Selection N Presentation Of The News

• THE NEWS IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

  •There is no such thing as ‘news’. It only exists when society (or parts of society) determine it to be so.•The GMG has conducted research which shows that the news is not constructed in an unbiased way...
• Selection And Presentation Of The News

  •Composition (e.g. providing variety)•Elite Nations/People•Frequency (How regularly it occurs)•Meaningfulness (Can the audience identify)•Negativity (Bad news sell)•Personalisation (Human interest)•Proximity•Threshold (Size of event)•Clarity (How easy is it to understand)Unexpectedness (Rarity, comic value, bizarre
• Making A Profit


  The source of the majority of profit in the media comes from advertising, which explains the dependence on ratings, hits and circulation of media products.Bagdikian stresses the importance of advertising means news reports will be presented in a way that avoids offending advertisers, with some stories being cut off completely.Curran et al argues there is a conservatism in the media, which tries to avoid too much criticism in the way society is organised. This means that minority opinion is under-represented in the media.
• Globalisation means there are a mass of news providers from across the globe to choose from. New technology such as smartphones, twitter and digital TV means that news is instantly available from practically anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.
• Citizen journalism

  •New technology has created better opportunities for citizen journalism. Forms of new media (videos shot on a smartphone that can be uploaded to twitter, youtube etc.)•Means ordinary people are more involved in directly collecting, reporting and spreading news stories.•Bivens argues that citizen journalism through mobile phone picture and videos at the scene of news events is transforming traditional journalism.
• Agenda Setting

  People can only discuss and form opinions about things they know about, and in most cases it is the media which provide this information. The media's influence in laying down the subjects for discussion is known as agenda-setting.Mccombs argues that the media not only have influence over what we think about, but also how we think about certain subjects
• Norm Setting

  Norm-setting refers to the way the media emphasise and reinforce conformity to social norms, and seek to isolate those who do not conform by making them victims of unfavourable media reports. Norm setting is achieved by:1.Encouraging conformist behaviour2.Discouraging non-conformist behaviour3.Media representations
• Moral Panicks


  Moral panics occur when a group in society is seen as threatening the norms and values of society, and reports are exaggerated and dramatized.Investigate: mods & rockers (Cohen)
• A Propaganda Model Of The Media


  Herman and Chomsky take a Marxist approach to the media, and conclude that structural factors (E.G. Ownership and advertising revenue) means that the mainstream media is used for the interests of the powerful.