News Values

How has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?

How would you update them for 2014?

Galtung and Ruge defined a set of values to explain how journalists & editors decide which certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy. The original research was taken in 1965 but their work is still debated as newsworthy. 

Immediacy -  Has it happened recently ? Is it new ? 

New and digital media has changed immediacy vastly, before the rise of new and digital media, news was broken to audiences via Broadcast or those without a TV would usually have to wait till the following morning, where they would read the news in the papers, however since the rise of new and digital media, news apps, social networking sites and news sites on the internet have resulted into the public receiving their news much much 
faster, thus improving immediacy.  

Familiarity - Does it mean something to us where we live ? Can we relate to it ? 

New and Digital media has helped bring cultural news to audiences easier, even though much of this news may not relate to us, news apps such as Sky News & BBC News both give an area for World news, this news may not be in relation to us but it gives audiences cultural and world wide news, an example of this is the Oscar Pistorious murder trial, it has no relation to us and does not mean something to us where we live, but the South African blade runner is well known and with the trial being televised and us getting live updates on Twitter, we are able to get news like this much quicker. 

Amplitude - Is it a big event ? Does it involve many people ? 

The growth of new and digital media has helped us view major events much much easier, for example the Boston bombings and the Woolwich racist murder of soldier Lee Rigby, has shown how new and digital media has helped audiences view such tragic events, citizen journalism have let the audience see the full events rather than just seeing the impact. 

Frequency - Is it something that happened fairly quickly ?

In the same way Amplitude has been affected by the growth of new and digital media, frequency has too, citizen journalism provides photographs of events, and just putting in photographs with a caption portrays the event, and as seen by the Metro, pictures provide the story and it also saves time. 

Unambiguity -  Is it clear ? Are the results/effects obvious ? 

Newspapers usually ignore stories if they think they're boring, however the growth of new and digital media has shown that even these so called 'boring' stories do have a place on the internet, news websites or apps usually have categories that include 'boring' stories, the growth of new and digital media has helped some stories come out and even go viral. 

Predictability - Is it predictable ? Do we expect it to happen ?

If we know what is going to happen, we usually do not care, but Elections and cup finals or even football matches are seen as predictable yet interesting, and newspapers such as The Sun have used this to help promote there institution, The Sun used promotions in their newspaper for there new Goals App, this promoted there newspaper and the growth of New and Digital media was promoted through institutions such as The Sun.

Surprise - Is it rare or an unexpected event ? 

Audiences like surprises, even unpleasant ones. This is also something that has been affected by the growth of new and digital media and also citizen journalism, the murder of Lee Rigby was recorded on a phone and sent into ITV, this footage shocked the nation, no one expects such a thing to happen in there country, and especially one where the police force is so exuberant, this was a rare and unexpected event and with the video being sent in to ITV, we began to see shocks throughout the audience and the video beginning to go viral.  

Continuity - Has it already been defined as news ? Is it a running story ? 

Newspapers always try to look for new angles on ongoing news stories, these usually feature stories about a civil war in a country or some wrong doing in one country, this has been seen in Ukraine, the civil unrest regarding Ukraine and Crimea due to Russia has been an ongoing news story, one we have seen vastly on the news. Due to civil unrest in the country new and digital media has affected this news value due to the way videos have been sent in to news institutions such as BBC which allows newspapers and sites to find new angles regarding certain news stories. 

Elite nations or people - Has the event happened in a country that is important to the audience ? Does it concern well-known people ? 

The growth of new and digital media has been seen to affect elite nations or people, an example of this was seen at the previous Oscar's we just saw a few days ago, and presenter of The Elle Show, Elle tried breaking a record of the most retweeted picture and did so by taking a selfie with elite actors. The social networking site Twitter allowed people to retweet the picture and view the picture both nationally and worldwide. 

Personalisation - Is it a personal or human interest story ? 

Inspirational stories have been affected majorly by the growth of new and digital media, inspirational stories usually show personal and human interest, and we have seen many of these videos throughout new and digital apps such as YouTube and even social networking sites. YouTube allows people to see inspirational stories and even identify and be inspired by these stories. 

Negativity - Is it bad news ? 

Negativity is one that seen positively by news corporations. Negativity helps improve ratings and more people are interested in bad news than they are in good, it always seems to get more press and attention than good news does, and new and digital media does affect negativity, we usually see stuff about news trending on Twitter and this spreads news much much more vastly than word of mouth. It also shows different views of the story no matter how negative and these views are also shown on news channels and shows.

Exclusivity - Are we the only only newspaper that has this story ? 

The growth of new and digital media has gotten rid of  exclusivity, nowadays we hardly see exclusivity unless someone is reporting something through a newspaper, this used to happen quite a lot a few years ago and the biggest newspapers such as The Sun would usually be the first to get the dirt but since the growth of new and digital media, and since Tom Daley's confession of being bisexual via twitter and YouTube, breaking news is broken usually on social networking sites. 

Visual Impact - Is this a really strong image ? 

Visual impact has also been impacted majorly by social networking sites and citizen journalism. The photographs sent in usually are the ones newspapers lead with, when a story has strength via its images. However again new and digital media has impacted visual impact too. Images which are sent in are usually shown on news websites or social networking sites before a newspaper.

Balance - Is it being used to counterbalance other stories ? 

News stories can usually be placed in broadsheets to counterbalance a heavy weight of foreign news and happy human interest stories sometimes appear in tabloids to balance out the bad and good news. This may be one of the news values that hasn't changed much. Balance is used more for newspapers and broadcast, if we see a bad story that has been running for 2 days, corporations will usually find a happy news story to show that there is not all doom and gloom in the world and this will usually be an inspirational story found either on YouTube or sent in.