NEWS VALUES
News values
News today is converged and dispersed across a range of platforms with a huge range of sources/ producers including audiences who share the news and alter its meaning by adding their own hyperlinks and comments.
News values systematically construct rather than simply accompany the gathering of news. These are not values consciously held by journalists. Most maintain the ideal of achieving objectivity or truth.
Galtung and Ruge (1981)
These theorists argued that news is structured according to unspoken values, rather than discovered.
Frequency
This value is to do with the time scale of events perceived to be newsworthy. In pre- web 2.0 days, stories which unfolded daily were flavoured. Now with a much faster news agenda, 24 rolling news channels, online and social, events need to be much more frequent to be favoured in new coverage.
Threshold
This is the size of the event that's needed for it to be considered newsworthy. Commonly occurring events happening to individuals will not usually count (except for local news) unless they involve either a celebrity or an unusually violent or sensational happening.
Proximity
This value is to do with how close to home a story is. Proximity clearly has an ideological agenda....stories from the west are favoured over those from the developing world, regardless of the geographical proximity. This reinforces existing prejudices and 'otherness' (Gilroy)
Negativity
If it's news, it's bad news. News with a happy ending will be favoured, but usually catastrophe and images of violence are covered over positive stories.
Predictability
Predictable news which has a result to be expected such as violence.
Continuity and narrative
News involves story - telling just like fiction, and it is convenient for journalists to cover stories which are likely to continue over a period of time, with new events unfolding. Protagonists, antagonists and the other recognisable characters will drive the narrative.
Binary oppositions (Levi-Strauss) will be favoured to help the audience to understand quite complex stories.
Composition
Newspapers need to be balanced out, and if the editor feels that there is a disproportionate type of one news.
Personalisation
Events are often personalised to give them a human interest angle. Similar to continuity, characters can be created to create types and binary oppositions.
Non-white people in the media are often defined according to what makes them different from the 'white' majority. These values are usually negative.
My own question:
Is Blumler and Katz's uses and gratification theory used in the news or just television, for example game shows?
News today is converged and dispersed across a range of platforms with a huge range of sources/ producers including audiences who share the news and alter its meaning by adding their own hyperlinks and comments.
News values systematically construct rather than simply accompany the gathering of news. These are not values consciously held by journalists. Most maintain the ideal of achieving objectivity or truth.
Galtung and Ruge (1981)
These theorists argued that news is structured according to unspoken values, rather than discovered.
Frequency
This value is to do with the time scale of events perceived to be newsworthy. In pre- web 2.0 days, stories which unfolded daily were flavoured. Now with a much faster news agenda, 24 rolling news channels, online and social, events need to be much more frequent to be favoured in new coverage.
Threshold
This is the size of the event that's needed for it to be considered newsworthy. Commonly occurring events happening to individuals will not usually count (except for local news) unless they involve either a celebrity or an unusually violent or sensational happening.
Proximity
This value is to do with how close to home a story is. Proximity clearly has an ideological agenda....stories from the west are favoured over those from the developing world, regardless of the geographical proximity. This reinforces existing prejudices and 'otherness' (Gilroy)
Negativity
If it's news, it's bad news. News with a happy ending will be favoured, but usually catastrophe and images of violence are covered over positive stories.
Predictability
Predictable news which has a result to be expected such as violence.
Continuity and narrative
News involves story - telling just like fiction, and it is convenient for journalists to cover stories which are likely to continue over a period of time, with new events unfolding. Protagonists, antagonists and the other recognisable characters will drive the narrative.
Binary oppositions (Levi-Strauss) will be favoured to help the audience to understand quite complex stories.
Composition
Newspapers need to be balanced out, and if the editor feels that there is a disproportionate type of one news.
Personalisation
Events are often personalised to give them a human interest angle. Similar to continuity, characters can be created to create types and binary oppositions.
Non-white people in the media are often defined according to what makes them different from the 'white' majority. These values are usually negative.
My own question:
Is Blumler and Katz's uses and gratification theory used in the news or just television, for example game shows?
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