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News Terms
Terms relating to News & Journalism
» Agenda setting
» Balance
» Bias & Impartiality
» Consensus
» Dominant, negotiated, & oppositional readings
» The Fourth Estate
» Gate-Keeping
» Newsworthiness/Selection
» News values
» Primary Definers
» Representation
» Treatment
» Links
'News is what somebody doesn't want you to know, all the rest is just advertising.'
Agenda setting
What are the most important news stories and issues of the day? Journalists make this impossible judgment and hence 'set the agenda' for social discourse. Once defined as important the issue becomes important. Listen to how journalists say things like 'The public wants to know' and 'Everybody is asking' as a justification for their enquiries.
Balance
Journalists often try to give 'both sides of the argument' either within a single programme/article or over the 'full range of coverage.' The difficulty is deciding exactly who the 'two sides' are. As an example, an item concerning education could be balanced by having the Government and the Opposition speaking, or the Government and teaching unions, or parents and teachers.
Bias & Impartiality
One of the key concerns about the Press and Broadcast Journalism is that they are often partial or biased.
Partial means, as the word implies, giving only part of the 'whole story.' Impartiality is of course giving all (or both) sides.
Bias has a similar meaning but implies that the journalist puts a 'spin' on a story, causing it to favour one side of a story over another.
Bias also implies that this spin is consistent over a long period of time. We therefore might say that 'The Daily Telegraph' is biased against the Trade Unions, or that a particular story was partial towards the Government point of view. Unbiased coverage is where no such bias is detectable.
Consensus
This is a common set of values which the media (and politicians) assume to be held by most people in a society. Media theorists assert that sometimes this consensus is used to attack groups or individuals who are seen as a threat to the 'dominant ideology.'
Dominant, negotiated, & oppositional readings
When reading or viewing the news, audiences do not passively accept what they are being presented with, arguably there are at least three different ways that audiences can 'read' the news. They can:
Accept what the media tells them almost without question (dominant reading)
Basically accept it but argue with it / think about it (A negotiated reading)
Refuse to accept it or believe the opposite (oppositional reading )
The Fourth Estate
The development of Modern Constitutional democracy and the news media have been intimately associated since the middle of the 18th Century. It was then that the term 'Fourth Estate' was applied to the press. The three 'Estates' of British Government at that time were: The Lords Temporal (Peers/Judiciary), The Lords Spiritual (Bishops) and 'The Commons.' The freedom of the press has since that time been a key tenet of democratic constitutions.
The news media can be seen to have three main functions in this respect:
Public Address
To inform and educate citizens.
Promoter of public discourse
Here the media takes upon itself the right to 'start a debate,' 'set the agenda' or to speak on behalf of 'the people.'
Watchdog and guardian
The news media see it as part of its duty to expose abuses of power and examples of incompetence within the democratic process; a 'negative' function as opposed to the 'pro-democratic' functions above. Here they can be accused of exercising 'power without responsibility - the prerogative of the Harlot throughout history.'
Gate-Keeping
The media can be said to have a gatekeeping function in that like a doorman/gatekeeper they have the power to decide what gets into the news and what doesn't. This selection can be due to political bias, personal preference or a professional consensus as to what makes good news.
Newsworthiness/Selection
What is news? Professional journalists have to make up their mind about this, usually at great speed. Over the years this judgement becomes 'second nature' or 'common sense.' Media theorists ask how the bias or ideology of the media might influence these judgements.
News values
A number of factors determine whether a story is newsworthy or not. Journalists are trained to recognize or value 'good' stories. A number of media theorists have tried to define what these news values are. Here is a selected list:
Conflict
It is often assumed that a story 'must have two sides' (why not three?). When these two sides are in dispute there is a 'binary opposition' which enhances media interest, gives a sense of immediacy and produces the dramatization of stories.
Negativity
Bad news is usually favoured over good, or 'if it bleeds it leads' is sometimes how this is expressed by journalists. 'Bad' news is usually favoured over 'Good'. Arguably this is for the same dramatic reason that we prefer narratives with conflict and disequilibrium over stories 'where nothing bad happens.'
Unexpectedness
'Dog bites man, no news. Man bites dog, news.' 'Newness' or novelty is a preferred characteristic of most news stories. Sometimes an important story can be neglected because it is 'old news.'
Consonance
News stories tend to resemble other news stories. Arguably news shouldn't be a genre, but often a story is recognised as a 'good story' by journalists and audiences because it fits in with the codes and conventions of news coverage.
Timeliness
News that happens within the short time frame of the news media (mainly 24 hours) is more appealing than stories that develop very slowly. As an example, slow but devastating atmospheric pollution is far less newsworthy than an oil spill which in fact is far less environmentally destructive.
Continuity
Whilst the media likes stories to be 'unexpected,' they also like them to 'fit in' with other news stories. This allows the media to anticipate and pre-schedule their coverage of events.
Proximity
'Earthquake in China. Local man feared hurt' - news stories tend to favour geographically close 'home' issues over distant 'foreign' ones.
Cultural Similarity
Distance can be cultural rather than geographical. Australia is further from the UK than Albania, but events in Australia can be seen as 'closer to home' because of shared history, language and ethnicity.
Relevance
News stories which might directly affect the lives of the news audience are likely to be covered. A crude (but genuine) example of this is 'War in Gulf puts 1p on Litre of petrol.'
Simplification
Stories will be preferred if there is a 'black and white' issue involved. News headlines are particularly likely to be simplistic.
Composition
News items tend to be selected as part of a 'balanced menu' (foreign story, political domestic story, celebrity story, dead donkey story etc). This can have serious consequences when there are too many foreign stories to cover. The second Gulf War coverage as an example meant that a very serious civil war in the Congo was virtually ignored.
Personalisation
'Human interest' stories are often preferred, even when this approach leads to simplistic or over emotive coverage. As an example, a story about a particular child injured by US bombs may have an impact, but will be 'resolved' by the hospital treatment of that child. Arguably this approach has thereby 'avoided the issue' (of the morality of civilian bombing).
Elite Nations
Events in developed countries such as the USA and Europe are almost always treated as more significant than those in the developing world (unless they affect US or European interests).
Elite Persons
The actions of politicians, Royalty and celebrity are all seen as 'more important' than those of ordinary people.
Primary Definers
Primary definers are those people in society who have the power to set the agenda and define the terms of what is discussed and how. Stuart Hall observed that the news media "translate into a public idiom the statements and viewpoints of the primary definers." Primary definers could be the Government, business leaders, scientists or influential pressure Groups. The use of the public idiom (ordinary language) means that the arguments (or rhetoric) of the primary definers are concealed and seems 'natural,' 'common sense' or 'consensual.'
Representation
The Media re-presents the world to us. How it chooses to treat particular groups and interests within society, such as ethnic minorities, is an interesting thing to consider. Media theorists often find that there are consistent omissions, biases and partialities. Often the media can be seen as reflecting the 'dominant ideology.'
Treatment
Gerbner makes a useful distinction between the 'content' of a mews story (the facts) and the 'style' of the reporting (language used, images, etc). The combination of style and content is the treatment. An easy place to see this is in the different ways that a tabloid and a broadsheet might treat the same story.
Links
Extensive educational resources for those studying C4 news (or TV News in general) are to be found on 'Breaking the News'
www.channel4.com/learning/breakingthenews/index.html
