COMM 112: Communication Theory

Week 10 Chapter 7: The Construction of News

Objectivity

What is it?

Is it possible?

Manufactured representations

What we read, view, or listen to is not a neutral account of the

world, but one or more particular versions, or representations

News Filtering

Event 1

Event 3

Event 2 Selection Construction

News representations

of selected events

Agenda Setting Theory

FramingTheory

News makers, gatekeepers

Who makes decisions about what issues are important to you?

Journalists and others must select which events to cover and which to exclude- a process that is largely invisible to the public. By making such

decision, news organizations act as gatekeepers.

Agenda Setting Theory

The mass media have the ability to transfer the salience of issues on other news agenda to the public agenda. Maxwell McCombs and

Donald Shaw

Agenda Setting Theory

1968 study, 1972 published

“Chapel Hill Study”

Found a correlation between the amount of coverage devoted to an issue in the media and the level of importance attributed to it by the public

Media Agenda

The pattern of news coverage across major print and

broadcast media as measured by the prominence

and length of stories.

News Values

Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge (1973) identified eight criteria by which we determine

what events to cover:

1. Frequency (aka, timeliness)2. Amplitude (aka, significance)3. Clarity (easy to understand)4. Cultural proximity (ethnocentrism)5. Predictability (fits our expectations)6. Unexpectedness (aka, novelty)7. Continuity (aka, recurrence)8. Composition (“fits” with other news)

What is considered “most important?”

Must be one of the first three stories in 30 minute newscast

Must be “headlined” at the top of the hour on 24-hr. news

Any story that runs longer than 45 seconds is considered “important”

TELEVISION NEWS

What is considered “most important?”

NEWSPAPERS

Headlines ‘above the fold’

If significant art accompanies

Three or more columns (or over 15 column inches)

Corresponding attention on op-ed page

What is considered “most important?”

ONLINE

Top of page

Multiple links

Imagery

Section header

Limitations of Agenda Setting?

Who sets the agenda?

Business interests?

Lobbyists interest?

Public relations people?

Awareness of audience?

informational needs?

Framing Theory

Erving Goffman: Frame Analysis

Journalists construct news by deciding: what facts to include or emphasize what sources to interview/include

what words and images to use

These choices combine to create a frame.

Frames: supports the story

determines what belongs inside tells the audience what is important

Framing Theory

Framing Theory

Framing

Class Exercise

What was the media’s agenda today?

Next Time:

Teach-a-Theory workshop!