Selection And Presentation Of The News Flashcards
What is the role of the news in modern society?
- news is a window onto the world
- informing the public
- promoting transparency
- providing a sense of community
- facilitating public discourse
- raising awareness
- cultural reflection
-providing a sense of community
Social construction of the news
MCQUAIL = just because an event happens doesn’t mean it becomes news as the news can’t cover everything
- therefore the news is socially manufactured by gate keepers such as editors and journalists + all information goes through a selection process
- there 3 main influences that news selection is based on :
1. News values
2. Organisational and bureaucratic routines
3.ownership of media organisations
News values - construction of the news
RUGE and GALTUNG = completed a content analysis of Norwegian newspapers in 1965 and identified 10 news values - 10 CENT CUP FEE
1. Continuity - will the story be covered over a number of days
2. Extraordinariness - it it rare or surprising
3. Negativity - bad news regarded as better news
4. Threshold - the bigger the event the more likely it will be national news - about audience size
5. Composition - balancing negative and good news
6. Unambiguity - black and white, easy to grasp stories
7. Personalisation - is there a prominent individual involved and putting a face to the story = a connection
8. Frequency - Dutton = the time span taken by the event, short stories make good news
9. Elite nations - cultural proximity more likely to report western stories or USA stories as they are closer
10. Elite persons - those at the top of the socio economic hierarchy more likely to be reported on- eg celebrities
HARCUP and ONEILL = updated the list in 2001 on British newspapers, they talked about :
-power elite
- celebrity
-entertainment
-surprise
-bad and good news
- magnitude
-relevance
-follow ups
- media agenda
News values Evaluation
-assumes a consensus - several types of news outlets and audiences have different needs
- different cultural expectations - newsworthiness will be linked to cultural expectations eg; Mexico there is news about Cinco de mayo which will not appear in western news
- changes in journalism - spin doctors =powerful people who can shape or influence stories to be sympathetic to their cause; churnalism (DAVIS) = we have moved away from investigative journalism as articles are produced with minimal original content or reporting and often rely on press releases, citizen journalism = journalism that is conducted by people who are not professional and who disseminate information using web sites - meaning they are unlikely to use news values
Organisational and bureaucratic routines in news construction
They have to take into account a number of things:
-financial costs - entertainment over information ?
-time and space available -length of column inches in papers
-deadlines -newspapers need to be sent to press
-immediacy and actuality - live footage of something
-the audience -pluralists =presentation of news is a reflection of the audience they want to attract
-journalistic ethics -press complaints commission and ofcom ( have the power for prosecution)
How does the media create a moral panic
COHEN (looked at mods and rockers) + HALL (black muggers) looked at how the media creates a moral panic -
1. Identification of a problem group
2.stories published demonise groups
3.oversimplify the issue - face value
4. Moral entrepreneurs make statements condemning the group
5. Police targeting the group
6. This justifies the moral panic through more arrests
Moral panic evaluation
Jewekes- theory is to vague in its definition of deviance as not all folk devils are vulnerable and the public are not passive or naive
Crticher- theory is too abstract to be testable
News characteristics are value laden
Postmodernists - moral panic are more complex then suggested due to diversity of media interpretations as not all groups will be demonised
New media - gives a voice to those labelled as folk devils
Mcrobbie and Thornton - theory is outdated - due to frequency(happen to often) ,context,reflexivity(people change there minds ) ,difficulty ( to get everyone to agree to a moral panic ) and rebound
