Wednesday 5 November 2014

News Values and How They've Changed

How have each of these news values changed with the rise in New and Digital Media?

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Social Media has allowed us to see news stories much quicker than before. This may have also made specific news stories more featured than would be beforehand. Also, it can be argued that news has become more of an industry akin to fashion, in the sense that stories can become quickly buried as social media is always looking for the next big breaking story.

Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
New and Digital Media has allowed globalisation. Technology has allowed the audience to access stories that don't necessarily have to be happening in Britain for them to be interested.

Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Smaller events which would not normally be in the spotlight can become bigger events due to digital media. Also, with the rise in UGC, an event can be become national (or even worldwide) just because of a bystander. A good example of this is the LA Riots in 1991 with Police Brutality.

Frequency: did the event happen fairly quickly?
With New Media, events can become archived and forgotten about fairly quickly. But, due to this nature of the internet, it allows us to access stories that could have happened 5 weeks ago or 5 years ago.

Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Social Media can distort the original message of the story as people's own opinion can influence what they write. However, the internet can now provide multiple sources (blogs, comment boards, multiple online news websites) for stories if the original isn't clear enough.

Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Stories expected to happen can still be researched by professional journalists. However, breaking stories that aren't expected are helped by online media. A great example is the recent shooting in Ottawa. People who were locked down in the building where it happened were on websites such as Reddit explaining what has happened so far and trying to get messages out there.

Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
The internet allows surprising stories to be shown the the general population. This can, in turn, come to broadcast as this could bring more online users to other platforms.

Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
News institutions have to come from different approaches is a news broke out online first. An example can be when a well-known celebrity dies. Twitter would be ablaze well before something can be printed or broadcast. Therefore, the newspaper may write a story looking back at the life of the celebrity.

Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Social Media can allow stories in less elite nations to be put in the spotlight, but we still like to focus on bigger nations like the U.S. or Britain.

Negativity: is it bad news?
Reporting on controversial news can be bad at times. Especially when the topic in question is very complicated and cannot be easily explained. An example can be the war between Israel and Palestine. It's a topic which institutions can't biased to one side, therefore it isn't covered unless something very major happens.

Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
I feel institutions might have less control over the balance of stories as they can't control what's being shown on twitter or even most other social media sites. Therefore, corporations have to think more about what's being discussed and what to cover.

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