Lecture 10: News Values

News Values is the degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that is paid by an audience.

1.IMPACT

2.AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION-news is anything that's interesting, that relates to what's happening in  the world, what's happening in areas of the culture that would be of interest to your audience.

3.PRAGMATICS-ethics – facticity - practice / practical
                             -current affairs - everyday

4.SOURCE INFLUENCE-journalism has never needed public relations more, and PR has never done a better job for the media.


Are News Values the same across different news services?NO – they vary across different news services.
Are News Values the same across different countries / cultures?NO – they vary across different countries / cultures.

"A sense of news values" is the first quality of editors – they are the "human sieves of the torrent of news", even more important even than an ability to write or a command of language. "Journalists rely on instinct rather than logic" when it comes to the defining a sense of news values.

The additivity hypothesis that the more factors an event satisfies, the higher the probability that it becomes news.
The complementarity hypothesis that the factors will tend to exclude each other.
The exclusion hypothesis that events that satisfy none or very few factors will not become news.

Newsworthiness: Reviewing Galtung & Ruge
1. THE POWER ELITE. Stories concerning powerful individuals, organisations or institutions.
2. CELEBRITY. Stories concerning people who are famous.
3. ENTERTAINMENT. Stories concerning sex, showbusiness, human interest, animals, an unfolding drama, or offering opportunities for humorous treatment, entertaining photographs or witty headlines.
4. SURPRISE. Stories that have an element of surprise and / or contrast.
5. BAD NEWS. Stories with particularly negative overtones, such as conflict or tragedy.
6. GOOD NEWS. Stories with particularly positive overtones such as rescues and cures.
7. MAGNITUDE. Stories that are perceived as sufficiently significant either in the numbers of people involved or in potential impact.
8. RELEVANCE. Stories about issues, groups and nations perceived to be relevant to the audience.
9. FOLLOW-UP. Stories about subjects already in the news.
10. NEWSPAPER AGENDA. Stories that set or represent the news organisation‘s own agenda.