Who decides the news?
Big question, and I've discussed it before, but I think more importantly is who should decide the news.
This weeks lecture was on, you guessed it, news values.
Galtung and Ruge (1965) somewhat answered this question. in saying "the more an event satisfied particular conditions the more likely it would be selected as news". However, I see is as a sort of compromise between what the public want to see, and what the media has a responsibility to release. It goes both ways - people wont watch what they don't want to, but journalists are actually creating and deciding content. This democratic process allows for our Australian media scene, where many different views and stories are covered.
This weeks lecture was on, you guessed it, news values.
Galtung and Ruge (1965) somewhat answered this question. in saying "the more an event satisfied particular conditions the more likely it would be selected as news". However, I see is as a sort of compromise between what the public want to see, and what the media has a responsibility to release. It goes both ways - people wont watch what they don't want to, but journalists are actually creating and deciding content. This democratic process allows for our Australian media scene, where many different views and stories are covered.
There are, however, some general rules determining what makes something newsworthy. The aspects of 'news worthy' story are "eight general factors of frequency, threshold including absolute intensity and intensity increase, unambiguity, meaningfulness including cultural proximity and relevance, consonance involving both predictability and demand, unexpectedness including unpredictability and scarcity, continuity and composition". However, there will always be those cases that 'captures a nation', such as Shapelle Corby or climate change issues.
No matter the public's interest in Justin Beiber's new haircut, journalists still produce the news the public consumes, and according to John Sergeant, journalists "rely on instinct rather than logic."
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