Traditional News Values Research Articles

The gap between journalists’ and audiences’ perceptions of reporting on diversity

Research suggests that the relationship between journalism and its audience is changing. As online platforms and various organisations participate in the production of information content audience expectations of what constitute news and who produces it is changing. They often seek various resources to meet their information needs, widening the gap between audiences’ and journalists’ perceptions about the role of news. This paper presents findings from a survey of n = 2266 multicultural audiences and n = 196 journalists in Australia to explore this gap. While audiences and journalists were similar in their views about traditional news values such as accuracy and timeliness, gaps emerged in their perceptions of reporting on issues of diversity. Audiences value the importance of diversity in reporting but journalists may consider it as one of the many competing priorities in their practice.

Inspiration to act or just another scary vision?

Images are powerful communicators. They evoke feelings, raise awareness of important issues and sometimes spur people to act. A critical societal issue that may benefit from all these kinds of engagement is climate change. This paper presents a study of images accompanying news items on the current state of our climate as expressed in the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report. The items were culled from five Norwegian and five UK news sources, and the images were analysed in terms of topic and news value. Unsurprisingly, climate impact topics were common in both countries, with bush and forest fires dominating. Thus, the traditional news values of Negativity and Impact were the most important ones drawn on. More surprisingly, the Norwegian material comprised a high number of images of politicians, representing the news value of Eliteness. This topic was absent in the UK material. Pictures that may point to climate solutions, e.g. new energy sources or lifestyle matters, were only sparsely represented. Thus, the images may ensure people’s engagement with climate change through disaster scenarios, but few seem to have the potential to motivate action.

The epistemologies of data journalism

Amid digital developments, data journalism has gained a strong foothold among news publishers and in public discourse. With its authoritative claims and informative visualizations, it can play a significant role in the actions of citizens and people in power. This mixed-method case study explores a distinct epistemology developed in an independent form of data journalism in public service media in Scandinavia, not subordinate to traditional news values or investigative journalism. The study investigates its knowledge and truth claims, approach to data, transparency practices, and resources invested to claim reliable knowledge. The epistemology is characterized by innovative practices in the visualizing of essentially prejustified datasets. It claims public value offering general information and audience-friendly explorations of individual perspectives on topics on the public agenda. The approach to data views reality as measurable facts yet indicates epistemic ambiguity regarding figures’ reliability, guided by a principle of reasonableness in the justifications of truth claims.

Journalism's Immersive Shift: Uncovering Immersive Journalism's Adherence to Traditional News Values, Norms, Routines and Roles

ABSTRACT As newsrooms begin to produce more immersive stories to better engage audiences, little is known about how immersive journalism compares with traditional journalism as we know it. Defined as news that is created with virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality, and 360° video technologies, research has tended to focus on ways to define it, and its effects on audiences and journalists. Understanding the extent to which immersive journalism adheres to long-held news values, norms, roles, and routines in journalism is essential as part of “boundary work”, where boundaries that form the essence of journalism legitimize the profession and help journalists understand their work. This study examines 200 immersive stories from five prominent news organizations leading in their production of immersive stories, The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, BBC and The Washington Post. Results indicate that immersive stories remain timely and tend to focus on what is unusual or of human interest. When it comes to sources, there is a shift away from government voices towards civil society. Notably, however, while high on displaying objectivity, there is a lack of source and process transparency in immersive stories, and the infotainment role ranks high, presenting some concerns for journalistic practice.

The Rise of Social Journalism: An Explorative Case Study of a Youth-oriented Instagram News Account

ABSTRACT Social media have become indispensable tools for (legacy) news companies and brands to increase online traffic for their own platforms. A recent trend is the production and dissemination of native news content specifically for and through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. This paper uses a mixed methods research design to study the news production and content of @nws.nws.nws, a hugely popular Instagram channel targeting 13–17-year olds in Flanders (Belgium) which is maintained by the newsroom of VRT, the Flemish PSM. The explorative study highlights the differences in journalistic practice when producing news content for online platforms only and the changes it entails for traditional news values, dependency on social media platforms and media regulation.

