‘Read All about it!’ UK News Media Coverage of A-Level Results

Abstract

News coverage of public examination results in the United Kingdom has escalated in recent years. The years 2002 and 2003, in particular, witnessed a bitter media debate over A-level results. Yet, while educationalists often deride the quality of the annual examination debate, there has been minimal research into the specific ways in which exam news issues are constructed by news media. This article discusses the critical findings of an interdisciplinary study, conducted by education and media specialists, of print and broadcast news coverage of the publication of A-level results in August 2002 and 2003. The article focuses upon three particular elements: the distribution of different headline categories and themes; the structural, narrative and presentation templates in which A-level news items were embedded, and the discursive features that have characterised the dominant template for A-level news coverage: the claim that examination standards are ‘falling’. The article concludes by briefly considering some of the broader questions about the relationship between the education sector and news media in the United Kingdom, reflecting upon the ritualistic and polarised nature of coverage, the subtext of anxieties over the ‘massification’ of post-compulsory education and the readiness (or not) of educationalists to engage in a debate being played out for increasingly high stakes.