News values

Initially labelled "news factors," news values are widely credited to Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge. == Contemporary news values ==

In a rapidly evolving market, achieving relevance, giving audiences the news they want and find interesting, is an increasingly important goal for media outlets seeking to maintain market share. This has made news organizations more open to audience input and feedback, and forced them to adopt and apply news values that attract and keep audiences. Given these changes and the rapid rise of digital technology in recent years, Harcup and O'Neill updated their 2001 study in 2016, while other scholars have analysed news values in viral news shared via social media. The growth of interactive media and citizen journalism is fast altering the traditional distinction between news producer and passive audience and may in future lead to a redefinition of what "news" means and the role of the news industry. Modern Developments Harcup, Tony, and Deirdre O’Neill. "What is News? News values revisited (There is a significant influence on how news values are applied through online media and different social platforms. Harcup and O’Neill (2017) state that factors such as shareability and immediacy increasingly determine what gets reported. News reports that are likely to generate clicks may receive more attention, while traditional values like conflict and prominence remain important but interact with digital metrics. Tony Harcup (2015) states that an active audience that gives feedback and quick distribution has changed editorial priorities, resulting in a faster and more responsive coverage. == Types of news values ==

A variety of external and internal pressures influence journalistic decisions during the news-making process, which can sometimes lead to bias or unethical reporting. Many different factors have the potential to influence whether an event is first noticed by a news organisation, second whether a story will be written about that event, third, how that story is written, and fourth whether this story will end up being published as news and if so, where it is placed. Therefore, "there is no end to lists of news criteria." There are multiple competing lists of news values (including Galtung & Ruge's news factors, and others put forward by Schlesinger, Bell, Bednarek & Caple News values can relate to aspects of events and actors, or to aspects of news gathering and processing: • Unexpectedness: Events that are out of the ordinary, unexpected, or rare are more newsworthy than routine, unsurprising events. Such news values are qualitatively different from news values that relate to aspects of events, such as Eliteness (the elite status of news actors or sources) or Proximity (the closeness of the event's location to the target audience). Prominence Prominence is a news value that reflects the importance of certain individuals, groups, or institutions involved in an event. Stories are more likely to be reported when they involve popular political leaders, celebrities, or influential organizations. Tony Harcup and Deirdre O’Neill (2001) modernized Galtung and Ruge’s original structure to include prominence. This update emphasizes that modern news increasingly focuses on well-known figures and high-visibility events. These factors help the news gain attention because they are all easily recognizable for audiences. Prominence can also interact with other news values. A large-scale conflict involving notable figures is more likely to be covered than similar events involving less-known actors. Prominence has continued to shape journalists' decisions, demonstrating that news values evolve over time and adapt to the media environment. Conflict Conflict is an important news value in journalism. Events involving disagreement, tension, or opposition naturally draws the reader’s attention. Referring to Galtung and Ruge (1965), articles that involve fights between individuals, groups, or even countries are far more likely to be published than other stories. Most of the documented papers include: Armed conflicts, societal protests, and any conflict that involves two or more parties that oppose each other. These events are actually proven to have a higher chance of being reported. Dramatic, urgent, and detrimental arguments are factors that increase audience interest. Conflict also allows reporters to shape the presentation of certain events. Especially in politics, journalists are given the opportunity to make a stance on the conflict which allows for a persuasive style of writing. This makes the reader more engaged in the story. Scholars note that the presence of conflict often results in extensive coverage and repeated updates for weeks. By examining conflict as a key part of journalism, readers can understand why wars, protests, or political fights are happening. The reason why conflict dominates media coverage is simply because that's what intrigues the reader. Proximity and Negativity Additional factors that influence news coverage are proximity and negativity. Negativity describes when the media prioritizes stories about disasters, crimes, and other adverse developments, while proximity refers to how close an event is to the audience geographically, culturally, or socially. Local events affecting communities directly are more likely to be covered by the news because they are immediately understandable. Galtung and Ruge (1965) found that proximity and negativity consistently increase the chance of coverage, while Herbert Gans (1979) states that newsroom routines often strengthen their influence. For example, natural disasters and local tragedies receive substantial attention, while similar events in more distant locations may receive less coverage. Proximity and negativity also influences the story placement and importance. Editors prioritize content that captures attention from the audience. These values help explain why the news tends to focus on “bad news” in familiar locations, reflecting both universal editorial principles and the practical realities of newsroom considerations. == Audience perceptions of news ==