British Public Service Broadcasting, the EU and Brexit

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the historic role of Britain's major public service broadcaster, the BBC, in reporting the European Union. To do this it combines a content analysis of two datasets of BBC broadcast and online coverage from 2007 and 2012 with a series of semi-structured interviews conducted with former and current senior BBC editors and journalists. The research finds that BBC coverage in the pre-referendum period was closely tied to major events – such as summits – and elite party conflict. These patterns in coverage were primarily a consequence of the lack of traditional news values inherent in most EU stories and the impact of the wider political and media landscape. The consequence of these patterns in coverage was to present audiences with a restricted, negative and largely conflictual picture of Britain's relationship with the EU which is likely to have fuelled rather than inhibited the growth of Euroscepticism.

Is the Agenda Alive and Kicking and Is Objectivity Dead? Journalistic Culture on Social Networks in Israel

Independent journalism on social media networks appears to be changing the world of journalism. Building on Bourdieu’s field theory, the present study looked at journalists’ perceptions of values expressed in their online activities as compared to traditional news values. In-depth interviews were conducted with leading journalists active on traditional and online platforms in Israel in order to better understand journalists’ perceptions of the journalistic culture on the two kinds of platforms. The study found that by strongly emphasizing autonomy, online platforms empower journalists to embrace new values, including public service and immediacy. A public service ideology has expanded into online efforts to actively promote diverse issues that are not necessarily covered by traditional media. Immediacy is now dictated by the features of social media, which force journalists to respond in real time to all events relevant to their cause. Two values in the model of journalistic culture were found to be incompatible with the features of journalists’ online operations, and the ethics and objectivity of traditional journalism have been completely replaced by the online journalists’ orientation towards promoting their personal opinions, ideologies and agendas.

Peace Journalism in Theory and Practice: Kenyan and Foreign Correspondent Perspectives

ABSTRACT Peace journalism (PJ) is a framework intended to improve conflict coverage by challenging traditional news values. Our study aimed to compare the use of PJ in the local and foreign coverage of two key violent events in Kenyan history—the 2017 election violence and the 2019 Dusit attack—as well as collecting reporters’ views and understandings of the concept. A content analysis of 257 articles across 10 legacy newspapers from Kenya, the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa was supplemented with 14 semi-structued interviews with local and foreign reporters. We found war journalism (WJ) to be the prevailing frame, with no significant difference in the use of PJ between Kenyan and international newspapers apart from a few variations across individual indicators. The interviews exposed a lack of awareness of PJ in the case of foreign correspondents, and an interpretation that fundamentally differs from traditional understandings of the concept in the case of Kenyan reporters. We conclude that PJ is not a one-size-fits-all approach and needs to be embraced and transformed in cooperation between journalists and academics before it can become a reality in mainstream newsrooms.

Offline VS online: Attitude and behavior of journalists in social media era

In an era in which independent journalism is flourishing in social media and appears to be changing the world of journalism, it is important to understand and identify how the culture of online journalism differs from the features of traditional journalism. Building on Bourdieu's field theory, the current study looked at journalist perceptions of values expressed in their online activities as compared to traditional news values.

Proximity, Public Service, and Popularity: A Comparative Study of How Local Journalists View Quality News

ABSTRACTLocal media around the world are facing challenges, including shrinking staff sizes and diminished advertising and subscription revenues. They are also working to adapt their editorial processes to meet the needs of online audiences. This comparative study used in-depth interviews with managers, editors, and reporters at local and regional newspapers in four countries to examine how they define and distinguish quality journalism and the challenges and opportunities for producing quality work in the digital environment. The findings show that local journalists remain focused on providing journalism that serves the needs of their communities, reflecting traditional news values, such as proximity and public service. However, their considerations of quality local news are also evolving to embrace forms of journalism that can draw broad online audiences, such as service, solutions, and constructive approaches. While normative theories and some critics may place quality journalism in opposition to popular journalism, local journalists in practice do not see quality and popularity in opposition but as going hand in hand.

