News Values and News Agenda Theory

In 1965, media researchers Galtung & Ruge analysed international

news stories to find out what factors they had in common, and what
factors placed them at the top of the news agenda worldwide. They
came up with the following list of news values - a kind of scoring
system - a story which scores highly on each value is certain to
come at the start of a TV news bulletin, or make the front page of a
newspaper. Journalists and editors also draw heavily on their
experience - of what an audience expects, of what stories have had
a major impact on public consciousness in the past, of what is
important - and each news organisation will have their own system
of setting a news agenda.
Value

Description

Frequency

Sudden occurring events and those that fit well with the schedule
are more likely to be reported. Those that happen gradually or at
inconvenient times of the day are also less likely to be reported.

Negativity

Bad news is more newsworthy.

Unexpectedness/
An unusual occurrence.
Uniqueness
Unambiguity/
Simplicity

A simple story is more likely to be reported than one that is

complex and needs a good understanding. (Cat stuck up tree
not Palestine conflicts/complex details about Credit Crunch.)

Personalisation

Events that can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be

more attractive than those in which there is no such human
interest.

The sense of identification the audience has with a topic.

Meaningfulness/
Cultural proximity. Stories concerned with people who speak .
Closeness to home
same language, look the same etc
Reference to elite
Stories about powerful countries more likely to be reported.
nations
Reference to elite Stories about rich, powerful, famous an infamous get more
persons
coverage. (Celebrities are more and more becoming part of this.)
Conflict

Opposition of people or forces. Wars etc because of the dramatic

nature of the stories.

Consonance/
Predictability

Stories that fit with the type of story the newspaper etc expects.
Eg. Violence at a demonstration, horrific casualties in a terrorist
attack.

Continuity

Composition

Events which are likely to have a continuing impact such as wars,

Olympics etc because the media producers get the tune in
tomorrow effect.
Stories must compete with each other. If there is an excess of
foreign news, one story may give way to a less important local
one to balance out what is broadcast/printed. It helps with the
composition of the media text.

Commercial or professional competition between

Competition media journalists to endorse the news value given
to a story by a rival.

Co-optation

A story that is only slightly newsworthy may run if

it is similar to a major running story. (Eg Baby P
and parent getting arrested for leaving their child
home alone)

A story which is marginal in news terms but written

and available may be selected ahead of a much
Prefabrication
more newsworthy story which needs researching,
writing etc.
Time
constraints

Stories need to be researched and produced quickly

to meet strict deadlines.

What's the Angle (Bias)?

Each news story is reported from a particular angle or slant. This may be one of
the news values listed above, or it may be political or personal, depending on the
journalist's (or the publication they work for's) beliefs.
The main ways in which to influence a news story are;

Selection/omission
Placement
Headline
Photo, Caption, Camera Angles
Names & Titles (ie how you describe a person)
Statistics
Use of source
Tone, or mode of address

Moral Panic (Stanley Cohen Folk Devils and Moral Panics

(1972))
The intensity of feeling expressed in a population about a specific
group of people who appear to be a threat to the social order at a
given time.
Moral entrepreneurs those who start the panic.
Folk devils those who threaten the social order.
The media often act as agents of moral indignation and simply
reporting the facts can be enough to generate concern, anxiety or
panic.
The media reap the rewards of social panic which include higher
ratings/readership figures.
Moral panics have several distinct features: (Goode and\zz
Ben-Yehuda).
Concern because of awareness that the behaviour of the
social group or category in question is likely to have a
negative impact on society.
Hostility towards the group in question increases making
them folk devils. A them and us division forms.
Disproportionality means that the action taken against the
group is disproportionate to the actual group.
Volatility moral panics are highly volatile and can disappear
as quickly as they appeared because of lack of public interest
or the fact that the news reporting changes to another topic.
The news media often sensationalise stories (deliberately instigate
excitement in their audience by using shocking stories or language
that are watered down. Factual detail becomes less important).
Sensationalism often leads to moral panic.