Task 2 - News Values

News Values

In 1965, media researchers Galtung & Ruge analysed international news stories to find out what factors they had in common, and what factors placed them at the top of the news agenda worldwide. They came up with a “scoring system” of news values, with stories that score highly in each having more chance of making a lead / front-page story. Every media organisation will have its own news values, based upon what their audience expects, and what is important to the organisation. News Values are separated into 12 different sections which are; negativity, proximity, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, personality, expectedness, elite nations/people, exclusivity, and size.

Negativity:

This states that bad news is better than good news and it will always be rated higher as people enjoy hearing that other people are worse off than them. An example of bad news would be floods, bankruptcy, natural disasters and violence etc.

Proximity:

This is stories close to home that audiences can relate to, for example anything that happens locally or within the same country, stories with local geographical values will have better ratings.

Recency:

News will get a better audience if they have very recent stories so most news broadcasters try to get the most recent stories to get the best ratings. For example, Justin Bieber’s court case was streamed live on the news to keep the audience completely up to date.

Currency:

Currency would be stories that stay in the public eye for a long period of time. An example of this would be the Madeline McCann story as it has been in the news for 7 years now.

Continuity:

Continuity stories have a continuing impact on readers with every single development on the story.  An example of this would be the floods and bad weather in the UK as every development would affect the audience in some way, whether it be affecting them personally or people they know.

Uniqueness:

Unique stories are stories that you wouldn’t expect, they are there to intrigue the audience and shock them, unique stories are usually humorous. An example of this would be Miley Cyrus’ performance at the EMA Awards as this was completely unexpected and shocked the world.

Simplicity:

These would be stories that are easy to explain and easy for the audience to understand. An example of this would be the story about the Galleries in Washington being rebuilt as it requires no thought when reading it and it is a very easy story to understand.

Personality:

These are stories you can relate to which centre around a particular person, mainly celebrities. An example of this could be Khloe Kardashian as she is currently going through a divorce.

Expectedness:

These are stories you predict will be mentioned. An example of this could be the floods down south as it has been on the news for quite some time now and the audience would be expecting updates on what is happening.

Elite Nations/People:

These are stories that are close to Britain e.g anything to do with America, Germany etc. An example of this could be the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as it affects Europe.

Exclusivity:

These would be stories that are breaking news that no one knows about yet, they are exclusive stories and are there to surprise and shock the audience. And example of this would be Sky News as they are always the first to have breaking news stories.

Size:

These are stories that rely on how big the story is. The news teams rely on these stories as the bigger the story the bigger the value. An example of this would be the plane that has gone missing and completely disappeared off the radar as this affects many people so it is a big story.