#Trending: A Reevaluation of Traditional News Values Given Twitter through a Mixed Methods Approach

Over the years, social media has catered for faster and perhaps more efficient delivery of news. Twitter, one of the most popular micro-blogging sites, is now being used by journalists in spreading and gathering news. And since Twitter takes note of what topics are trending, journalists now have an idea on what their audience would like to know and talk about. However, topics trending on Twitter often do not reflect the dominant news values presented by the journalists in the traditional news media, thus creating a gap between the perceptions of the audience and of the journalist on what are considered to be newsworthy especially on Twitter. This also creates an impression that news and the news values are evolving. This exploratory mixed methods research re-evaluates the traditional news values in the age of Twitter. It seeks to determine if such values have evolved and if they remain relevant for journalists in the delivery of news in this entirely new platform. Four news values were identified given a phenomenological approach employed in qualitative interviews. These identified news values were then tested using a survey (N=300) as structural equation modeling was employed to test if these four news values are correlated to newsworthiness, news consumption and news distribution. This study contributes to discourses on news values which are currently being reviewed given how the Internet and social media have influenced journalism.

Coding the News

This article examines the role of code in the process of news distribution and the degree to which code and algorithms can filter and prioritize news, much as an editor would. The discussion focuses specifically on the context of mobile news applications that filter news for consumers. Given concerns raised by the intersection of computer science and journalism, analysis moves away from the common notion that code is replacing humans as producers of news and shifts toward the role of code in helping journalists order and communicate the news. Thus, the focus of this research is on code as technological actants, filtering news based on decisions imbued into the code by human actors. This article reports the results of an investigation of code contained in 59 open source mobile news apps and an analysis of the content of that code. Findings highlight the journalistic decisions made in code and contribute to discussion surrounding the relationship between algorithmic and traditional news values.

News values of amateur photographs

Abstract This article reflects on the decision-making process concerning the content criteria for the inclusion of amateur photographs in the news. The concept of news values gives an insight into this practice. I ask what content criteria amateur photographs convey that news media workers perceive as valuable, and which additional process-related characteristics are important. The findings show that the sourcing of amateur photographs largely follows traditional news values such as unpredictability, amplitude, conflict and negativity. They also reveal the importance of additional factors such as access and proximity. In addition, the article considers the relationship between the idea of high and low newsworthiness and the sourcing of amateur photographs, and shows that they are mainly applied at the ‘extreme ends of the news spectrum’. This important insight could be one of the keys to understanding how the professional news media adapt in the face of significant change in the media, and where the professional approach of assigning photographers is still relevant.

A Framework for Unpublishing Decisions

This article explores the conflict between traditional ethical news values and unpublishing requests, which have arisen as a result of the availability of digital news archives. In so doing, this article provides a framework for how news organizations can make unpublishing decisions by weighing the sensitivity of the information published against its news value.

Getting into living rooms: NGO media relations work as strategic practice

Research on the publicity strategies of non-governmental organizations suggests that they seek out coverage from the news media. In so doing, they typically adopt traditional news values, thus adapting to the institutional demands of journalism in ways potentially harmful to organizational goals. This study suggests that, while employees do court news coverage through events and strategies designed to capture media attention, they do so strategically. The research presented here draws on institutional theories of organizational behavior to understand the strategic behaviors undertaken. Through participant observation and document analysis of the media relations office at World Vision US, a key player among international development non-governmental organizations, I find evidence that media relations employees engage in strategic practices of bargaining and compliance. These behaviors allow them to work within and beyond given institutional parameters to accomplish organizational goals not aligned with traditional news values.

