MEDIA - News Values (Why some Stories make the News and why Others Don't)! Flashcards

Question

Where do OLDER age groups most of their news from?

Answer 1

They often favour printed newspapers, radio and TV for their news! Around 70% of people aged 65+ get their news information from TV channels, like the BBC and BBC One!

Answer 2

Brighton and Foy!

Answer 3

They criticise Galtung and Ruge by pointing out that their research was only limited to Norwegian newspapers. They also are not sure how relevant the news values are today, in contemporary society! They believe that it is unlikely that there is a consensus amongst Journalists, Editors and Owners about News Values, due to the diversity of the media and society today! = Audiences are also so diverse, as seen with the ranges of social classes, ethnicities, ages, genders, identities etc in society, so suggesting that there is a consensus between journalists and audiences is false! EG: The news values of a Sun reader may be different to someone who watched Channel 4! They also suggest that cultural expectations about news vary from country to country - what people in Mexico deem as ‘newsworthy’ may be different from what people in Britain suggest is ‘newsworthy’!

Answer 4

- Influence and emergence of Lobbyists and 'Spin Doctors' - Churnalism - Citizen Journalism

Answer 5

They say that News Values are criteria that determine the worth of a news story and how much prominence it is given by newspaper and broadcast media! They define news values as general guidelines or criteria that determine the worth of a news story and how noticed it is by newspapers or broadcast media.

Answer 6

They updated Galtung and Ruge’s study by looking into British newspapers! = They concluded that there were 10 criteria / news values that newspaper reporters use to judge whether a story is newsworthy or not. These include (but there are more out there): - Celebrity - Surprise - Bad news - Magnitude - Relevance - Media Agenda

Answer 7

'Spin Doctors' = Their role is to meet journalists in order to ‘manage’ news stories so that they are favourable to the government. EG: In Blair’s government, Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson were his ‘spin doctors’! Both lobbyists and ‘spin doctors’ challenge the idea that all news stories are the product of news values; some stories are clearly constructed to favour particular political points of view.

Answer 8

Davies = He argues that journalists should be renamed ‘churnalists’ because they are largely engaged in churning out ‘facts’ or stories that are given to them by government spin doctors and public relations companies that work for the interests of celebrities. He suggests that up to 80% of stories found in tabloid newspapers come from these official sources (PR people, PA and Reuters) rather than journalists using their own news-gathering skills. Influence of Churnalism = News stories are characterised by uniformity, which reduces the choice that is available to the news reader (‘myth of choice’) = There is little opportunity to see other sides of the story, as hardly any other choice or interpretations are given!

Answer 9

Drudge claims that citizen journalism has allowed every citizen to be a reporter and have their voice equated with that of the rich and powerful → Citizen journalists are also not constrained by any system of news values that might prevent certain facts coming to light = EG: The BBC was accused of not reporting knowledge of Jimmy Saville’s crimes because he occupied a powerful position within the BBC. Drudge also claims that citizen journalism goes against these obstacles (such as news values) and, therefore, helps to improve the democratic process. Citizen journalism challenges the idea that news is shaped by news values and also supports the postmodern notion that mass media content is now more diverse.

Answer 10

1. He claimed that Citizen Journalism was ‘gold dust flying our way’ 2. However = He also said that ‘there’s loads of rubbish out there’!

Answer 11

They argue that it is useful for monitoring those in power and authority because of its ‘whistle-blowing’ potential, especially for politics. Citizen journalism may also improve knowledge of what is going on in societies that Western journalists may find difficult to accept / be prevented from freely moving around! EG: During the Arab Spring uprisings in 2011-2012, a great deal of information was passed on by citizen journalists to Western news agencies.

Answer 12

He dismisses citizen journalism as offering up “opinion as fact, rumour as reportage and innuendo as information”. This suggests that citizen journalism has issues regarding its validity of the information, as it may have been misinterpreted or falsely labelled as something else, which can lead to the spreading of ‘fake news’, which may be harmful to some members of society.

Answer 13

They investigated citizen journalism and its impact in the USA; they concluded that it had a minimal effect on both the news-gathering process and the democratic process.

Answer 14

They state that citizen journalism is usually the product of a narrow and privileged part of society; it requires education, technical skills, money and time! It is doubtful that the traditional voiceless sections of society - mainly the poor and the working-class - are going to be citizen journalists, due to lack of education and resources!

MEDIA - News Values (Why some Stories make the News and why Others Don't)! Flashcards

(38 cards)