Selection and Presentation of News Content

Social Construction Theory

News Values and News Worthiness

Globalisation and Citizen Journalism

Making a Profit

News is not waiting to be collected, it is specifically selected to become “news” by journalists as they decide on what issues to report and which to ignore



The news is therefore socially constructed- it is created, interpreted, edited and processed daily. It is subjective as only see what journalists believe is worth reporting on.


Mass media can not and does not report everything that happens everywhere in the world

Actions of Journalists

Agenda and Norm Setting (Neo-Marxists)

Bagdikian: importance of advertising means news reports will be presented in a way that avoids offending advertisers so that support/ sponsorship is not lost. Some stories might be cut off completely.

Curran et al: there is Conservatism in the media, which tries to avoid too much criticism of society's organisation and structure in order to appeal to largely right-wing advertisers and investors. Thus minority/ radical opinion is under-represented.

Source of majority of profit in the media comes from advertising. Advertisers will pay more if ratings or circulation of media products are high= pressure to keep making news that people want to watch/ read

Globalisation= news market is increasingly competitive, there is a mass of news providers from across the world to choose from.

New technology and new media (smartphones, Twitter, digital TV) = news is instantly available from practically anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day.

Bivens: Ordinary people are more directly involved in collecting, reporting, spreading news stories. Citizen journalism through mobile phones at the scene of events has transformed traditional journalism

Becker: journalists operate within the hierarchy of credibility, so they attach greatest importance to the views of the powerful and influential groups/ individuals in society.

Churnalism:

Journalists claim there are so many available sources of news nowadays that news reporting has to be accurate and genuine. There is no bias in reporting



  • Personalisation: easy to relate to, generates human interest.
  • Dramatisation: exciting and potentially dangerous/ violent.
  • Simplicity: easy to understand
  • High Status People involved e.g. celebrities
  • Immediacy: It is seen as ‘breaking news’
  • Novelty/ Extraordiness: unexpected, rare cases

Narrative Value: News reporters try to provide short, snappy simple news reports that contain a clear beginning, middle and end. If a story has a narrative that is messy or unresolvable, it gets forgotten quickly e.g. Palestinian and Israeli conflict

Cohen and Young: the news is manufactured, with editors trying to meet as many news values as possible to attract large audiences and make profits

  • According to critical victimologists, label of a victim is given to some, and denied to others, depending on who news reporters deem news worthy.
  • Christie: some victims are considered more newsworthy by journalists, often white, young, female.
  • Gate-keeping: power of the media to deliberately exclude and censor reports that do not conform with dominant ideology
    • issues that go against views of the m/c and u/c are very rarely reported
    • strikes are reported unfavourably very often, whilst workplace injuries and diseases go unreported= more public concern about stopping strikes than raising health and safety laws
    • welfare scroungers are reported on often, whereas elite tax evasion is largely ignored
  • Agenda Setting: The media's influence in laying down the subjects for discussion.
    • People can only discuss and form opinions about things they know about, in most cases the media provides this information.
    • If the media does not deem something as important enough to be on the agenda= the public will never discuss or learn of these issues.
  • Norm Setting: the way the media emphasises and reinforces conformity to social norms, and isolates those who do not conform
  • Norm setting is achieved by:
    • Encouraging conformist behaviour: obeying the law, paying taxes.
    • Discouraging non-conformist behaviour: making non-conformists victims of unfavourable reporting, sensationalising murder and other violent crimes, riots, illegal immigrants.


Pluralists: news reporters have one motivation- to make money= reporters produce stories that are guaranteed to attract attention or they will go out of business. Some stories are deemed more worthy than others not because of journalist bias, but because of societal bias. Therefore, the media is simply responding to the demands of the public.

Davies: "Now, more than ever in the past, we are likely to engage in the mass production of ignorance because the corporations and the accountants who have taken us over have stripped out our staffing, increased our output and ended up chaining us to our desks.”

Many news providers now offer 24 hour services= huge pressure to collect and report news quickly/ be the first to find and report “breaking news”. Shortcuts in news gathering= speculative and unsubstantiated reports, less authentic and valid news.

when journalists uncritically churn out/ recycle articles based on second-hand news agency reports, pre-packaged material from press releases and other unreliable sources rather than doing authentic research themselves,