- Immediacy: has it happened recently?
- Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
- Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
- Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
- Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
- Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
- Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
- Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
- Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
- Negativity: is it bad news?
- Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
Read Media Factsheet 76: News Values and complete the following questions/tasks.
1) Come up with a news story from the last 12 months for each of the categories suggested by Harriss, Leiter and Johnson:
- Conflict
- Progress
- Disaster
- Consequence
- Prominence
- Novelty
2) What example news story does the Factsheet use to illustrate Galtung and Ruge's News Values? Why is it an appropriate example of a news story likely to gain prominent coverage?
The factsheet used the 'Servicewoman dies after afghan bomb blast' story. This is a prime example of Galtung and Ruge's set of news values. The story clearly had a strong sense of immediacy as it was published immediately after the incident occurred. Also, it shows 'familiarity' as the servicewoman affected was British and although there is a lack of amplitude within this story, the bomb blast affected a large amount of people. Moreover, frequency is evident as this is typically quite uncommon, similar to predictability and surprise as it is unexpected. In terms of unambiguity, it is very clear who the negative party is - it is a clear binary opposite, making the story easy for readers to consume. Finally, this tory also fits into the 'negativity' category.
3) What are the six ways bias can be created in news?
- Bias through selection and omission: An editor can express bias by choosing whether or not to use a specific news story. Within a story, some details can be ignored, others can be included to give readers or viewers a different opinion about the events reported. Only by comparing news reports from a wide variety of sources can this type of bias be observed.
- Bias through placement: Where a story is placed influences what a person thinks about its importance. Stories on the front page of the newspaper are thought to be more important than stories buried in the back. Television and radio newscasts run stories that draw ratings first and leave the less appealing items for later.
- Bias by headline :Headlines are the must-read part of a newspaper because they are often printed in large and bold fonts. Headlines can be misleading, conveying excitement when the story is not exciting and expressing approval or disapproval.
- Bias by photos, captions, and camera angles: Pictures can make a person look good, bad, sick, silly, etc. The photos a newspaper chooses to run can heavily influence the public’s perception of a person or event. On TV, images, captions and narration of a TV anchor or reporter can be sources of bias.
- Bias through use of names and titles: News media often use labels and titles to describe people, places, and events. In many places around the world, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter.
- Bias by choice of words :People can be influenced by the use of positive or negative words with certain connotations. They can also be influenced by the tone that a newscaster uses when saying certain words.
4) How have online sources such as Twitter, bloggers or Wikileaks changed the way news is selected and published?
5) Give an example of a news story from the last WEEK that was reported as a result of online technology - Twitter, Wikileaks or similar.
6) Complete the task on the last page of the Factsheet regarding Sky News and Twitter:
- What does this reveal about how Sky views Twitter as a news source?
- What does it say about how news is being produced?
- What role does the audience have in this process?
- Why might this be a problem for journalistic standards?
7) In your opinion, how has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?
8) How would you update them for 2016? Choose six of Galtung and Ruge's news values and say how each one has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.
E.g. Immediacy is more important than ever due to news breaking on Twitter or elsewhere online. However, this in turn changes the approach of other news sources such as newspapers as the news will probably already be broken so different angles might be required. Newspapers now contain more comment or opinion rather than the breaking story.
No comments:
Post a Comment