4.2 the selection and presentation of the newss Flashcards
What does McQuail(1992) argue about the construction of the news?
- the news is not objective or impartial
- not all events can be reported because of the sheer number of them
- the news is a socially manufactured product because it is the result of a selective process
What are the three broad influences on the process of news selection?
- the news values held by media organisations
- practical, organisational or bureaucratic constraints
- ownership of media newss organisations and its ideological content
How does Spencer-Thomas (2008) define news values?
- news values are general guidelines/criteria that determines the worth of a news story and how much prominence it isa given by newspapers/broadcast media
- thsy define what is considered newsworthy
What do pluralists believe about news values?
- they are of crucial importance because news producers are under great commercial pressure to increase their audience/readership to generate advertising revenue
Who comprised a list of news values?
- Johan Gaultung and Marie Holmboe Ruge
What methodology did Galtung and Ruge use?
- analysed international news across a group of newspapers in Norway in 1965 and identified many values shared by Norwegian journalists and editors as to what constituted a worthwhile news story
What are the news values that Gultang and Ruge identified?
- extraordinariness
- threshold
- unambiguity
- reference to elite persons
- reference to elite nations
- personalisation
- frequency
- continuity
- negativity
- composition
What is meant by extraordinariness?
- rare, unpredictable and surprising events are more newsworthy than routine events because they are extraordinary
- disasters, terrorist attacks or the sudden deaths of young celebrities fit this
What is meant by threshold?
- the ‘bigger’ the size of the event, the more likely that it will be nationally reported
- there is a threshold below which an event will fail to be considered worthy of attention, and will not be reported
What is meant by unambiguity?
- events that are easy to grasp and are more likely to be reported than those that are open to more than one interpretation
What is meant by reference to elite persons?
- the famous and powerful are often seen as more newsworthy than those who are regarded as ‘ordinary’
- a ‘cult of celebrity’ has developed
What is meant by reference to elite nations?
- relates to cultural proximity = stories about people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the same cultural preoccupations
- e.g. events in the US or Australia are more likely to be covered in British newspapers than events in Asia or Africa
What is meant by personalisation?
- if events can be ‘personalised’ by referring to a prominent individual/celebrity associated with them, then they are more likely to be reported
- journalists try to reduce complex events and policies to a conflict between two personalities
What is meant by frequency?
- Dutton (1997) = ‘the time span taken by the event’
- murders, plane crashes, etc happen suddenly and therefore their meaning can be established quickly but structural social trends are often outside the ‘frequency’ of the daily papers because they occur slowly
What is meant by continuity?
- once a story has become ‘news’ it may continue to be covered for some time
What is meant by negativity?
- bad news is regarded as more exciting and dramatic than good news and is seen as attracting a bigger audience
- stories about death, tragedy and violence are always rated above positive stories
What is meant by composition?
- most news outlets will attempt to ‘balance’ the reporting of events
How have Gultang and Ruge been criticised?
- Brighton and Roy = these lists assume that there is consensus among both journalists and audiences as to what is newsworthy BUT audiences are made up of a diverse range of people
- also cultural excpectations about news vary from country to country
Who are ‘spin doctors’ and what do they do?
- their role is to meet journalists to ‘manage’ news stories so they are favourable to the government
What does Davies argue about journalists?
- they should be renamed ‘churnalists because they are largely engaged in uncritically churning out ‘facts’ or stories given to them by government spin doctors
How does Phillips(2010) support Davies’ analysis?
- he points to the widespread practice of reporters being asked to rewrite stories that have appeared in other newspapers or on the BBC or Sky News websites
What does Drudge argue about citizen journalism?
- it ‘allows every citizen to be a reporter and have his or her voice equated with that of the rich and powerful’
- it improves the democratic process and challenges the idea that the news is shaped by news values
What does Bivens argue about citizen journalism?
- it has been used to expose offensive, illegal or corrupt activities by politicians, celebrities, the police and armed forces - CJ has made their activities far more accountable to the public
What are the organisational or bureaucratic routines that exist within news organisations?
- financial costs
- time or space available
- deadlines
- immediacy and actuality
- the audience
- journaliustic ethics
- ownership, ideology and bias
What is meant by financial costs?