Journalist vs Audience Conventional models concentrate on what the journalist perceives as news. But the news process is a two-way transaction, involving both news producer (the journalist) and the news receiver (the audience), although the boundary between the two is rapidly blurring with the growth of citizen journalism and interactive media. Audience Perception and Risk Signals Little has been done to define equivalent factors that determine audience perception of news. This is largely because it would appear impossible to define a common factor, or factors, that generate interest in a mass audience. Basing his judgement on many years as a newspaper journalist Hetherington states that: "...anything which threatens people's peace, prosperity and well being is news and likely to make headlines."Similarly, Whyte-Venables suggests audiences may interpret news as a risk signal. Psychologists and primatologists have shown that apes and humans constantly monitor the environment for information that may signal the possibility of physical danger or threat to the individual's social position. This receptiveness to risk signals is a powerful and virtually universal survival mechanism. A "risk signal" is characterized by two factors, an element of change (or uncertainty) and the relevance of that change to the security of the individual. The same two conditions are observed to be characteristic of news. Security Concern and Relevance The news value of a story, if defined in terms of the interest it carries for an audience, is determined by the degree of change it contains and the relevance that change has for the individual or group. Analysis shows that journalists and publicists manipulate both the element of change and relevance ('security concern') to maximize, or some cases play down, the strength of a story. Security concern is proportional to the relevance of the story for the individual, his or her family, social group and societal group, in declining order. At some point there is a Boundary of Relevance, beyond which the change is no longer perceived to be relevant, or newsworthy. This boundary may be manipulated by journalists, power elites and communicators seeking to encourage audiences to exclude, or embrace, certain groups: for instance, to distance a home audience from the enemy in time of war, or conversely, to highlight the plight of a distant culture so as to encourage support for aid programs. Political Usefulness Bias In 2018, Hal Pashler and Gail Heriot published a study showing that perceptions of newsworthiness tend to be contaminated by a political usefulness bias. In other words, individuals tend to view stories that give them "ammunition" for their political views as more newsworthy. They give credence to their own views. == Evolutionary perspectives ==

An evolutionary psychology explanation for why negative news have a higher news value than positive news starts with the empirical observation that the human perceptive system and lower level brain functions have difficulty distinguishing between media stimuli and real stimuli. These lower level brain mechanisms which function on a subconscious level make basic evaluations of perceptive stimuli, focus attention on important stimuli, and start basic emotional reactions. Research has also found that the brain differentiates between negative and positive stimuli and reacts quicker and more automatically to negative stimuli which are also better remembered. This likely has evolutionary explanations with it often being important to quickly focus attention on, evaluate, and quickly respond to threats. While the reaction to a strong negative stimulus is to avoid, a moderately negative stimulus instead causes curiosity and further examination. Negative media news is argued to fall into the latter category which explains their popularity. Lifelike audiovisual media are argued to have particularly strong effects compared to reading. Women have on average stronger avoidance reactions to moderately negative stimuli. Men and women also differ on average in how they enjoy, evaluate, remember, comprehend, and identify with the people in news depending on if the news are negatively or positively framed. The stronger avoidance reaction to moderately negative stimuli has been explained as it being the role of men in evolutionary history to investigate and potentially respond aggressively to threats while women and children withdrew. It has been claimed that negative news are framed according to male preferences by the often male journalists who cover such news and that a more positive framing may attract a larger female audience. == Applications in Journalism ==

Not only are news values theoretical concepts, but they actively guide journalistic practice. Editors and reporters use these values to determine which stories to cover and how to frame events. Gans (1979) states that practical constraints, such as staff availability and audience expectations, shape the application of news values and influences the final content. Similarly, Harcup (2015) explains that editors balance organizational goals and reader interest, applying news values to prioritize stories effectively. The relationship between theory and practice shows that news values don’t only influence what is published, but also how it is presented, affecting public understanding. == See also ==