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Flashcards by Em Maskrey, updated more than 1 year ago
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Created by Em Maskrey
over 6 years ago
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| Question | Answer |
| There are a variety of ways in which news is presented and can be accessed. Up until the 1990s, what were the main sources of news in the UK? | Tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, and radio and terrestrial TV news programmes, particularly those on the BBC and ITV. |
| However, the 21st century saw the appearance of new media sources of news. Give examples: | 24-hour rolling news on satellite channels, specialist news sites online, social networking sites, and blogs. |
| The source of news an individual will have a preference for largely depends on their age. What source do 60% of the 16-24 age group use? | The internet, particularly through their smartphones. |
| The trend of this age group using alternative, modern sources to access news has led to sociologists speculating what? | That younger audiences are abandoning traditional sources of news for the immediacy and interactivity of new media. |
| However, which sociologist argues that the use of new media as a source of news might not actually be that revolutionary due to the fact that those using the internet and/or apps to consume news are predominantly using the websites of the traditional news-gatherers? | Rodney Benson. |
| One source of online news are social media websites. What percentage of people used Facebook and Twitter as a source of news? | 20%. |
| However, despite the growth of new media, a 2014 Ofcom study found that television remained the most popular platform for news. What percentage of people stated that they were most likely to use the television to access news coverage? | 75%. |
| Why do the majority of the UK population trust television news coverage more than any other source? | They regard it as a 'window on the world' offering an accurate and trustworthy account of events in real time. |
| Other sources, such as newspapers, are not considered to be trustworthy. Instead, what do readers believe of newspaper coverage? | It is not impartial, instead identifying with a particular political and ideological position. For example, The Times is affiliated with the Conservative party and The Daily Mirror is associated with the Labour party. |
| Denis McQuail argues that an event simply happening does not guarantee that it will become news. Why? | Not all events can be reported due to the sheer number of them. |
| How is news actually a socially manufactured product? | It is the end result of a selective process: gatekeepers such as editors and journalists make choices and judgements about what events are important enough to cover, and how to cover them. |
| Media sociologists argue that the process of news selection typically depends on three broad influences. What are they? | 1. The news values held by media organisations. 2. Organisational or bureaucratic constraints/routines. 3. Ownership of media news organisation. |
| Which sociologist defines 'news values'? | Owen Spencer-Thomas. |
| How does Spencer-Thomas define news values? | General guidelines or criteria that determine the worth of a news story and how much prominence it is give by newspapers or broadcast media. |
| News values determine what journalists, editors and broadcasters consider 'newsworthy'. What is considered newsworthy will vary between various outlets? | Because they are aimed at different types of audience. |
| Which sociological perspective argues that news values are of crucial importance because of the pressure producers are under to increase profits? | Pluralism. |
| Following this line of thought, what shape news values, according to pluralists? | Market forces. |
| Who provided the most well-known list of news values? | Johan Galtung and Marie Ruge. |
| Galtung and Ruge analysed international news across a group of newspapers in Norway in 1965 and identified a number of values shared by Norwegian journalists and editors as to what constituted a newsworthy story. Give examples: | - Extraordinariness. - Threshold. - Unambiguity. - Reference to elite persons. -Reference to elite nations. - Personalisation. - Frequency. - Continuity. - Negativity. - Composition. |
| The first value is 'extraordinariness'. What is meant by this? | Rare, unpredictable and surprising events are more newsworthy than routine, mundane events because they are extraordinary. Disasters and celebrity deaths are good examples of this value. |
| The second value is 'threshold'. What is meant by this? | The 'bigger' the event, the more likely it is that it will be nationally reported. There is, therefore, a threshold, and if an event falls below this threshold, it will not be considered newsworthy and go unreported. |
| The third value is 'unambiguity'. What is meant by this? | The Colombia Journalism Review a story's complexity was the most common reason for it to go unreported. |
| The fourth value is 'reference to elite persons'. What is meant by this? | The rich, powerful and famous are often seen as more newsworthy than the 'ordinary' people. Media sociologists note that, in the past decade, a 'cult of celebrity' has developed, and has extended the definition of who counts as worthy of public interest. |
