"Understanding bright(s): practice and future"

Abstract

Stone (1992) described 'Bright(s)' as common method used by media practitioners to juxtapose the hard news with a bright, humorous or interesting news piece to reduce the dampening impact (of the hard news that normally revolves around crime, deaths or hard political news) so that the readers can continue reading. Bright(s) is commonly placed on the front page of the print media. The purpose of this study is to look out if the current print media are still practicing the concept of Bright, and whether the term bright is used to describe this concept. In addition, if they are not using it then the reason why is also studied. This angle will provide an understanding and use of bright and if it sees a future especially in the online medium. The study uses content analysis of three months of three newspapers of different languages, i.e. Malay, English and Chinese newspapers. Interviews with the particular chief news editors are also conducted to obtain a clearer picture. At present, we are unable to provide the results as the study is still ongoing and in the second month. We are confident of presenting an interesting result due for the conference.