The way problems are perceived by politicians and the public has a fundamental impact on the choices made between options to solve them. But a key influence on the way transport problems are seen is the way they are presented by the media and especially in ‘news’ stories which are generally expected to be a mixture of facts and peoples’ reactions to events. And, to a lesser but increasing extent, views of transport problems and solutions are developed by web based discussion and commentary.
In practice, each publisher of ‘news’ has a view of the world that will differ from others and those differences will lead to correspondingly diverse and biased reports.
For example: David Begg’s organ The Transport Times, invariably presents pollution problems associated with cars with an assumption that the core problem is that too many people use cars. On the other hand, Autocar magazine is far more likely to report on car manufactures successes in reducing vehicle emissions as the key to solving pollution problems…
News and Internet Commentators…
The way problems are perceived by politicians and the public has a fundamental impact on the choices made between options to solve them. But a key influence on the way transport problems are seen is the way they are presented by the media and especially in ‘news’ stories which are generally expected to be a mixture of facts and peoples’ reactions to events. And, to a lesser but increasing extent, views of transport problems and solutions are developed by web based discussion and commentary.
In practice, each publisher of ‘news’ has a view of the world that will differ from others and those differences will lead to correspondingly diverse and biased reports.
For example: David Begg’s organ The Transport Times, invariably presents pollution problems associated with cars with an assumption that the core problem is that too many people use cars. On the other hand, Autocar magazine is far more likely to report on car manufactures successes in reducing vehicle emissions as the key to solving pollution problems…