Theory of News Values in Agenda Shaping

Introduction

In the realm of journalism, there is actually no agreed definition of what constitutes news or any criteria to be followed in deciding what is perceived as new. Hence the big question is, ‘What is news?’ while it is fair to note that social media platforms have disrupted the media industry, traditional media still remains a valued resource and maintains its relevance to date (Barnes, Lescault and Andonian, 2012). For those who are delving into media dissertation help, exploring the dynamic interplay between traditional and social media can provide the best insights into the evolving landscape of news consumption. The concept of news was first considered in detail by a study conducted by Galtung and Ruge in 1965. In a study based in Norway, the two authors explored the concept of news values by looking at specific factors that are used by journalist in deciding what becomes news or otherwise (Galtung and Ruge, 1965). According to the authors, these values were meant to explain why some international events would be covered locally while others did not. They basically concluded that the more values an international event had the more the likelihood that it would make it into the local news.

News Values

Galtung and Ruge (1965) measured a number of values necessary to determine the newsworthiness of an event and enable journalists to know which event to be selected and featured as news in the mainstream media. In their classical theory of news concept, they proposed 12 news values including frequency, meaningfulness, unexpectedness, continuity, power and influence, and negativity. However, subsequent studies have criticised their work for being incomplete and inconclusive (Wahl-Jorgensen and Hanitzsch, 2009). Harcup and O’Neill (2001) revised their taxonomy of values and introduced their own version of news values that they believed to be the true reflection of what should be included in the news. In their popular work that revisited the locus classicus on news values, they proposed 10 news values that new stories must generally satisfy for it to be selected (Harcup and O’Neill, 2001). These requirements included: celebrity, power elite, entertainment, surprise, good news, bad news, magnitude, relevance, newspaper agenda and follow up.

At the end of their study, Harcup and O’Neill (2001) acknowledged that there could exceptions to the general rule and that theirs was not the last word on news values. In essence, the above authors concede that their study was not entirely conclusive so that there is still room for other news values to be added to their list. In line with the above, the same authors revisited their own study in 2016 and they further proposed an updated contemporary set of news values including: exclusivity, bad news, conflict, surprise, audio-visuals, shareability, entertainment, drama, follow-up, the power elite, relevance, magnitude, celebrity, good news, and news organisation’s agenda (Harcup and O’Neill, 2017). All the above news values outlined by the study are influenced by educational, ideological and cultural influence on journalists and also type of audience, the workplace environment and other factors. Take a deeper dive into Evolution of Media with our additional resources.

Digitization of Journalism

In the era of a vibrant social media, Pfetsch, Miltner and Maier (2015) suggests that there is a reversed agenda setting in the media industry. He explains that today, the agenda setting is largely influenced by social media unlike in the past when the traditional media influenced agenda setting for the general public. Therefore it is possible that journalist and news media may be responding to public interest, which is now manifested on online social platforms, to build upon public agenda (Barnes, Lescault and Andonian, 2012). The upshot of the above is that social media plays a major role in in agenda setting. Further, the prevalence of social media platforms may also have an impact on news values such that what may have been considered a news value by Galtung and Ruge may not be relevant today.

Changing face of News Values

This refers to something that interferes with people’s attention and an event that is not ordinary in everyday life. It was first set forth by Galtung and Ruge (1965) as part of the criteria for news values and they proposed that a new story should be one that could not have been predicted. Although this was proposed in 1965, it is relevant in 2019 as it was back then. Notably, this factor or value is similar to others that have been posited by other researchers, like surprise which was put forward by Harcup and O’Neill (2001; 2016). In 1945, the United States of America, dropped a nuclear bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in an unprecedented move to obtain the surrender of the Axis powers. This news shocked the world and it was very unpredictable, it made headlines in newspapers around the world and became global news story.

In a journalist’s world, negative or bad stories are positive ones because they capture public attention almost like no other stories. According to Spencer-Thomas (2013), these kinds of stories are frequent in the media because they have a tendency to score higher than other values like unexpectedness, meaningfulness and unambiguity. In 2015 there were a series of attacks in France including the Charlie Hebdo shooting which claimed the lives of 17 people. Before that, the September 11 terrorist attack in the United States had claimed 2996 lives and it was covered live by major cable networks like CNN and BBC. Researchers have thus suggested that stories with particularly negative overtones like defeat, loss, injury and death will capture people’s attention hence the tendency of journalists to select them over other stories to feature in the news. However, the opposite is not true because stories with positive connotations like wins, cures, celebrations and recoveries are still categorised as news stories and worthy of international coverage.

Today, journalists must adapt to the technological advancements that affect the media industry. They must learn to use social media to acquire and disseminate information as and also use the internet and modern devices in research and other journalistic activities. Generally, journalist favour stories that are likely to generate sharing, comments and reactions through Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media. For example, a story about Greta Thurnberg’s confrontation of the United Nations will be covered by journalists and the media because it will drive traffic to their pages and channels and can be shared literally, in every city of the world.

These are stories concerning powerful individuals, institutions, organizations and corporations and includes people who are already famous and their lives are of interest to the general public. In 2011 and 2018, Prince William wed Catherine Middleton and Prince Harry, Megan Markle. These two events involved UK royal families and were widely, televised, streamed, tweeted, retweeted and liked on an array of platforms. This criteria is thus used by journalists for determining whether a story is newsworthy and the above stories fall under it hence were able to make it to international channels. The same applies to drama and entertainment stories like the Beyoncé’s epic Coachella performance of 2018.

Conclusion

In the end, it is clear that there is no set taxonomy of news values that determine what events become news. Over time, researchers have come up with new news theories and factors to determine what constitutes news, but none of them is conclusive. They are just attempts to redefine and align the factors to the globalization and digitization of journalism. There is no doubt that these ever expanding taxonomy of news values play a major role in agenda setting and this has further been influenced by the advent of social media.

References

Galtung, J, Ruge, MH (1965) The structure of Foreign news: The presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus crises in four Norwegian newspapers. Journal of Peace Research 2(1): 64–90.

Harcup, T, O’Neill, D (2001) What is news? Galtung and Ruge revisited. Journalism Studies 2(2): 261–280.

Harcup, T., & O’neill, D. (2017). What is news? News values revisited (again). Journalism studies, 18(12), 1470-1488.

Spencer-Thomas, O. (2013). News values. Home-Owen Spencer-Thomas.

Wahl-Jorgensen, K., & Hanitzsch, T. (Eds.). (2009). The handbook of journalism studies. Routledge.

Pfetsch, B., Miltner, P., & Maier, D. (2015). Old and new dynamics of agenda building in a hybrid media system. In Political communication in the online world (pp. 45-58). Routledge.

Barnes, N. G., Lescault, A. M., & Andonian, J. (2012). Social Media Surge by the 2012 Fortune 500: Increase Use of Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and More. Retrieved April 9, 2013.

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