How do students respond to foreign policy narratives in TV shows?

We live in a golden age of television. ‘Binge watching’ high-quality television series on HBO, Netflix and elsewhere has become a widely understood and shared pastime. The effective lure of fictional television is, of course, a significant part of its attraction and a factor that raises its potential as an effective teaching resource, if its use is integrated into to the classroom. Affect, however, is also a potential obstacle to overcome, especially in disciplines such as Politics and International Relations, which attempt to teach critical evaluative skills. As well as helping to tap into the multitude of ways that students learn, might TV’s affective qualities also hinder the development of more advanced, critical skills? Do students demonstrate visual literacy when viewing fictional television?

In order to answer this question, I conducted an experiment. My class was split into two equal groups (balanced in terms of political leanings). Both groups watched an episode of The West Wing. Group A watched a pre-9/11 episode promoting a broadly conservative foreign policy message. ‘A Proportionate Response’ advocates a calm, rational and limited response to terrorism, within the rules of war, respecting international law and accepted norms and traditions of behaviour, even if terrorist attacks cause outrage. Group B watched a post 9/11 episode promoting a broadly neoconservative foreign policy message.  ‘Isaac and Ishmael’ explores the necessity for exceptional counter-terrorism policies in the wake of 9/11, including intervention, enhanced police powers, and assassination.

After watching these episodes, students completed questionnaires and conducted focus groups. My expectation was that students would adopt some of the political biases represented in fictional television, bringing their own foreign policy beliefs into line with the specific episode of the West Wing they had watched.

I was wrong. Students rejected the foreign policy message to which they were exposed in two ways. First, students in Group A (exposed to a conservative message) were significantly more likely to view terrorism as exceptional. They were also five times as likely as their counterparts in Group B to suggest that terrorism definitely requires an exceptional form of response. In addition, they were two and a half times as likely to suggest that additional policing powers are definitely necessary to combat terrorism. And they were also more likely to identify the need to respond to terrorism in exceptional ways, with enhanced police and intelligence powers. All this, despite being exposed to a broadly conservative foreign policy message.

In contrast, Group B students (exposed to a neoconservative message) were more likely to agree that: terrorism is unexceptional and, in turn, it can be fought with an unexceptional response. For example, Group B students felt that counterterrorism does not require military intervention; it can be fought with normal policing. This group of students was also significantly more likely to advocate a proportional response to terrorism, with around half of Group A members favouring a proportional response to terrorism, in contrast to nearly nine in ten of Group B members.

Second, both groups also demonstrated an additional form of critical evaluative viewing, which went beyond a rejection of the show’s dominant political message. Alongside direct opposition to the dominant political narrative, focus group data revealed that students also pursued a rejection of the overarching narrative frame, in a two-part critical evaluative viewing. Alongside a critical resistance to dominant narratives, students rejected the constraints of parsimony in narrative plots and actively offered alternatives frames and options. In short, students frequently did not like the way the show pitched ideas to them, resisting the constraints of the narrative frame used to set up an issue.

It, therefore, appears that fictional television can be a useful pedagogical tool in encouraging the development of visual literacy and critical evaluative skills, as students were seen to: (i) oppose dominant foreign policy narratives and (ii) reject the range of policy options as they were presented. This is encouraging and warrants further research on affect, television and critical evaluative skills. It is a useful starting point for thinking about why we might integrate television (and film) into the classroom and the kinds of impacts we are hoping that it has, as to date such little research exists exploring what happens in the space between a screen and a student.

Jack Holland is Associate Professor in International Security at the University of Leeds. He was the 2013-14 winner of the BISA-HEA Award for Teaching Excellence in International Studies. Jack’s article ‘Visual Literacy in International Relations: Teaching Critical Evaluative Skills through Fictional Television’ was recently published in International Studies Perspectives.  He tweets @DrJackHolland.