News Values and Newsworthiness

CM: Communication and Media, 2016

In 1965, Galtung and Ruge initiated a rich strand of academic research on the notion of news values and the practice of gatekeeping in a context of international news reporting. Since its publication, many scholars have criticized, revisited, and put their findings to the test, often leading to somehow conflicting conclusions. In general, some studies tend to confirm their findings while others have uttered methodological concerns or came up with new or additional sets of news factors, hence arguing for a further specification of the model. In recent years, scholars also pointed towards the increasing impact of digital media on journalistic practices of news selection. Likewise, new perspectives on global journalism were introduced into the debate. In this article, we bring together these different perspectives in order to inform a broad discussion on Galtung and Ruge's legacy for the field of communication sciences in general and studies on journalism and international news selection in particular. We first assess how Galtung and Ruge's hypotheses hold up in an era of unlimited data. Second, we reflect on the need to integrate changing societal and cultural contexts of news selection, production and reception to understand news values today. Third, with contemporary journalistic practices and research in mind, we suggest an agenda for the study of news values in an era of global journalism.

Communications, 2000

Res Rhetorica, 2019

In this article we explore the discursive construal of news values across the modalities of written language and image, with a focus on attitude/evaluation/stance. From this perspective, news values are not beliefs that journalist hold or criteria that they apply, they are values that are constructed by choices in language and image. We argue that attention needs to be paid to the contribution of both modalities to this construction to gain a fuller understanding of how events are retold and made 'newsworthy'. We illustrate our 'discursive' approach to news values through close analysis of online reporting of the 2011 Queensland floods on smh.com.au (the website of The Sydney Morning Herald, an Australian metropolitan broadsheet newspaper). As will be seen, a discursive perspective on news values provides a framework that allows for systematic analysis of how such values are constructed in both words and images. It allows researchers to systematically examine how particular events are construed as newsworthy, what values are emphasised in news stories, and how language and image establish events as more or less newsworthy.

Nordicom Review, 2002

Why do some events fill the columns and air time of news media, while others are ignored? Why do some stories make banner headlines whereas others merit no more than a few lines? What factors decide what news professionals consider newsworthy? Such questions are often answered-by journalists and media researchers alike-with references to journalistic news values or 'news criteria'. Some answers are normatively founded; others are pragmatic and descriptive. In the present article, I submit that editorial priorities should not be analyzed in purely journalistic terms. Instead, they should be seen as efforts to combine journalistic norms and editorial ambitions, on the one hand, with commercial norms and market objectives, on the other. Commercial Enterprise and Patron of an Institution News media have a dual nature. On the one hand they represent a societal institution that is ascribed a vital role in relation to such core political values as freedom of expression and democracy. On the other hand, they are businesses that produce commodities-information and entertainment-for a market. At the same time, because their products are descriptions of reality that influence our perceptions of the world around us, news media wield influence that extends far beyond the marketplace. Who controls the media is of significance to every member of society. As figures like Rupert Murdoch, Silvio Berlusconi and the new Russian media barons remind us, control of the media is a key to political power. And while many venerable industries wither and die (or undergo profound metamorphoses) the consciousness industry-as writer Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1974) dubbed the media and other actors in the communication sector-is rapidly expanding. Newspapers, radio programs and television transmissions differ with respect to how consumption of them affects our perception and understanding of reality. As Graham Murdoch observes: By providing accounts of the contemporary world and images of the 'good life', they play a pivotal role in shaping social consciousness, and it is this 'special relationship' between economic and cultural power that has made the issue of

Journalism Studies 13, 5-6, pp.718-728

While there is a large body of research on news values and news selection, most research does not clearly distinguish between the concept of news and news selection, on the one hand, and news values and criteria of newsworthiness on the other. These concepts are often treated as synonymous. This is problematic, as there may be many other factors aside from news values or criteria of newsworthiness that determine what becomes news, and as there may be differences between what journalists think should be, and actually is, important when deciding what's news. Against this background, this study investigates what Swedish journalists think is, and should be, important event properties when deciding what's news, and whether there are differences across journalists working for different kinds of media and depending on whether they work with online publishing. The results show that there are significant differences between the perceived normative and actual importance of investigated event properties when deciding what's news.

