Selection and presentation LT5* Flashcards
Structural factors influencing selection and presentation of news
costs
competion
profit
time and space
Costs
News gathering is an expensive business and booking satellites connections are expensive
News is filled with overseas events companies such as BBC
citizen journalism (costs)
suits mainstream media companies as little cost to them compared to sending reporters
What has globalisation lead to in the media?
there are mass of news providers from across the globe to choose from.
What do media companies have to do?
Compete In order to survie
How does news compete with competition?
Up to date, tailor their media offering and ways of presenting
e.g. short, snappy, simple, using gadgets for youthful audience and celeb gossip for mass consumption
how has new technology helped the media?
news is instantly available from almost anywhere in the world 24 hour a day due to technology
Profit
media’s profit is advertisement
so avoid offending audience, reducing popularity thus reducing advertisement and reducing profit
What attracts audiences?
dumbing down of news content of politics replacing it with celebrity stories and gossip
Bagdikian (2004)
Time
Television news, especially 24 hour based news has an advantage of newspaper here as it can report as it happens
space
how people are encouraged to view stories e.g. physical position of news story’s on websites, order given in and choice of headlines
ideological factors influencing selection and presentation of the news
influence of the owner
Agenda setting
Gate keeping
Norm setting
News values
The influence of the owners
owners via the editors, influence the resources made available to cover news stories
how do editors effect news?
Editors career depends on not upsetting owners so they self censor avoiding reporting events that might offence owners
What are concerned with?
Making profits and the search for profit however develops unethical journalism.
Example of unethical journalism
The leveson enquiry followed claims of illegal phone hacking at the news of the world.
Agenda setting
people can only discuss and form opinions on things that they know about and media provides information
Philo (2012)
The media were effective in channeling public anger (of the 2008 bank crisis) towards ‘scumbag millionaire’ and considering solutions within the existing system. therefore stopped people discussing solutions.
Gate keeper
The media power to refuse to cover some issues and to let others through is called ‘gatekeeping’
Gatekeeping (GMG)
owners, editors and journalists construct the news by acting as gatekeepers, influencing what knowledge the public gains
Example of Gate keeping
Welfare benefit fraud by the poor is widely reported, but tax evasion of the rich
Norm setting
Describes the way the media emphasises and reinforces conformity to social norms and seeks to isolate non conformists
What are the two ways norm setting is achieved?
Encouraging conformist behaviour
Discouraging non-conformist behaviour
Encouraging conformist behaviour
e.g. not going on strike, obeying the law etc
Discouraging non-conformist behaviour
e.g. treatment of murder. emphasis consequences
News Values
journalist operate with certain value and assumptions which guide them in deciding what is newsworthy
Example of news values
Frequency
Narrative
Negativity
Frequency
news event that occur over a short period of time fit in with news schedules
Narrative
prefer to present news in forms of a story with hero’s and villains
Negativity
bad news is regarded as more exciting and dramatic than good news
Criticism of presentation of the news
Journalism is undergoing change and traditional values may no longer be relevant in age of spin doctors, churnalism and citizen journalism