- news-gathering is an expensive business and sending personnel oversead and booking satellite connections incurs great costs
- as readerships have fallen over the last 20 years, newspapers have attempted to cut costs by making thousands of journalists redundant
- cost cutting has two effects on the quality of news = infotainment and less investigative journalism
What is meant by infotainment?
- Franklin (1997) = entertainment has now superseded the provision of information in the construction of the news
- it is attractive to media companies because it attracts large audiences and thus advertising revenue
What is meant by time/space available?
- sometimes news stories are included or excluded simply according to whether they fit the time or space available
What is meant by deadlines?
- broadsheet newspaper coverage of stories generally tends to be more detailed and analytical than most television news coverage
What is meant by immediacy and actuality?
- events are much more likely to be covered if they can be accompanied by sound bites and live film footage from the location of the event as they add dramatic reality
- recent technological advances in news have also made possible a level of immediacy unimagined a few decades ago
What is meant by the audience?
- pluralists = the content of news and the style in which it is presented are very much a reaction to the type of audience that is thought to be watching/ the social characteristics of a newspaper’s reader
- who is percieved to be watching a news broadcast at particular times of the day also influences the selection of news
What is meant by journalistic ethics?
-Keeble and Mair (2012) = highlighted the unethical culture and practices of some sections of the news media
- all British newspapers are signed up to the Press Complaints Commission’s (PCC) voluntary code of conduct BUT the PCC has no statutory or legal powers to punish any irresponsible media behaviour so has been criticised as not powerful enough
What was the Leveson inquiry?
- 2011= News International(owned by News Corp) admitted that the hacking of voicemails by journalists employed by the News of the World was a common practice
- the inquiry concluded that phone-hacking was common and encouraged by editors and the culture of the press unethically demonstrated a blatant disrespect for people’s privacy and dignity
What were Leveson’s recommendations?
- the setting up of an independent regulatory body that would hear complaints from the victims of unfair press treatment , and would have the power to impose fines on news organisations
What does marxist, McChesney (2002) argue about impartiality in the news?
- the idea that truth-telling is the primary function of journalists and that newsgathering is mainly based on a set of objective news values is an ideological myth invented by media owners in order to present the corporate media monopoly as a ‘neutral’ and unbiased contributor to democracy
- democracy is undermined by the fact that extremely powerful media owners can influence the social manufacture of the news by shaping editorial approach or policy of their news media
What do Herman and Chomsky (1988) argue about newsgathering?
- it is largely shaped by market focus
- news agencies are part of profit seeking media corporations partly funded by advertisers who want their advertising to appear in a supportive selling environment
What does Bagdikian note about news in the USA?
- capitalist values often imperceptibly permeate news
- the news media seem uninterested in the growing gap between the rich and poor in the USA
Who are primary definers according to Stuart Hall?
- powerful groups that have easier and more effective access to the media, such as government ministers, spin doctors, the police and PR companies
What is meant by a ‘hierarchy of credibility’?
- journalists often report what prominent people say about events rather than the events themselves
- powerful people make news
How does the social background of media professionals affect the newsgathering process?
- GUMG = the way in which news is gathered and presented is the product of the MC backgrounds of most journalists and editors; they unconsciously side with the powerful and rich because they have more in common with them
- news journalists engage in gate keeping and agenda setting
What is meant by gate-keeping?
- owners, editors and journalists construct the news by acting as gatekeepers, influencing what knowledge the public gains access to
- the issues that are not aired are frequently those most damaging to the value and interests of the dominant social class
What is meant by agenda setting?
- the news media are successful in telling us what to think about
What is meant by norm-setting?
- the way the media emphasises and reinforce conformity to social norms and seek to isolate those who don’t conform by making them the victims of unfavourable media reports
What did Fiske (1987) find about the presentation of certain groups in the news?
- trade unions were typically presented by news journalists as ‘demanding’ whereas management made ‘offers’
How does Schlesinger criticise the Marxist perspective?
- the media do not always act in the interests of the powerful; contemporary politicians are very careful what they say to the news as they are aware it can shape public perceptions
- the marxist notion that there is a unified media, engaged in manufacturing news as capitalist propaganda is severely undermined by the fact that news outlets are in competition to grab larger audiences
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