Course : Mass Communication Research

Methods
Effective Period : September 2015

THE STUDY OF NEWS

PRODUCTION
Session 4

Acknowledgement

These slides have been adapted from:

Klaus Bruhn Jensen. 2nd Edition, 2012. A Hand
Book of Media And Communication Research,
Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies.
Routledge, New York. ISBN: 978-0-415-60965-4
(hbk)

Learning Objectives

LO2: Students are able to indentify the difference

communication research, between mass and
interpersonal communication, also between online
and offline interaction.
LO3: The students are able to apply quantitative and
qualitative approaches to media and communication
studies, and to continue the integration, manifest in
the field during recent decades, of insight from the
humanities as well as the social science.

This session revisits the distinction in previous research

between news production as either selection or a
construction of social reality, elaborating on the relevance and
some of the limitations of classic concepts such as
gatekeeping and news values

And also considers the state of online journalism, including it

ingredients of user-generated content

I. Introduction
For journalists, news is not made, but found
The production of news is a self-evident practice: everyone
knows what news is, although journalists, through years of
practice, may have developed a particularly good nose for news
News is the result of particular work practices, and is socially
patterned
This sociological turn highlighted the following general
characteristics of news:
The production of news takes place in institutional and
organizational settings in which the type of ownership,
managerial hierarchies, allocation of resources, available
technology, and market considerations influence how news
reporters work and, therefore, the kinds of stories they
produce

 News is not value free, but constructs as social reality. Journalists as

a profession share certain ideas and standards news values- that
make certain social conflicts and other occurrences into news while
neglecting others. Furthermore, the corporate ideologies of news
organizations may enter into the news judgment of the journalists
they employ
The practices and norms of journalism have been formed through
historical processes. The ideal of impartial news reporting and of
journilasims role as a fourth estate was the product of a wider social
transformation during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
through which the press gradually became detached from political
parties
News is a product of information between news organizations and
journalists, on the one hand, and actors from other social
institutions, on the other
Since the late 1970s, these sociological insight have continued to inform
the study of news production; the original studies have become
standard references in this area of research

II. Construction or Selection

The sociological turn was clearly informed by the
construction perspective
In this perspective, news is a social construction of reality that,
in turn, influences the ways in which society comes to
understand its own public life
The selection perspective comes closer to commonsense
understanding held by journalists, in the sense that news is
understood in relation to the news event
Events in the world, thus, represent independent variables,
and journalists play a secondary intermediate role as
selectors or gatekeeper of the news: the journalists perform
such functions as selecting, rejecting, and re-editing news on
the basis of preexisting characteristict of the event

III. News Values

Closely related to the concept of gatekeeping is the notion of
a news value
News values are commonly understood as a system of
criteria which are used to make decisions about the inclusion
and exclusion of material
Furthermore, news values may influence the prominence
that a particular news story is given within the overall
composition of the selected news

 Bell (Bell, 1991: 156-160) lists eighteen news values, whereas Mc

Quail (2000: 342) lists ten primary news values in Western media.
Despite such differences, frequently cited news values concern:
Significance: News should report on events or issues with
significance for many people or society at large
Intensity: News should report on conflicts and unexpected
occurrences, giving priority to actions and the responses of the
actors involved
Topicality: News should report on current events, i.e., what has
just happened and what is likely to occur in the immediate
future
Closeness: News should report on issues or events that are close
to the audience. This proximity may be geographical, cultural, or
psychological
This does not take into account the fact, that news may be
influenced by other social actors, such as powerful economic or
political sources that bring other values to bear on the news
production process

IV. News And Markets

The sociological turn of the late 1970s focused, in particular, on
news organizations and on the internal constraints and policies
influencing news production
Other studies have supplemented this perspective by examining
external conditions, not least market considerations, and their
interplay with internal factors
The question of market influences on the news is as old as
journalism itself
In many Western countries, a commercial press either coexisted
with a political press or succeeded it during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries
The more popular this press became, the more it gave rise to public
criticism of sensationalist news, entertainment, and popular politics
There is general agreement that the overall global trend of news
and journalism has been toward increased commercialization

V. News as A Product of Exchange

The four markets consist of advertisers, audiences, sources,

and owners
In the advertising market, news media trade the attention of
the news audience for money from advertisers
In the audience market, news media deliver information and
entertainment to audience who, in return, deliver both money
(subscription and single-copy sale) and attention
In the market of news sources, news media deliver attention
to sources who, again, provide the raw material of news:
information
In the fourth and final market, owners invest money in the
news business in order to gain a profit

