Mass Media - Selecting and Presenting the News Flashcards
What are the 4 practical constraints of news?
- Time - the most available stories are broadcasted first.
- Technical - how easy it is to get equipment and report there.
- Budget - how cheat it is to report.
- Competition - will the story make the newspaper popular.
What are the two common practises in media that Cohen and Young ‘81 and Grossberg et al ‘98 say are used in media?
- Main groups in society issue press releases which save time and money so are more likely to get placed into the newspapers.
- Stories have to shrink and expand to fit the allocated places in the newspapers.
What are the Bureaucratic and Cultural News Values?
Bureaucratic - News should be current, simple, brief and big.
Cultural - news should be unexpected, focus on important people, be relevant to the audience and bad news is preferred to good news.
What is the journalistic practice of Agenda-Setting?
News only becomes news when journalists and editors select it as news and what angles to report from. It is a learnt practise of journalism.
What is the journalistic practice of Gate-Keeping?
It is how editors decide which stories are featured and how much space it is given.
Outline The Glasgow University Media Group study of media television.
They studied TV news over the years of 1970 to 1980 looking for evidence of bias, focusing on workplace strikes.
They found:
- the selection of the news was bias in favour of the dominant class values, picket line violence reported more than police violence.
- the voice-overs were biased in favour of the dominant class e.g. Words like ‘trouble makers’ and ‘pointless strikes’.
- Management was given more access to the media than strike leaders e.g. Interviews with management were longer than those with strike leaders.
- filming and editing was biased in favour of the police e.g. Cameras placed behind police lines.
What impact had the new media has on the selection and presentation of the news?
- Editors select interesting stories and create headlines that people will click on.
- Audiences have their day on the news stories via new media.
- The public can submit their own news stories e.g. Videos and photos.
- News is now global so companies must chose media which is globally relevant.
What do sociologists say about the media being socially constructed?
All sociologists believe that the news is socially constructed, but they disagree over whose values are behind the social construction of the news, for example:
- Pluralists believe that practical constrains are more significant in influencing media content than ideological bias. They values of journalists are the most common view in society.
- Marxists believe that ideological influences are more important and practical constrains cannot be separated from ideology. Journalistic values are part of the dominant ruling class ideology.
Describe what it is meant by ‘news values’.
They are certain rules and ideas which journalists follow to help them create news stories that the general public wants to hear about.
What is the definition of ‘Mass Media’
The methods and organisations used to communicate to a large audience.
What does the term ‘Watershead’ mean?
Where nudity, sex, violence or bad language cannot be shown on TV before 9pm.
