galtung and ruge news values theory

• News values means that some events are seen as more or less important by news producers. Stories have 'value' and their value depends on what the story offers.
• Galtung and Ruge- Negative news stories are given more importance than positive ones
• proximity matters, were also given more space and importance, eg close story geographically will get more news space in a paper or other form of media,
• recency- did it just happen? is it breaking news? the more recent the event the more important it seems,
• currency- if a news story or event is ongoing for a long time it may be given more space- eg Brexit's longevity, newspapers may be more willing to report on something that has been going on for a while
• Continuity- they know a story will give them lots of stories to follow up with, things to use out of stories
• uniqueness- if something is unusual or does not happen often then the paper may want to report on it,
• simplicity- easy to understand stories has a higher likelihood of a paper reporting on it, newspapers will often simplify complex news stories
• personal/human interest- when a complex or otherwise everyday story can be made to feel more personal by focusing on an individual case.
• expectedness- if readers might expect a story to be featured, a newspaper will be more likely to report on it, eg regular events like bad/good weather, GCSE results being released etc
• stories featuring 'the elite' eg celebs, are given a lot more prominence in most newspapers.
• exclusivity- if a paper has a story before their competitors, they are more likely to cover it,
• size- the more people affected by the story/event, the more value it has
• these ideas should help you understand why some stories are much bigger or smaller than others, and why some stories might not even get reported on at all.