Mass Communication and Society

Why do some events fill the columns and air time of news media, while others are ignored? Why do some stories make banner headlines whereas others merit no more than a few lines? What factors decide what news professionals consider newsworthy? Such questions are often answered – by journalists and media researchers alike – with references to journalistic news values or ‘news criteria’. Some answers are normatively founded; others are pragmatic and descriptive. In the present article, I submit that editorial priorities should not be analyzed in purely journalistic terms. Instead, they should be seen as efforts to combine journalistic norms and editorial ambitions, on the one hand, with commercial norms and market objectives, on the other.

Atlantic Journal of Communication, 2015

2017

worthy news or news value is what people are anxious to know. It is not only what people want to know, it is also what editors and reporters think is interesting and important. This study attempts to explore why the media gave only certain portion of reporting on an event and what elements of news values were used as reasons for allowing the portion of coverage for the event. The visit of King Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia attracted huge public and media attention. In international forums, Saudi is a frequent supporter for Indonesian aspiration, despite obstacles in the relationship, particularly on migrant worker issues. Using qualitative methods, chief editors of two leading newspapers published in Makassar and three Islamic religious leaders from South Sulawesi province were interviewed. The data obtained shows the mass media provides extensive coverage over the visit because of its magnitude, proximity, prominence, and the unusualness values that the occasion has. The ro...

2005

News in our contemporary newspapers has come to be associated more and more with what the elites do and say. Both their deeds and misdeeds are treated as newsworthy events and in the process they become newsmakers, both actors and sources of news. Even when they are not directly involved in news events they are sought out by journalists to validate those events and to interpret the social reality to the readers as news sources. This study is about the selection of news sources in the Daily Nation, a contemporary, independent newspaper based in Nairobi, Kenya. In this study, I set out to unravel the complex processes that underlie newsmaking and source selection. This study is informed by the theory of news values and the paradigm of the role of media in democracy. Based on qualitative interviews, observations and content analysis of the front-page stories, it investigates the process of news and source selection in front-page stories. Through these approaches, I established that new...

Journal of Media Studies, 2018

This study reviewed the existing literature on news value theory and examined its validity and implications in the contemporary world. The study refers to digital journalists and academicians. Are the news selection criterion still the same as they were in the past or are editors, journalists, and media outlets changing their approach due to globalization? Do journalists and editors still consider the same news factors to publish a story or not? These questions are addressed in this study. This paper is relevant for future researchers and professional journalists. Today, journalists need more skills than ever before. At the same time, due to digitalization and competition, organizations need stories continuously throughout the day to run their businesses and maintain their ranking among other media outlets. Scholars need to empirically revisit media theories includes middle range theories, according to the needs of the time. Existing literature shows that the globalization has changed a bit news factors and researchers need to revisit existing news factors.

2014

This study looks at previous research done in journalism and public relations to identify eight factors that determine newsworthiness. A survey was conducted first to confirm the importance of the eight factors among journalists and public relations practitioners. Then a content analysis of news releases from public and private corporations was used to determine if they contained the eight factors identified by the research. The study found that both journalists and public relations practitioners generally agree on the factors that contribute to the newsworthiness of public relations information subsidies; however, the analysis indicated that only two of the eight factors were being used regularly in the releases, and that the majority of the releases would not be considered newsworthy by either journalists or public relations practitioners. Zoch & Supa – Public Relations Journal – Vol. 8, No. 1 (2014)

Over the past decade, journalism studies has become an increasingly prominent area of research within the field of communication. This ascendance, however, coincides with a moment of deep turmoil for journalism itself. Thus far, much research has focused on specific aspects of journalism's transformation, leaving other areas of inquiry less developed. These gaps in the research deserve closer attention, especially as we begin to imagine journalism studies' trajectory into the digital age, with a greater focus on online news. Such a project requires a healthy degree of reflexivity. An examination of how journalism studies makes sense of the profound changes—in some ways dissolution—of its primary research subject brings into focus paucities in specific perspectives and research agendas. In this essay, I suggest that considering these neglected traditions could potentially enrich journalism studies by bringing it into conversation with other subfields and increasing its relevance for constituencies beyond the academy.