News Values

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Criteria That Influence the Selection of Events as Published News

The concept of "newsworthy" is the bedrock upon which the entire edifice of journalism is built. It’s the invisible hand that guides editors and reporters, dictating which fragments of the chaotic tapestry of human existence get amplified into news and which fade into the background noise. These are not mere arbitrary whims; they are the carefully honed, or sometimes carelessly applied, criteria that determine what makes it onto the front page, into the broadcast lead, or—increasingly—gets buried in the digital ether.

The Elusive Nature of News Values

News values, often initially termed "news factors," are the elusive qualities that elevate an event from the mundane to the significant. They are the lenses through which journalists and editors perceive the world, filtering reality to produce a narrative that is deemed worthy of public consumption. While these values are not etched in stone and can shift with cultural tides and journalistic trends, they form a crucial framework for understanding how news is made.

Pioneering work by Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge in 1965 laid much of the groundwork for understanding these factors. In their seminal study, they proposed a system of twelve "news factors" that, in combination, contribute to an event's newsworthiness. Their research, focused on newspapers and broadcast news, examined how these factors influenced the construction of news, particularly concerning foreign events like the Congo and Cuban crises and the Cyprus crisis. They theorized a "chain of news communication," where events satisfying more "news factors" were more likely to be selected, then distorted to accentuate those factors, and finally replicated across different stages of dissemination. Their hypotheses suggested that the more factors an event met, the higher its probability of becoming news, but also that these factors could sometimes exclude each other, and events satisfying few factors would likely be ignored. It's worth noting that Galtung himself later expressed concern that the media had sometimes misinterpreted his work, leading to an overemphasis on negativity and sensationalism.

Methodologically, news values can be dissected from various angles: the material reality of events, the cognitive biases and value systems of individuals, the practicalities of journalistic practice, and the very language and imagery used in news stories—a perspective known as "discursive news values analysis" (DNVA), influenced by linguistics and social semiotics. This approach delves into how newsworthiness is actively constructed, not just discovered.

Evolution and Contemporary Perspectives

The landscape of news values has certainly evolved. A 2001 update by Tony Harcup and Deirdre O'Neill, examining the British press, revealed shifts. Forty years after Galtung and Ruge, they observed the ascendancy of celebrity news and the significant role of an outlet's own agenda, alongside the enduring impact of negativity. Their study of tabloid newspapers highlighted these changing dynamics.

In the face of a rapidly changing media market, the quest for relevance and audience engagement has become paramount. News organizations are now more attuned to audience feedback, leading to a refinement and application of news values that resonate with the public. The digital revolution and the rise of citizen journalism have further blurred the lines between news producers and consumers, potentially redefining what constitutes "news" and the role of the traditional news industry. Harcup and O'Neill revisited their work in 2016, acknowledging the impact of digital technology, while other scholars have explored news values in the context of viral social media content.

A Multifaceted List of Criteria

The pressures on journalists are immense, and the criteria for selecting and presenting news are numerous and sometimes contradictory. Whether an event is even noticed, then pursued, written, and finally published, depends on a complex interplay of factors. There's no single, definitive list, but rather a constellation of potential influences. These values can be broadly categorized into those related to the events and actors themselves, and those pertaining to the news-gathering and processing stages.

Values Pertaining to Events and Actors

These are the intrinsic qualities of an event or the individuals involved that make it catch the eye:

Frequency: Events that happen suddenly and fit neatly into a news cycle are more likely to be covered than those that unfold gradually or at inconvenient times. Long-term trends, unless they culminate in a dramatic event, often struggle for attention.
Timeliness: The "newness" of an event is paramount. Recent occurrences, ongoing developments, or imminent happenings are inherently more newsworthy than past events.
Familiarity/Proximity: Events that resonate with the target audience due to geographical or cultural closeness are favored. This includes shared language, cultural touchstones, and common concerns. The idea is that audiences connect more readily with what they perceive as "close" to them.
Negativity: It's a grim reality: bad news often trumps good news. This is frequently cited as a fundamental news value, though it's not absolute. Positivity can be newsworthy in specific contexts, like sports news or feel-good tabloid stories.
Conflict: Opposition, struggle, or dramatic clashes between people or forces inherently create narrative tension and are thus highly newsworthy. This can sometimes be subsumed under the broader category of negativity.
Unexpectedness: Anything out of the ordinary, surprising, or rare captures attention. Routine occurrences are rarely considered news unless they deviate from the norm.
Unambiguity: Events with clear implications and straightforward narratives are easier to report and understand than those requiring extensive background explanation or open to multiple interpretations.
Personalization: Stories that can be framed around individual experiences and actions, giving them a "human interest" angle, are often more compelling than abstract phenomena. It's about showing how events affect or involve specific people.
Meaningfulness/Relevance/Impact: This encompasses how much an audience can identify with a topic. Cultural proximity plays a role here, as does the direct relevance of an event to the audience's lives and experiences. The broader impact of an event, its consequences for individuals or groups, also contributes to its newsworthiness.
Eliteness: Events involving powerful nations, influential figures, the wealthy, or the famous naturally attract more attention. The prominence of sources cited in a story also falls under this category, often referred to as Attribution.
Superlativeness: Events characterized by scale, intensity, or extremity—the biggest, the worst, the most—are more likely to be deemed newsworthy.
Consonance: This refers to how well an event aligns with existing media expectations, preconceptions, or stereotypes. While seemingly at odds with "unexpectedness," consonance relates more to the media's readiness and predisposition to report certain types of stories. It’s about fitting into established mental scripts.

