Media Notes 06/11/17

News Values -

How news professionals decide on what is news worthy as well as how to attract an audience.

Convergence refers to the coming together of two or more texts or platforms.

News today is dispersed across a range of platforms with audiences who share and alter its meaning by adding their own hyperlinks and comments.

Objectivity is about balance and showing both sides of the story with an unbiased outlook. Most news professionals believe in this and will attempt to do this however some newspapers will take biased views and outlooks to garner more views and money.

Galtung and Ruge – Argues that news is trusted according to unspoken values rather than discovered.

Frequency – This value is to with the time scale of events perceived to be newsworthy. With 24 rolling news channels, online and social events need to be more frequent to be favoured in news covered.

Threshold – This is the size of an event that’s needed for it to be considered newsworthy. Common events with individuals usually with not count unless they involve a celebrity or an unusually violent or sensational happening.

Proximity – This value is to do with how close to home the story is. Proximity clearly has an ideological agenda; Stories from the west are favoured over those from the developing world regardless of the geographical agenda to re-enforce existing prejudices and otherness.

Negativity – Most news is bad news. Sometimes news with a happy ending will be favoured but usually catastrophe and images of violence are covered instead.

Predictability – Even though the news is supposed to be new, most of it is predictable. This could include an important vote or a demo which is expected to be violent, sports and film events.                                                               

Continuity and Narrative – News involves storytelling and it is convenient for journalists to cover stories which are likely to continue over a period of time, with new events unfolding. Binary opposites will be favoured to help the audience to understand the quite complex stories.

Composition – Newspapers are to be balanced out and if the editor feels there is a disproportionate type of one news, he or she will ask the journalists to balance this out with a human interest or funny story. This is done to add composition. Front covers can also sometimes encourage the reader to make connections between unlinked stories even if they are incorrect/manipulative.

Personalisation – Events are often personalised to give a human interest angle. Similar to continuity, characters can be created to create types and binary oppositions.