| The fifth value is 'reference to elite nations'. What is meant by this? | Stories about people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the same cultural preoccupations as the audience receive more news coverage that those involving people who do not. Events in America and Australia are more likely to be covered in the UK than events that happen in Asia or Africa. |
| The sixth value is 'personalisation'. What is meant by this? | If events can be 'personalised' by reference to a prominent individual or celebrity associated with them, they are more likely to be reported. As a result, journalists often try to reduce complex events and policies to merely a conflict between two personalities. |
| The seventh value is 'frequency'. What is meant by this? | This refers to what Brian Dutton calls "the time span taken by the event". Murders, car accidents, etc. all happen suddenly and their meaning can be established quickly. Structural social trends are often outside the 'frequency' of daily papers because they occur over a long period of time. |
| The eighth is 'continuity'. What is meant by this? | Once a story has become news and is 'running', it may continue to be covered for some time. This is partly due to news teams already being in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public. |
| The ninth value is 'negativity'. What is meant by this? | Journalists regard bad news as more exciting and dramatic than good news, and believe it attracts a bigger audience. Good news is typically regarded as less interesting and entertaining than bad news. The threshold for reporting bad news is lower than that of good news, because bad news generally incorporates other news values. |
| The tenth value is 'composition'. What is meant by this? | Most news outlets will attempt to balance the reporting of events so that if there has been an abundance of, for example, bad news, some items of a more positive nature will be added. |
| However, Galtung and Ruge have faced criticism. How do Paul Brighton and Dennis Foy respond to the ten proposed news values? | They argue that Galtung and Ruge's research was limited to Norwegian newspapers and therefore is not relevant to UK media, and furthermore, their research was conducted 45 years ago, and thus is outdated. |
| Which sociologists updated Galtung and Ruge's list? | Tony Harcup and Deidre O'Neill. |
| Give examples of the updated news values identified by Harcup and O'Neill: | - Power elite. - Celebrity. -Entertainment. - Surprise. - Bad news. - Good news. - Magnitude. - Relevance. - Follow-ups. - Media agenda. |
| Why do Brighton and Foy criticise Harcup and O'Neill? | They argue that by creating a list of so-called news values, the creators assume that there is consensus among both journalists and audiences as to what is newsworthy. They do not believe this consensus exists. |
| Why do Brighton and Foy argue that it is unlikely that there is a consensus among journalists and audiences as to what is newsworthy? | The media industry has many news outlets, and what is newsworthy for one outlet may not be for another. Furthermore, even within a single outlet, audience members can differ significantly due to age, gender, religion, etc., and therefore have different opinions on what is newsworthy. |
| Brighton and Foy argue that journalism is undergoing change, with the traditional news values no longer being relevant. Brighton and Foy say modern day media is characterised by which three traits? | 1. Spin doctors. 2. Churnalism. 3. Citizen journalism. |
| What is meant by 'spin doctors'? | There is evidence that some powerful groups attempt to evade news values altogether, using their influence to either plant or shape news stories sympathetic to their cause. The last three governments have actually appointed a number of press officers, known as spin doctors, who 'manage' news stories about the government's work. |
| The concept of spin doctors challenges what? | The idea that all news stories are the product of news values; some are clearly constructed to favour particular political perspectives. |
| Which sociologist developed the concept of 'churnalism'? | Nick Davies. |
| What does Davies mean by 'churnalism'? | These days, journalists are largely involved in mindlessly churning out 'facts' and stories given to them by government spin doctors and PR companies working for celebrities and corporate interests, rather than actively pursuing stories. |
| According to Davies, what percentage of news stories found in tabloid newspapers come from "official sources" such as PR professionals? | 80%. |
| Angela Phillips agrees with Davies' findings. What does she argue is common practice among journalists these days? | Journalists now simply rewrite stories that have already appeared in other newspapers or online, lifting quotes and case history without any attribution. |
| What is the result of churnalism? | News stories are characterised by uniformity, which limits the choice available to the news reader. There is little opportunity to see other sides of the story. |
| Which sociologist developed the concept of 'citizen journalism'? | Matt Drudge. |
| What does Drudge mean by 'citizen journalism'? | The development of modern technology has allowed regular citizens to become a more important news source. |
