News Selection and Presentation

News selection and presentation:

The Social Construction of the News:

• The media cannot report all events and issues happening every day in the world, this means that what counts as 'the news' is necessarily selected and processed or constructed by a range of social influences.
• The Glasgow media group has shown in a series of studies over the years that the selection and presentation of media news stories isn't a neutral process, but that the news is a sequence of socially manufactured messages produced within the context of the dominant ideology of society.
• McQuail (1992) argues that news is socially manufactured, because 'gatekeepers' such as editors and journalists make choices and judgements about how much coverage they will give to certain events.
• Critics argue that the process of news selection is biassed because it is dependent on 3 influences:

1. Organisational or bureaucratic constraints

2. The News Values held by media organisations

3. Ownership, Ideology and Bias

• News as a new window on the world: MM forms vary. NP readership is declining, and newspapers going under (Independent). People are turning to more new media devices, especially the young.

• Choices are made by many people (editors, journalists - 'gatekeepers') that determine whether or not a news piece becomes a story in the media. News values:

• Events that are eventually reported in the news have been through some kind of gatekeeping or filtering process with journalists and particularly news editors deciding what's newsworthy or not.

• Research has shown that journalists operate with values and assumptions called news values - which guide them in deciding what events are newsworthy and therefore what to report and what to leave out, and how what they choose to be reported should be presented.

• Galtung and Ruge suggested newsworthy items included some of the news values.

• The idea of news values means that journalists tend to include and play up those elements of a story which makes it newsworthy and the stories that are most likely to be reported are those which include many newsworthy aspects.

• Stories are also more likely to be reported if the media - particularly TV and the news media, can combine news values with the impression of immediacy being present at events as they unfold.

• The new media have enabled news organisations to give a perception to audiences of immediacy as they now provide instantaneous, live coverage of events as they happen

• This has been aided by the growing volume of material recorded on mobile phones through citizen journalism

1. Extraordinariness: Unexpected or rare events have more newsworthiness than routine events because they are out of the ordinary

2. Threshold: The bigger the event the more likely it will be nationally reported. E.g. World wars or natural disasters.
3. Unambiguity: Events which are easy to grasp/understand are more likely to be reported than those which are open to interpretation. However, this can result in conspiracy theories.
4. Reference to elite people: Those stories which show coverage of the famous and the powerful are often seen as more newsworthy than those which feature the general public.
5. Personalisation: Events may be personalised by associating a particular celebrity or leader with the specific event. For example, the war on Iraq in 2003 was often presented as Bush and Blair Vs Saddam Hussein.
6. Negativity: Bad news seems to be more exciting to journalists than good news. News such as 'There were no murders today' is less interesting than 'Three people were shot today' The influence of owners

• The political leanings of the owners and editors are overwhelmingly conservative.

• Owners occasionally give direct instructions to news editors

• The owners influence the resources made available to cover news stories such as whether to allocate resources for reporters to pursue a story, or whether to have reporters on TV camera crews in different countries

• Journalists and particularly editors depend on their careers not upsetting the owners.

• This can lead to editors and journalists adopting a form of self-censorship, whereby they will avoid reporting some events or reporting them in a way that risks offending the owners or directly challenging their political preferences.

• The owners are concerned with making a profit and this search for profit and the desire to attract large audiences in an increasingly competitive global media environment means that news and information get squeezed out or turned into infotainment.

• This encourages the development of a media culture in which unethical journalism practices thrive - phone hacking is an example of this.

• It was such methods that led to the Leveson Inquiry in 2011-12 into the culture, practices and ethics of British press following the claims of illegal phone hacking at then the best-selling Sunday newspaper News of the World. Agenda-setting

• The media's influence in laying down the list of subjects or agendas for public discussion is known as agenda-setting and is associated with the work of GMG.

• The agenda-setting process was summed up by Cohen's comment that while the news media may not necessarily be successful in telling people what to think they are stunningly successful in telling audiences what to think about.

• McCombs suggests that the news media tells out how to think about certain subjects - the images of politicians for example

• The GMG suggests the main media organisations and journalists within them work within a framework of the dominant ideology which helps to form the lists of subjects the public are encouraged to think about and so audiences have little choice over what they receive Gatekeeping

• The media's power to refuse to cover some issues and to let others through is known as gatekeeping

• The GMG in a series of Bad News studies conducted between 1976-82 suggested that owners, editors and journalists construct the news as acting as gatekeepers, influencing what knowledge the public gains access to,

• Sometimes the media do not cover issues either because journalists and editors think they lack interest in readers and viewers or because they regard them as too offensive, controversial or threatening to society. Norm-setting:

• Norm-setting describes the way the media emphasise and reinforce conformity to social norms and seek to social norms as they seek to isolate those who do not conform by making them victims of unfavourable media reports:

• Norm setting is achieved in two ways

7. Encouraging conformist behaviour - such as not going on strike, or obeying the law. Advertising for example often reinforces the gender role stereotypes of men and women
8. Discouraging non-conformist behaviour - the media often give extensive and sensational treatment to stories about murder and other crimes of violence, riots, illegal immigration and so on.
9. Through media representations

• Agenda-setting, gatekeeping and norm-setting act as forms of social control as they mean some events are simply not reported and brought to public attention and some of those that are reported may be singled out for particularly unfavourable treatment Spin doctors: Who are they?