The Investigative DNA

Building off previous literature on journalistic roles, this study showed that local television investigative reporters were more adversarial and placed greater value on audience appeal compared to other journalists. A factor analysis of survey responses ( N = 165) revealed five functions describing investigative journalists’ perceived roles: adversarial, interpretive, entertainer, traditionalist, and mobilizer. Using Shoemaker and Reese’s hierarchical model, individual- and organization-level variables were used as predictors in multivariate regression analyses. These analyses indicated that investigative journalists at stations owned by publicly traded companies were significantly more likely to subscribe to traditional news values. Other significant predictors of investigative role included ethnicity, amount of investigative work, market size, and an organization’s emphasis on quality journalism.

What Makes “Good” News Newsworthy?

To combat the constant supply of negative news, some online news outlets focus solely on “good” news. But what is the value of “good” news? A content analysis was conducted to determine which traditional news values (timeliness, conflict, impact, etc.) appear in stories on Web sites dedicated to positive news. The researcher compared “good” news sites to the New York Times. Results indicated that the majority of “good” news stories were entertaining and emotional, whereas the majority of New York Times stories involved authority figures and conflict. Good news stories were less committed to journalism’s core functions, such as holding power accountable and providing the public with information necessary for creating an informed electorate.

From Editors to Algorithms

Facebook’s News Feed is an emerging, influential force in our personal information flows, especially where news information is concerned. However, as the News Feed’s story selection mechanism starts to supplant traditional editorial story selection, we have no window into its story curation process that is parallel to our extensive knowledge of the news values that drive traditional editorial curation. The sensitive, trade-secret nature of the News Feed and its constant updates and modifications make a traditional, computer science-based examination of this algorithmic giant difficult, if not impossible. This study takes an alternative approach, using a content analysis of Facebook’s own patents, press releases, and Securities and Exchange Commission filings to identify a core set of algorithmic values that drive story selection on the Facebook News Feed. Informed by the principles of material culture analysis, it ranks these values to create a window into Facebook’s curation process, and compares and contrasts Facebook’s story selection values with traditional news values, examining the possible consequences of one set of values supplanting the other. The study finds a set of nine News Feed values that drive story selection: friend relationships, explicitly expressed user interests, prior user engagement, implicitly expressed user preferences, post age, platform priorities, page relationships, negatively expressed preferences, and content quality. It also finds evidence that friend relationships act as an overall influence on all other story selection values.

More Is Less

Past research supports the notion that Fox News Channel (FNC) is more dismissive of global warming than other news outlets. In addition, FNC covers the issue much more often. A qualitative–quantitative content analysis indicates that—for the leading U.S. broadcast and cable news networks overall—coverage of global warming relies on traditional news values such as political-elite cues and event magnitude. FNC, however, exhibited a news agenda favoring more coverage of global warming and climate change (relative to the other leading news outlets). Additional analysis indicates that FNC often co-opts the issue as an exemplar of “political correctness” and of the excess of political progressivism. Other networks, conversely, are more likely than FNC to cover the actual causes and impacts of global warming. Findings are situated in the context of gatekeeping theory; implications of observed network differences are discussed.

Going Viral: News Sharing and Shared News in Social Media

Through the advent of social media, news achieves a life of its own online. The media organisations partly lose control over the diffusion process, and simultaneously individuals gain power over the process, and become opinion leaders for others. This study focusses on news sharers and news shared (or rather, interacted), and has three RQ:s: 1) What characterises the people who share news in social media, 2) Have the characteristics of interacted news changed over time? and 3) Are there differences between news content interacted by ordinary people and news highlighted by media organisations? Two different studies have been conducted: A representative survey and a quantitative content analysis. 
 The main results are that the opinion leaders differ from the majority by being younger, with a greater political interest, single and more digital in their general lifestyle, both concerning news consumption and other aspects. The content analysis shows that the most interacted news on social media follow the traditional news values rather well, with a few exceptions. Most apparent is that interacted news is more positive over time and compared to print front-page news. Accidents and crime dominate print front-pages, while politics is more prominent in interacted news.