| Why is it important to examine the organisational or bureaucratic routines that exist within particular news organisations? | Because the logistics of collecting news may influence what news is gathered and how it is reported and presented. |
| Give examples of said logistics: | - Financial cost. - Time or space available. - Deadlines. - Immediacy and actuality. - Audience. - Journalistic ethics. |
| The first logistic is financial cost. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | News-gathering is extremely expensive. There has been a decline in expensive forms of news coverage such as investigative reporting and foreign affair coverage to cut costs. News outlets have experienced severe budget cuts which has resulted in a high redundancy rate of journalists. |
| Cost-cutting has two effects on the quality of news. What are they? | 1. It has severely undermined the quality of investigative journalism in the UK. 2. Entertainment has replaced the provision of information in the construction of the news, in both newspapers and on television. |
| The second logistic is the available time or space. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | News must be tailored to fit the time available for a news bulletin or the space available for a newspaper column. Both the BBC and ITV cover 15 news items in a 25-30 minute period, and newspapers only have a fixed amount of space for each news category. Stories are included or excluded based on whether they fit. |
| The third logistic is deadlines. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | Television news, especially 24-hour satellite-based news, is at an advantage over newspapers because it can report in real time, as events happen. Newspapers, on the other hand, have deadlines and consequently focus on the previous day's news. This is why broadsheet newspaper coverage is typically more detailed. |
| The fourth logistic is immediacy and actuality. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | Events are more likely to be reported on TV news if they come with sound bites and/or live footage from the location of the event, because they add dramatic reality. Recent technological advances allow for a level of immediacy that was previously impossible. |
| The fifth logistic is audience. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | Pluralists argue that news content and the way it is presented are reactions to the type of audience that it is aimed at. For example, Five News is characterised by short, snappy bulletins because it is aimed at a young audience, while the Sun uses simple language because it is aimed at a working-class audience. |
| The sixth logistic is journalistic ethics. How does this influence the selection and presentation of news? | Journalistic ethics may encourage or prevent a journalist from reporting on a particular event. |
| Richard Keeble and John Mair have pointed out the unethical culture and practices of some sections of the news media. What are all British newspapers signed up to, which insists that they do not publish inaccurate, misleading information? | The Press Complaints Commission's voluntary code of conduct. |
| However, the code of conduct has been criticised for not being powerful enough. Why? | The PCC has no statutory powers to punish any 'irresponsible' media behaviour. |
| Which body is responsible for protecting people from being exposed to harmful or offensive material, from being treated unfairly and from having their privacy violated by television or radio in the UK? | Ofcom. |
| In 2011, the biggest media scandal since the 1990s unfolded. What was it? | News International, owned by Murdoch's News Corp, admitted that phone-hacking by journalists employed by The News of the World was common practice. Outrage was increased when it was revealed that murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked following her abduction. |
| In response to the scandal, what inquiry was established? | The Leveson inquiry. |
| Lord Justice Leveson recommended the creation of an independent regulatory body that would hear complaints from victims of unfair press treatment and have the power to impose punishments on news organisations. How did the government respond to these recommendations? | They rejected the majority of Leveson's recommendations, instead introducing a new press watchdog. However, no news organisations have signed up thus far. |
| Marxists are highly critical of the belief that news gathering is mainly based on a set of objective news values. Who claimed that these beliefs are merely ideological myths created by media owners? | Robert McChesney. |
| McChesney claims that, in reality, democracy is sabotaged by the fact that powerful media owners are able to influence the social manufacturing of news. How are they able to do this? | By shaping the editorial approach or policy of their news media, which influences the selection and presentation of news. |
| Following this line of thought, an owner does not have to exercise day-to-day control. Why? | Because compliant editors who wish to remain employed know what their employer expects. |
| Which two sociologists claimed that rather than being shaped by news values, news gathering is shaped by profit? | Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. |