• Press officers. They meet journalists and 'manage' news stories.

• Their job is to put a 'spin' on news stories to make the government 'look good'.

• This ensures the media portrays the government in a good light. 📝Example: Alastair Campbell – Tony Blair's Press Secretary (Spin Doctor) during his time as PM – one of the reasons why he stayed in power so long was due to his skill in presenting news stories and TB positively in the press.

(Resigned controversially – see following slide and research Hutton report and death of Dr David Kelly).

Spin doctors' job is to manipulate and 'craft' the messages to the media to make sure they are putting their candidate/party / side in a good light. i.e. put a spin on their messages.

How?

• Relay messages to media – 'schmooze' the media

• Train their candidates to present in a certain way

• Brief their politician before interviews

• Be the middleman/woman between the party and the media

• Create political adverts Overt and covert spin tactics:

• the leak: these are strategic techniques offered by politicians or their staff to journalists in exchange for scrutiny.

• the drip: the act of keeping favoured reporters on a drip of exclusive information.

• dishing dirt: this is where old claims suddenly emerge publicly during an election in an effort to destroy someone's career. Lobby: Everything we hear from the government is the transparent truth isn't it?!

What is the 'Lobby'?

• 390 journalists who have access to Parliament and access to interview MPs. (Most not affiliated to any party/partisan).

• Information released to journalists cannot be attributed to whoever releases it.

• Only senior journalists have this role/access.

• Lobby journalists go to 10 Downing St for an 'off the record' spin on events. Globalisation and new technology -Citizen Journalism

• The news market is now very competitive and globalised.

• New technology like mobile phones, cameras and Twitter means news is instantly available 24 hours a day.

• The mainstream news media can no longer rely on the attention of audiences as they might once have done with the daily news as people are now tweeting, texting and surfing the web for news that interests them

• New media technology has created opportunities for citizen journalism

• New media like videos shot on mobile phones are uploaded to YouTube, Twitter or TikTok, by the general public rather than professional journalists or media companies.

• Such grassroots alternative sources of news and information can help to overcome or bypass suppression of stories, or biased or inadequate news reports.

• Ashuri showed how citizen journalism can overcome such bias, as shown in the biased British reporting of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.

• Ashuri showed in a study of Machsom Watch - a women's organisation whose members monitor the human rights of Palestinians at checkpoints set up by the Israel Defence Forces how members of the group were able to offer an alternative view to the official one of some events at checkpoints by posting their own reports, videos and photos on their website.

• New tech has meant news is instantly available 24/7 from anywhere. -Moved away from 'tuning in to watch/listen to the news'. Twitter has become the go-to news provider for many. -News providers need to present news in an attractive way - short, snappy, engaging news – celebrity gossip for youthful audiences. -Tech has meant anyone can upload their videos/content – people record – moved away from traditional journalists. For citizen journalism:

• Shows the news from the 'front line' - not through the gloss of a studio.

• They are not constrained by a wider agenda that they may have to follow.

• Are generally not paid and are therefore more likely to be objective.

• The establishment may stop coverage of news stories that may impact them negatively (BBC – Jimmy Saville).

• This means closer monitoring of those in power – 'whistleblowers' improve the democratic process. Against citizen journalism:

• They are not professionally trained. They may produce news from a biased and subjective perspective.

• Keen: citizen journalism shows "opinion as fact, rumour as reportage and innuendo as information"

• Anyone can upload anything and this means there is no regulation, 'there is a lot of rubbish out there'.

• It means people can get their attention by producing unregulated, exaggerated pieces of news.

• They are often privileged, educated and technically savvy and they are not representative of the people.

• They are not paid and therefore more likely to be subjective.

Organisational and Bureaucratic routines:

1)Financial costs: News gathering is expensive and there have been major cuts which impact new gathering.NP readership declining – reduced revenue, making journalists redundant. TV licence (for BBC) income cut as government fund licences for over 75s. News agencies have to turn to new innovative ways of making money

AO2/3: What is the effect of this?

1. Williams – investigative journalism now is just 'digging up dirt' on famous people – being undervalued – media producers just want to grab consumers' attention.