Figure: Exchange relationship in the production of

news

Thus, news media do not only produce economic profit, but also create public
value
These various markets, moreover, are interdependent both quantitative and
qualitative terms
a) From a quantitative point of view, the audience size will influence the
income from advertisers as well as the willingness of news source to talk to
journalists
b) From qualitative point of view, the type and quality of news will influence
the social and cultural composition of the audience
Since a news story may be high or low in either orientation or entertainment
value, Mc Manus (1994: 122) distinguishes between four types of news,
1) Low entertainment value and high orientation value: here we find the type of
news that is important but dull
2) High entertainment value and high orientation value: this is the type of news
where market demands and professional journalistic values converge
3) High entertainment value and low orientation value: this the realm of
celebrity news and oddities like man bites dog
4) Low entertainment value and low orientation value: this might appear an
almost empty category, only to be filled with a few stories originating from
mistaken journalistic judgment

Allern (2002: 142) has pointed out that market-orientation in

journalism is much more than commercial news medias
indulging popular taste and interests
In addition to the different economic costs of various types of
news production, Allern suggests two important factors:
1) the geographical are of coverage and its type of
audiences;
2) and the competition of news media

VI. Sources And Journalists

Sources deliver the raw material of news: without sources, no
news
The fundamental dependency on sources has made the
problem of access to and control over sources a key issue in
the study of news production
Two different questions concerning sources are key
1) How do journalists manage to secure continuous
interaction with relevant sources in order to produce
news of adequate quantity and quality?
2) And, what is the power relationship between journalists
and sources regarding the framing of news stories?

Tuchman (1978) used the metaphor of the news net to

describe how news organization develop work routines and
a division of labor in order to secure a daily catch of useable
sources
The news net is designed according to geographical
territories and to organizational and topical specialization
The news net bring journalists in contact with relevant types
of sources, but not all of these are equal value to journalists
Many studies have documented that the choice of sources
by news media does not reflect the composition of society in
general, but favors elite sources such as official spokes
person and powerful interests
While journalists and sources may struggle to control how a
story is to be reported, there are several ways of
conceptualizing their relationship and interaction

Blumler and Gurevitch (1981) distinguished two different

models:
The adversary model, which has been very influential in
news studies, considers the source-journalists relationship
as a power struggle between actors with different or even
antagonistics interests. The source will try to persuade, or
manipulate, the journalist to report the story in a way is
favorable to his or her interests
The exchange model. Instead the metaphor of exchange,
which has also been used in relation to the various markets
of journalism, may prove more useful in understanding the
interdependence of source and journalist and their mutual
interest in the co-production of news. The exchange model
rests on the assumption that both parties benefit from the
exchange

Table: Journalistic roles and types of discursive practice:

Passive

Active

Neutral

Interpreta
tive

Partisan

Disseminat
or:
Reporting
of facts and
events

Observer:
Explaining
actions and
events

Supporter:
Selective
reporting of
facts and
events

Watchdog:
Critical and
investigativ
e reporting

Commenta
tor:
Evaluation
and
Prediction
of actions
and events

Advocate:
Criticism
and
advocacy

VII.Online Journalism

As a practice and profession, journalism flourished

throughout the twentieth century, in close conjunction with
the proliferation of the major of mass media printed
newspapers and broadcast news

From the end of the twentieth century, the spread of the

digital and online news media, first on the internet and later
on mobile platforms, has changed the conditions of
journalistic work

Consequently many traditional newspapers have folded, and

journalists are facing growing unemployment

 The convergence between old and new media has transformed news
organizations, so that they may be able to produce news for a whole range
of media platforms: printed newspapers, radio, television, internet, and
mobile media
The Active Audience:
Perhaps the biggest challenge to journalism comes not from the new
media themselves, but from the fact, that they enable audiences to a
much more active role in news production
Gatewatching and Blogging:
new digital media represent a paradigmatic change in the social
production and distribution on information, including news. Bruns
(2005b, 2008b) has argued that the authority of journalists to act as
gatekeepers is rapidly eroding, and is being supplemented or even
replaced by a new paradigm of gatewatching. On the internet, it is
possible for anybody to watch

 Every user may, at least potentially, be engaged in some form of

gatewatching and, hence, in news production and content sharing
Some users, however, demonstrate a much more active and
organized interest in production
Schaffer (2007: 13) distinguishes different categories of citizens
media outlets, including:
a) Community Corporatives that are typically run by voluntary
labor in local area, and which may have no or only limited
professional experience
b) Blog Aggregator Sites or portal that facilitate citizens scanning
multiple blogs, and where bloggers may interact with each
other; and
c)

Legacy Media Sites that are set up by established media, but

which allow users to dominate content, in contrast to their
professional sites

 A Wider Context For Newsroom Studies

News organizations have become part of larger media
corporations (Bagdikian, 2004) that often try to impose their
agenda on new division while, at the same time, new digital media
have blurred the boundaries between news and other genres
(Deuz,2007)
As a result, news media today may no longer enjoy the same
degree of distinctiveness and autonomy
In addition, the relative autonomy of the journalistic profession is
generally considered to be under pressure, once again from new
media as well as commercial interests
While the outcomes of these processes are still unresolved, they
suggest that future studies of news production must take into
account both a more diverse news ecology and its interplay with
other media and with society at large