| Herman and Chomsky argue that there are a range of filters working tirelessly to shape a news output, ensuring it supports and spreads capitalist ideology. Why is this the case? | Because most news agencies are part of profit-seeking media corporations often funded by advertisers who want their advertising to appear in a supportive selling environment. |
| As a result, news and its values are not objective. Instead, what is it a form of? | Propoganda. |
| According to Ben Bagdikian, how do capitalist values often undetectably infiltrate American news? | Most newspapers present corporate leaders as heroes in exciting combat and corporate and stock-market information is often reported uncritically. In contrast, very little attention is paid to 'ordinary' Americans and the economic pressures they face. |
| Why is the news supportive of capitalist interest, according to Stuart Hall? | Because those in powerful positions have better access to media institutions than those in less powerful positions. |
| Hall claims that most journalists consider the views of primary definers as more important and credible than those of 'ordinary' people. How does he refer to this? | As a 'hierarchy of credibility'. |
| What is the result of this hierarchy of credibility? | Journalists regularly report on what prominent people say about events, rather than the events themselves. |
| The GUMG argue that the selection and presentation of news is actually the product of what? | Journalists' backgrounds. The majority of individuals working in the industry come from middle-class backgrounds. They therefore have more in common with the rich and the powerful than they do with the poor and powerless. |
| The GUMG argue that news journalists engage in agenda setting. What is meant by this? | Journalists choose to include certain types of stories, and exclude others. |
| Which sociologist found that the language used by journalists was more sympathetic to the interests of the powerful, and regularly devalued the perspectives of less powerful groups? | John Fiske. |
| According to Fiske, what word did journalists frequently use to describe trade unions? What implication does this have? | "Demanding". This implies that they are greedy and disruptive. |
| Which two sociologists identify a 'circuit of communication' in which production, content and reception of news are constantly impacting one another, although in unequal proportions? | Greg Philo and David Miller. |
| Philo and Miller identify four groups involved in this circuit of communication. Who are they? | 1. Social and political institutions. 2. The media. 3. The public. 4. The government. |
| Which sociologist is critical of marxist theories? | Philip Schlesinger. |
| Schlesinger argues that the media does not always act in the interests of the powerful. What example does he give of this? | He states that contemporary politicians now need to be extremely careful, because they are aware that news can shape public perception of their policies and influence voting behaviour. |
| While marxists claim that the media's primary concern is to create and disseminate ideology, what does Schlesinger see their primary concern as? | Profit. |
| News coverage occasionally focuses on particular groups and/or activities and, through their style of reporting, define these groups/activities as issues worthy of public anxiety and official control. What is this public anxiety referred to? | A moral panic. |
| Which sociologist first used the term 'moral panic'? | Stanley Cohen, in his 1972 work 'Folk Devils and Moral Panics'. |
| Cohen claimed that moral panics result in anxiety and a sense of threat among the general population. How does this anxiety impact authorities? | It places pressure upon them to control the 'problem' and discipline the group responsible, despite the moral concern usually being disproportionate to the real threat to society. |
| According to Cohen, how many stages does news reporting go through in the construction of a moral panic? | Eight. |
| The types of events that caused moral panics may conform to what concept? | The concept of news values provided by Galtung and Ruge. |
| Moral panics may also be the result of the desire journalists and editors have to sell newspapers. Following this line of thought, what may moral panics be a good example of? | How audiences are manipulated by the media for commercial purposes. |
| Hall studied news coverage of black muggers in the 1970s. He concluded that the moral panic actually served capitalist interests. How? | Young African Caribbeans were labelled as criminals and a threat to white people, which divided the working class by turning blacks and whites against one another, diverting their attention away from the true cause of their inequality - capitalism. |
| The moral panic theory has faced criticisms. Why are postmodernists critical of moral panics? | They argue that audiences now interpret media messages in a variety of different ways, meaning it is wrong to assume that all audience members simply accept moral panics. |
| Similarly, which two sociologists argue that competition between different types of news media means that audiences are exposed to a wider set of news interpretations, meaning they are 'more skeptical' of moral panics? | Angela McRobbie and Sarah Thornton. |
| However, Andrew Keen suggests that interactive new media may actually accelerate moral panics. How? | Unsubstantiated rumours about deviant behaviour may circulate and trigger moral panics. |
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