AO3: However there are still quality investigative journalists who work for the Guardian and Private Eye who expose injustice and expose capitalism. Also, CJ helped expose these injustices (Wikileaks).

Why is investigative journalism so important? What does it do?

• Holds power to account
• Exposes wrongdoing
• Strengthens democracy
• Holds government to account
• Ensures people in power know they will be 'found out'.
• Ensures journalism is well respected.
• Franklin – 'infotainment': we are now obsessed with entertainment which has taken over information/news – it has become more tabloid/populist – blurs the distinction between real and fake – dangerous. BBC has been accused of being 'more Madonna than Mugabe'.

ITV News - accused of being too focused on celebrities and gossip – no real intelligent news.

2. Actuality and immediacy: More newsworthy if there is video footage and soundbites. People get excited about the rolling news – and breaking stories. Heightened excitement… news happening in front of our eyes. Audience: Adapted depending on the audience it is aimed at. A Guardian article will look different to a Sun article (Pluralist). Channel 5 news is short and snappy, Channel 4 is more left-wing analytical.

3)Journalistic ethics: Keeble and Mair (12) – unethical practices of some journalists. Press Complaints Commission – has guidelines but is criticised for not being strong enough - no real power to prosecute. Ofcom has some power and protects the public from harmful/offensive material. 2011 – news hacking scandal – NOTW (News Corp – RM). Hacked VM of Milly Dowler – murdered school girl. Deleted VM messages hoping to get new ones. 'Leveson' inquiry – concluded that the NP industry often encouraged this kind of practice. Recommended a new independent reg body with more power underpinned by legislation. The Government rejected most of this and set up a press watchdog. But all news agencies have refused to sign up to it.

4)Time or space available: news has to be tailored to fit either the time available for a news bulletin or the column space in a newspaper for example both the BBC's and ITN's news programmes contain on average, 15 items transmitted over a 25-30 minute period. In contrast, Channel 4 News is an hour long, which means items can be treated in more depth and detail. Similarly, a newspaper only has a fixed amount of space for each news category. Sometimes news stories are included and excluded simply according to whether they fit the time or space available.

5)The deadlines: television news, especially 24-hour satellite-based news has an advantage over newspapers because it can report news as it happens, as we did in 2001 when the World Trade Centre in New York was hit by two planes. In contrast, newspapers have deadlines (usually about 10 pm if the news is to be included in the morning edition) and consequently, they focus more on the previous day's news. This is why broadsheet newspapers' coverage of stories generally tends to be more detailed and analytical than most television news coverage.

6)The audience: pluralists would argue that the content of the news and the style in which it is presented are very much a reaction to the type of audience that is thought to be watching or the social characteristics of a newspaper reader. For example, Five News is characterised by short, snappy bulletins because it is aimed at a young audience. Tabloid newspapers such as The Sun are aimed at working-class youngish readership and use simplistic language.

Inaccurate and false reporting and creation of moral panics:

• Other sources of bias in news reporting lie in the inaccurate reporting, because important details of a story may be incorrect.

• This partly arises because of organisational pressures.

• False reporting through either completely making up stories or inventing a few details and the media;s tendency to exaggerate and dramaticised events out of all proportion to their actual significance in society, typical of much reporting of the royal family are devices used to make a story more interesting or attract audiences.

• This is particularly common in mass-circulated red-top tabloid press.

• Such false, inaccurate, exaggerated and sensationalist reporting in the media can sometimes generate a moral panic.

• This is a wave of public concern about some exaggerated or imaginary threat to society.

• Moral panics are generated around activities or social groups which are defined as threatening to society or dominant social values. A02 - Cohen's mods and rockers youth subcultures (60s)

• Moral panics show the media's power to define what is normal and what is deviant, unacceptable behaviour and to reinforce a consensus around the core values of the dominant ideology, while at the same time making money through attracting audiences.

• Moral panics usually begin when the media starts exaggerating out of proportion their real significance and the harm caused to society.

• This exaggeration, often coupled with false reporting and dubious hearsay anecdotal evidence, can create public anxiety and hostility towards a group or activity.

• In recent years moral panics have arisen around groups like asylum seekers and radicalised muslims and issues like anti-social behaviour and gun and knife culture among young people. A03:

• McRobbie and Thornton suggest that media-generated moral panics are now becoming less common - because of new media technology and constant 24/7 rolling news reporting. The Rise of Churnalism:

• The term is used to describe the trend whereby journalists are uncritically churning out articles based on second-hand news agency reports and pre-packaged material from press releases and other sources rather than digging out the news for themselves, doing further research on checking whether the facts were true or false.

• Davies (2008) found that 80% of the stories in The Times, Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph and Mail were wholly, mainly or partially constructed from second-hand material provided by news agencies and by the public relations industry.

