Selection and Presentation of the News: News Values Flashcards
What’s extrordianariasness news value?
Unexpected and rare events are more news worthy. As Charles A Dana said “If a dog bites a man that’s not news, but if a man bites a dog, that’s news!”
What did Galtang and Ruge identify as the 10 News values?
Extrordianariasness. Threshold. Unambiguity. Reference to elite persons. Personalisation. Frequency. Continuity. Narrative. Negativity. Composition.
What’s the threshold news value?
The bigger the size of the event the more likely it will to be national reported such as war or COVID
What’s the unambiguity news value?
Events that are easy to grasp are more likely to be reported than ones that leave it up to interpretation. The Colombia journalism review found that the most regular reason why things don’t appear in the news are that they are too complicated for the average person.
What’s an example of reference to elite persons?
A story relating to Kate Middleton or Megan Marckle would increase sales rapidly. Or the story in a western country would be more likely to sell than one in a developing country. Mc Lurgs law said that 1 dead Briton was worth 5 dead French men, 20 dead Egyptians, 500 dead Indians and 1000 dead Chinese in terms of news coverage.
Whats personalisastion?
Events may be personalised by referring to a prominent individual or events associated with them. Complex events and policies are often reduced to a conflict between personalities.
Whats frequency?
More long term events are usually outside of the frequency that newspapers report on, for example they would report on a plane crash as it has just happened but inflation they wouldn’t report on until governmental official figures are released. Dutton said that frequency is the time span taken by the event.
Whats continuity?
Once a story has achieved some importance then it will be continued to be covered for some time for example Madeline McCann’s disappearance in 2007 is still making headlines today. Moral panics can also be said to be a result of this.
What’s narrative?
Journalists present the news in the form of a story with villain’s and heroes. It has a beginning middle and end if it can be reported this way then it is more likely to be reported. For example the war in Iraq was reported in this way despite the reality being much more complex.
Whats negativity?
Bad news is regarded by journalists as more exciting and dramatic than good news so is more reported in. for example, stories about death, tragedy, disasters are always rated higher. Fiske refers to an American journalist running up to a group of white women waiting for a plane in Belgian Congo and shouting has anyone been raped here and speaks English?
Whats composition?
Most news outlets will try to balance the excessive bad news or foreign news with some more positive items of a local nature. For example, after time the coverage of Syria was relegated bellow less serious domestic stories.
