of information and entertainment media taken in by an individual or group. It includes activities such as interacting with new media, reading books and magazines, watching television and film, and lis ...
to the areas of consensus and deviance that they personally prefer.
See also
*
Ambit claim
The low-ball is a persuasion, negotiation, and selling technique.
Overview
By buyers
When used by buyer, the low-ball is an offer for goods or services far lower than the price the buyer is willing to pay, made in the hope that the seller wil ...
*
Argument to moderation
Argument to moderation ( la, argumentum ad temperantiam)—also known as false compromise, argument from middle ground, and the golden mean fallacy
*
Creeping normality
Creeping normality (also called gradualism, or landscape amnesia) is a process by which a major change can be accepted as normal and acceptable if it happens slowly through small, often unnoticeable, increments of change. The change could otherwis ...
*
Cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of t ...
*
Door-in-the-face technique
The door-in-the-face technique is a compliance method commonly studied in social psychology. The persuader attempts to convince the respondent to comply by making a large request that the respondent will most likely turn down, much like a metaphor ...
*
Political suicide
Political suicide is a concept by which a politician or political party loses widespread support and confidence from the voting public by proposing actions that are seen as unfavourable or that might threaten the status quo. A politician who is se ...
*
Slippery slope
A slippery slope argument (SSA), in logic, critical thinking, political rhetoric, and caselaw, is an argument in which a party asserts that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant (usuall ...
*
Spiral of silence
The spiral of silence theory is a political science and mass communication theory proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann. It states that an individual's perception of the distribution of public opinion influences that ...
*
Third rail of politics
The third rail of a nation's politics is a metaphor for any issue so controversial that it is "charged" and "untouchable" to the extent that any politician or public official who dares to broach the subject will invariably suffer politically. The ...
*
Overton window
The Overton window is the range of policies politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. It is also known as the window of discourse.
Background
The term is named after American policy analyst Joseph Overton, who stat ...
References
External links
* Rosen, Jay
"Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press,"PressThink.org (January 12, 2009).
* Smith, Christopher
The Sphere of DevianceWNYmedia Network, 2009.
"Does NPR have a Liberal Bias?" ''
On the Media'' (
New York Public Radio
New York Public Radio (NYPR) is the owner of WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM, WNYC Studios, WQXR-FM, New Jersey Public Radio, and the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. Combined, New York Public Radio owns WNYC (AM), WNYC-FM, WQXR-FM, WQXW, WNJT-FM, WNJP ...
) (September 14, 2012). Retrieved 11 February 2013.
{{Propaganda
Framing (social sciences)
Knowledge representation
Propaganda techniques
Journalism