NDM: News Values

Come up with a news story from the last 12 months for each of the categories suggested by Harriss, Leiter and Johnson:

• Conflict

-Syrian War 

• Progress

-The US elections - Donald Trump + Hilary Clinton 

• Disaster

-Ladispoli tornado 

• Consequence

-US Elections/Brexit 

• Prominence 

-Prince Harry's relationships with Meghan Markle - the monarchy vs the media 

• Novelty

-Katie Hopkins 2012 tweet "my daughters name is Poppy, I won't forget... will you?" memes 

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 uses the story of a British soldier being killed and compares this to Afghanistan - the prominent coverage here would be for the British soldier as the story would gain cultural proximity for a British audience - the first female officer to be killed is seen as the more newsworthy story due to it being unusual too. The more facts that the story has and the more clarity, the more prominent the coverage would be for the story as well. 

What is gatekeeping?

"Gatekeeping is the process of filtering information prior to dissemination." A gatekeepers job is to identify which story has more prominence to therefore be published and which should not get any coverage at all. 

What are the six ways bias can be created in news?

• Bias through selection and omission 

-editors are able to select which stories they choose to include and can also ignore specific details to give readers and the audience a different opinion about the event. 

• Bias through placement 

-front page stories are considered more important than the back page on a newspaper; in TV/radio bulletins, the most interesting story is covered first and the least interesting or important are usually later, creating unimportance to potentially important stories 

• Bias by headline 

-headlines can often be misleading through the portrayal of the excitement of the story, however when read this may not always be the case 

• Bias by photos, captions and camera angles 

-the photo that an editor decides to use can influence the reader's perception of that person as we may see them in a situation that would cause us to judge them incorrectly, through the manipulation of an image 

• Bias through use of names and titles

-the labels used to describe people may be misleading for example a person who is labelled as a terrorist may be considered a freedom fighter

• Bias by choice of words

-Audiences can be influenced by the choice of positive or negative words, which would express a different tone and therefore heavily influence an audience perspective 

How have online sources such as Twitter, bloggers or Wikileaks changed the way news is selected and published?

It gives readers the opportunity to access news stories which may have been censored or mediated prior to being reported. Some critics believe that these sites have changed the way of the gatekeeper as the mediation of news posted to Twitter for example is diverted through the exclusion of the gatekeeper, allowing freedom of speech. 

Give an example of a news story from the last 12 months that was reported as a result of online technology - Twitter, Wikileaks or similar.
-Hilary Clinton's leaked emails on Wikileaks revealing her pro-Israel positions.

Complete the task on the last page of the Factsheet regarding Sky News and Twitter:

“The Twitter phenomenon continues to explode. A photo with

an eyewitness in Lahore yesterday came to us through Twitter.

Last night’s breaking story on the death of a Briton in the

Alps came to us from Twitter. The first phone on the Buffalo

plane crash came from Twitter. The first photo of the Hudson

River rescue came from Twitter. Convinced?”

• What does this reveal about how Sky views Twitter as a news source?

-it reveals how everything is initiated first on Twitter and the fact that we continue to see things on Twitter first could potentially make it unconvincing. However, it also suggests that the break through on Twitter is large and could therefore aid audiences to the exposure is certain events. 

• What does it say about how news is being produced?

-this removes the role of the journalist, through the institutions being heavily influenced by Twitter and social media; institutions rely on the what citizen journalists have pulled together to then cover, which shows that the work of the journalist is being cut out and therefore may effect the quality of a news story. 

• What role does the audience have in this process?

-audiences are able to post a picture of events happening in the world and therefore be part of citizen journalism - audiences are also the ones who would retweet and forward these images and posts, creating a viral accessibility and large coverage. 

• Why might this be a problem for journalistic standards?

-the quality of the news may be effected as journalists may heavily rely on the resources of citizen journalists. The underlining issue here is the fact that these journalists are professionals and need to create high quality journalism to report rather than reporting the already reported news. 

In your opinion, how has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values? 

The news values are not completely changed but they are in the process of being completely reformed through the impact of new and digital media. The most prominent change being the idea of immediacy and how the coverage of a news story can be reported almost immediately and shared in the matter of second, whereas for a newspaper, it is almost impossible to report a breaking story as quickly. 

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.

• Immediacy 

-news has now been made accessible almost immediately online, on social networking sites. The power of retweeting and sharing stories enables the story to reach a large global recognition rapidly. Newspapers are only able to report yesterday's news, therefore having online websites and resources which are able to report an event live and immediately, aids an audience to be exposed to breaking news stories. 

• Familiarity 

-familiarity is no longer an issue as we are able to be culturally aware of events happening all around the world through online news. Take the recent events of the US elections, this was a huge event for America but the coverage of this online was highly accessible and prominent throughout online sources and social media. 

• Unambiguity 

-the role of citizen journalists remove this element of unambiguity as they are able to post anything online, therefore even if it is not clear or definite, it essentially does not matter because if recognised by a large amount of people it will become recognised news. This therefore conjures up issues of validity as we cannot trust or rely on particular sources. 

• Predictability 

-social media creates unpredictability through the use of things trending and creating something out of nothing. An example of this is the blue and black dress and how certain people perceived this in different ways, this event is something that unpredictably took the nation by storm through one picture being tweeted; this reveals how quickly things can change and how they can become significant. 

• Elite nations/people 

-the power of the media is changing through the influence of celebrities in particular; trends begin which causes many followers to follow and therefore become influenced by this. Apps like Instagram and Snapchat cut out this element of journalists covering as much celeb news as celebs themselves are able to post about their social lives and keep followers updated.

• Balance 

-novelty news becomes something of prominence now through social networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter. Therefore, this idea of balance is no longer needed through the fact that audiences are no longer passive and therefore can choose what they read and view - therefore the order or news stories is something that does not necessarily have to be considered as a large portion of people get their news online, actively choosing particular stories rather than passively consuming them.