Selection and Presentation

• News Values

  • Galtung and Ruge - news is socially constructed into news values
  • More likely to be pursued if they are
  • Unexpected
  • Well known
  • Timely
  • Simple
  • Brief
  • Big
  • Continuity
• • Celebrity news is now much bigger - Jewkes
  • It has become more important for news stories to be visually interesting such as images and videos and not just words
  • Advertisers cannot be offended or alienated by any political messages in the news - Bagdikian
• Practical issues - funding/finance

  • Subscriptions paid for premium services eg. Netflix
  • Advertising eg. ITV
  • Public funding eg. BBC TV licenses
• Practical issues - cost

  • BBC employ journalists in different countries around the world (correspondents)
  • Value for money as they are easily accessible
  • Report stories that are major eg. conflict in the Middle East and the US election
  • EVALUATION - these number of contacts may be limited as it is too expensive to be everywhere eg. No longer a specific NE correspondent, they cover NE, NW and Yorkshire
  • Quick and cheap to contact the same person each time
  • Unlikely to ask views and opinions of people outside the mainstream
• Practical issues - time

  • Physical deadlines of news stories eg. BBC news stories at 10pm
  • News stories will often simply reproduce a well-drafted press release rather than involving any actual journalism
  • Davies - calls this churnalism and found that in a fortnight in 1997, 80% of stories in two newspapers were made up of that sort of article rather than generated by journalists
• Practical issues - space

  • Physical size of a news story - limited space
  • Popular press has shorter news stories
• Citizen Journalism

  • Drudge - anyone who posts a story or photo on a mainstream news site
  • BBC viewers encouraged to text info or pictures to the newsroom of news events via their mobile phones
  • 2015 Paris Attacks
  • Allows every citizen to be a reporter and have his or her voice equated with that of the rich and powerful
  • Not constrained by any system of news values - Jimmy Saville’s crimes
  • Supports postmodern notion that mass media content is now characterised by diversity
• Bivens - citizen journalism is transforming traditional media

  • Used to expose offensive, illegal or corrupt activities by politicians, celebs, police and armed forces
  • Activities are more accountable to the public
  • Large global audiences attracted (global village)
  • 2011 London Riots
  • Suits mainstream media organisations own needs as this comes at little cost to them
• Evaluation of citizen journalism

  • Keen - dismisses this as offering opinion as fact and rumour as reportage
  • Couldry - empirically investigated the impact in the USA and concludes it has minimal effect on both the news gathering process and democratic process
  • Gilmor - the product of narrow and privileged part of society as it requires education, technical skills, money and time. Doubtful that the traditional voiceless sections of society will be citizen journalists
• Ownership and control

  • The GUMG take a hegemonic marxist perspective and argues that the way news is collected and presented is the product of middle class backgrounds and journalists side with the powerful and rich as they have more in common with them
  • News journalists engage in gatekeeping and agenda setting
• • Agenda setting - journalists and other media professionals decide what is considered significant or not in terms of news. Different cooperations will set different agendas and may be done subconsciously
  • Gate keepers - Gans says that editors will act this way as they decide what is news and what is not. This is essentially a filtering process and sometimes will be based on practical considerations and other times will be politically or culturally based
• Evaluating traditional views on the social construction of news

  • Marxist sociologists argue that there is less to do with news values and more to do with straightforward dominant ideology. Agenda setting and gate keeping practices are intended to transmit ruling class ideology. Choices and voices are entirely political - observed by GUMG
  • Whilst audience members could watch any news content from the comfort of their own home, professional editors still act as gatekeepers to this sort of media content - if a story is deemed newsworthy then it will be shown
• Regulations and laws

  • UK press regulated by IPSO which replaced the PCC following the wake of the Leveson Inquiry
  • Both voluntary organisations set up by the newspaper industry itself to engage in self-regulation
• The Leveson Inquiry

  • 2011 widely reported scandal that journalists at News of the World had been hacking mobile phones of people connected with news stories
  • Many were celebrities and one was a murder victim called Milly Dowler which hindered the police investigation
  • Key proposals put forward include - replacing the PCC and for the body to be independent backed up by legislation/ royal charter
  • Press have resisted as they believe press should have freedom, hold the powerful to account and be free from government interference
• Regulating broadcast journalists

  • Regulated by OFCOM (government regulator) and the BBC is further regulated by the BBC Trust
  • Broadcasters have to be balanced and unbiased and these rules become even stricter surrounding elections as all candidates must be mentioned with equal screen time
  • Newspapers however, can be as partisan as they like eg. Daily Mail backing Conservative party and the Daily Mirror backing Labour
• Conclusion and additional key terms

  • Super-injunctions - some individuals manage to gain court orders ensuring that they cannot be named in articles in relation to certain controversies (usually celebs) They can seem ridiculous as stories are often widely reported in other countries