Values Pertaining to the News Process

These factors relate to the practicalities and dynamics of news production and dissemination:

Continuity: Once a story has entered the news cycle, it tends to maintain momentum. This is partly due to established reporting channels and partly because ongoing coverage makes the story more accessible to the public.
Composition: News outlets must balance various types of stories. A story with strong news values might be sidelined if it competes with too many other stories of similar or greater importance, or if editors are seeking to achieve a particular mix of content (e.g., balancing foreign and domestic news).
Competition: Professional or commercial rivalry between news organizations can influence coverage decisions, sometimes leading outlets to follow a rival's lead on a story.
Co-option: A story that might not be particularly newsworthy on its own can gain traction if it can be linked to a larger, ongoing major story.
Prefabrication: A story that is already written and readily available, even if only marginally newsworthy, might be chosen over a more significant story that requires extensive research and writing.
Predictability: Pre-scheduled events, like conferences or planned announcements, are often easier to cover and thus more likely to be reported.
Story Impact: The performance of a published story itself—how widely it's shared, read, or commented on—can influence future coverage decisions. Analytics and engagement metrics are increasingly vital.
Time Constraints: The strict deadlines and rapid production cycles of traditional media like radio, television, and daily newspapers favor stories that can be quickly researched and reported.
Logistics: Practical considerations, such as the ability to deploy and manage reporting staff and technical resources, even with advancements in global communications, can still influence whether a story is covered.
Data/Facticity: The availability and presentation of data and facts are crucial for maintaining credibility. Reporters often prefer raw data to ensure an unbiased perspective.

It's important to distinguish between news values related to events and those related to the structure of news itself. For instance, "composition" and "co-option" concern how stories fit within the broader news package, aiming for balance and avoiding duplication. These differ from event-centric values like "eliteness" or "proximity."

Audience Perceptions: A Two-Way Street

While traditional models focus on the journalist's perspective, the news process is undeniably a transaction between producer and receiver. The growing influence of citizen journalism and interactive media is rapidly eroding the once-clear divide. However, defining factors that universally capture audience interest is a challenge, given the vast diversity of mass audience preferences.

Some argue that audiences perceive news primarily as a "risk signal"—information that alerts them to potential dangers or threats to their social standing. This stems from an evolutionary survival mechanism, where humans are wired to monitor their environment for changes relevant to their security. News, with its inherent element of change and its relevance (or perceived relevance) to individuals, taps into this fundamental instinct. Journalists and communicators can manipulate both the "change" and "relevance" aspects to shape audience perception, either highlighting or downplaying the significance of certain events. The "Boundary of Relevance" can be a fluid concept, manipulated to encourage audiences to empathize or distance themselves from particular groups or situations.

Furthermore, research suggests that perceptions of newsworthiness can be influenced by cognitive biases, particularly a "political usefulness bias," where individuals tend to find stories more newsworthy if they provide "ammunition" for their pre-existing political views.

Evolutionary Echoes in News Consumption

From an evolutionary psychology standpoint, the disproportionate value placed on negative news can be traced to fundamental human perceptual mechanisms. The brain reacts more quickly and intensely to negative stimuli, a likely evolutionary adaptation for threat detection. While extreme negative stimuli trigger avoidance, moderately negative ones can spark curiosity and a drive for further examination—a category into which much negative news arguably falls. Audiovisual media, being more lifelike, can amplify these effects.

Gender differences in responding to negative stimuli have also been observed, potentially linked to historical evolutionary roles. Some theories suggest that negative news framing may cater more to traditionally male preferences for investigating threats, while a more positive framing might appeal more to a larger female audience. However, these evolutionary explanations, particularly regarding gender, warrant cautious interpretation.

Conclusion

News values are the intricate, often subconscious, criteria that shape what becomes news. They are a product of historical development, journalistic practice, audience psychology, and even our evolutionary heritage. While the media landscape continues to shift, these underlying principles, in their various forms, remain central to understanding how information is selected, prioritized, and disseminated in our complex world. It's a constant negotiation between the event itself, the journalist’s interpretation, and the audience’s perception. And sometimes, it’s just about what’s trending, or what sells the most copies. The universe, as I've observed, rarely disappoints in its capacity for the predictable and the mundane.