NDM: News Values
Galtung and Ruge (1981) defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not.
The following list is adapted from their work:
Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Negativity: is it bad news?
Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
Classwork/Homework
1) Read Media Factsheet 76: News Values and complete the following questions/tasks.
Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets
3) What example news story does the Factsheet use to illustrate Galtung and Ruge's News Values? Why is it an appropriate example of a news story likely to gain prominent coverage?
4) What is gatekeeping?
"process of filtering information prior to dissemination"
5) What are the six ways bias can be created in news?
6) How have online sources such as Twitter, bloggers or Wikileaks changed the way news is selected and published?
this challenges the process of traditional gatekeeping news however certain sources e.g. blogs may instead be unreliable sources for news. Mainstream news outlets challenge these professional practices.
Wikileaks aim is to take away a censorship that allows for more freedom of speech and transparency.
Therefore changing the way traditional news has to be much faster to pick and publish as well as consider what is censored and not, what is bias and not, and what is genuine.
7) Give an example of a news story from the last 12 months that was reported as a result of online technology - Twitter, Wikileaks or similar.
8) Complete the task on the last page of the Factsheet regarding Sky News and Twitter:
“The Twitter phenomenon continues to explode. A photo with an eyewitness in Lahore yesterday came to us through Twitter.Last night’s breaking story on the death of a Briton in the Alps came to us from Twitter. The first phone on the Buffalo plane crash came from Twitter. The first photo of the Hudson River rescue came from Twitter. Convinced?”
Final tasks
9) In your opinion, how has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?
by changing the way in which news is selcted it changes the news values, what news is chossen now-a-days often revolves around a different set of values compared to the past
10) How would you update them for 2016? Choose SIX of Galtung and Ruge's news values and say how each one has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.
Amplitude: may not mean how many the people it has affected but instead the amount of people that have shared or retweeted it
frequency: may mean how long the story can trend on social media instead of the opening and closing of the case for example
unambiguous: many trending stories aren't simple and have instead various points of views and opinions which are shared, news isn't so clean cut anymore, the audience enjoys the 'mystery'
surprise: unexpectedness has changed with social media sharing stories instantly and various propaganda etc stories trending
balance: people just go to other sources for that 'balance' it doesn't need to be provided in the same place/platform
continuity; again, its more about how long it trends for rather than actually reemerging
The following list is adapted from their work:
Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Negativity: is it bad news?
Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
Classwork/Homework
1) Read Media Factsheet 76: News Values and complete the following questions/tasks.
Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets
2) Come up with a news story from the last 12 months for each of the categories suggested by Harriss, Leiter and Johnson:
- Conflict :Tension or surprise
- Progress: Triumph or achievement
- Disaster: Defeat or destruction
- Consequence: Effects on individuals or community
- Prominence : The well-known or famous
- Novelty: The unusual or emotional
3) What example news story does the Factsheet use to illustrate Galtung and Ruge's News Values? Why is it an appropriate example of a news story likely to gain prominent coverage?
- Proximity - British Solider dying in Afghanistan war
- Intensity- first female solider - unusual
- Continuity- on going war in Afghanistan
- unpredictable - bomb solider dying - shocking
- clarity - of facts from military of defence e.g. 3,100,00 online searches
- scale- large audience
4) What is gatekeeping?
"process of filtering information prior to dissemination"
5) What are the six ways bias can be created in news?
- Bias through selection and omission e.g not using particular story
- Bias through placement i.e. having an effect on how important the audience sees that story
- Bias by headline e.g. creating excitement or disposal
- Bias by photos, captions, and camera angles i.e. make a person or situation appear a certain way
- Bias through use of names and titles i.e. lables used to describe certain people
- Bias by choice of words e.g. can have positive or negative connotation
6) How have online sources such as Twitter, bloggers or Wikileaks changed the way news is selected and published?
this challenges the process of traditional gatekeeping news however certain sources e.g. blogs may instead be unreliable sources for news. Mainstream news outlets challenge these professional practices.
Wikileaks aim is to take away a censorship that allows for more freedom of speech and transparency.
Therefore changing the way traditional news has to be much faster to pick and publish as well as consider what is censored and not, what is bias and not, and what is genuine.
7) Give an example of a news story from the last 12 months that was reported as a result of online technology - Twitter, Wikileaks or similar.
8) Complete the task on the last page of the Factsheet regarding Sky News and Twitter:
“The Twitter phenomenon continues to explode. A photo with an eyewitness in Lahore yesterday came to us through Twitter.Last night’s breaking story on the death of a Briton in the Alps came to us from Twitter. The first phone on the Buffalo plane crash came from Twitter. The first photo of the Hudson River rescue came from Twitter. Convinced?”
- What does this reveal about how Sky views Twitter as a news source? As a very immediate and trustworthy source, they are able to find 'genuine' pictures before any other reporters could get there
- What does it say about how news is being produced? News is emerging from citizen (journalism) then being reproduced and presented by traditional news platforms after release.
- What role does the audience have in this process? they decide what is worthy or not
- Why might this be a problem for journalistic standards? what the public wants isn't necessarily hard news that journalists need to produce and its their purpose.
Final tasks
9) In your opinion, how has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?
by changing the way in which news is selcted it changes the news values, what news is chossen now-a-days often revolves around a different set of values compared to the past
10) How would you update them for 2016? Choose SIX of Galtung and Ruge's news values and say how each one has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.
Amplitude: may not mean how many the people it has affected but instead the amount of people that have shared or retweeted it
frequency: may mean how long the story can trend on social media instead of the opening and closing of the case for example
unambiguous: many trending stories aren't simple and have instead various points of views and opinions which are shared, news isn't so clean cut anymore, the audience enjoys the 'mystery'
surprise: unexpectedness has changed with social media sharing stories instantly and various propaganda etc stories trending
balance: people just go to other sources for that 'balance' it doesn't need to be provided in the same place/platform
continuity; again, its more about how long it trends for rather than actually reemerging
E.g. Immediacy is more important than ever due to news breaking on Twitter or elsewhere online. However, this in turn changes the approach of other news sources such as newspapers as the news will probably already be broken so different angles might be required. Newspapers now contain more comment or opinion rather than the breaking story.
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