• Only 12% were generated by reporters.

• He found that this routine recycling and second-hand material originated from wire agencies like the Press Association and public relations activity which was promoting some commercial or political interests.

Marxist critique on how the news is selected and presented:

Method of control over news selection and presentation:

1. Right-wing bias/propaganda and cultural effects:

• McChesney: "Media don't tell the truth! They make out like they are neutral and unbiased but it is another part of the ISA.

• Powerful media owners manipulate and control the filtering out and shaping of news – they employ editors who will toe the line and comply with owners' demands.
  📝Example: RM and TB relationship in regard to the Iraq War was not even featured in any of the Murdoch newspapers! He controls the content of his NPs.

• Chomsky: Mass media is largely shaped and powered by advertisers. The news output generally supports capitalism – unsurprising as media companies are profit-making businesses.

• Therefore media output is a form of propaganda that supports Conservative Neo-Liberal ideology that supports Capitalism and rejects any alternative point of view.

• McChesney: newspapers focus on big businesses and portray them as legitimate whereas the regular people are seen as unreliable.

• Bagdakian: Big bosses in business are seen as heroes and ignore the regular American struggles of ordinary people.

• Brainwashing through the media – the controlling of our minds to support capitalism – legitimises it!

• 'we are dominated by a relatively few people (…)who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind…and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world.'

• Edward Bernays (the 'father' of public relations), Propaganda, 1928

• 'The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it"

• Marx and Engels, 'The German Ideology' (1846) -We are socialised into thinking that we need goods – false needs, we feed into the economy that exploits us. We consume media and celebrate greed, competition and a 'dog-eat-dog society'.

• Normalising the unthinkable: Harper argues that 'throughout the mainstream media exploitation is accepted as a fact of life'. We are taught subliminally not to question it the systems and alternate views are devalued.

• Hegemony freezes our imaginations and facilitates the dominance of one form of 'thinking'. A02: Dianne Abbot on Question Time– treated differently to others on the panel, Conservative MPs got 'less of a grilling'. Questions were directed at her and she was vilified.

• Tory MPs get an easier ride in some media (?) -Corbyn was presented as a communist on the backdrop of Newsnight!

2. Treatment of economic allies that break HR records: Marxists also point towards international relations: the UK arguably keeps good friends with countries with poor human rights records in order to ensure they economically benefit. The media do not focus on SA beheadings or Muslim internment camps in China. Edwards and Cromwell: such crime and immoralities are not focussed on in the news as it would threaten economic relations.

3. Hierarchy of credibility/social background of media professionals: Hall (73) – Neo Mx – journalists are generally MC white males who rank the opinions of politicians and civil servants (primary definers) etc as more credible than pressure groups/trade unions etc. Media focus on what powerful people say about events rather than the event itself. Therefore minority groups are often ignored by society / portrayed negatively / threatening. Manning: less powerful groups have to tone down in order to be heard by the media (?). GUMG: it is actually the background of journalists that shapes the MM. They unconsciously support capitalism and therefore their views come through the stories. Journalists are therefore in a powerful position as they set the agenda / choose stories. The language they use is often disparaging to the TU / poor and supportive of the MC authorities. (Miners strike - Philo). Circuits of communication.John Humphreys: People like me dictate how the news is selected and presented. Our 'take' on the news will shape your views….Whether this is conscious (manipulative) or subconscious (hegemonic) the outcome is the same, we legitimise capitalism and exploitation.

4. Advertising: Advertisers are the income providers for media and therefore hold power/influence. Therefore they will only advertise where they will reach audiences. The news will avoid offending companies that advertise their product. This leads to conservatism in media and avoiding criticism. Real critical reporting is dumbed down and replaced with celebrity candy floss so that big MNCs are not criticised (otherwise they will pull their ad funding!)

5. Blaming the victims: Harper 2013 - Here, Harper considers the media positioning of immigrants, asylum seekers, social security claimants, the disabled and the young as not the victims but the authors of their own circumstances. They and they alone are to blame.

"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." - Malcolm X. Strikes - Example: explicit media distortion was exposed by the GUMG (Philo) When reporting clashes at the Orgreave coal plant in Yorkshire - 1985 miners' strike, the Group discovered that editors at BBC 9pm news had systematically altered the chronology of the day's events. Instead of reporting on unprovoked police violence, including charging into crowds of miners on horseback, the BBC turned its footage upside down to present the appearance of violent trade unionists attacking police.

6. Humanitarian wars: In 'The War You Don't See,' (2010), journalist Pilger considers how war has been reported by the media since 1914.'Atrocities are not an aberration' he argues. From Afghanistan to Iraq, the media, while permitting a brief platform to minority voices, nonetheless performs its 'patriotic' duty in reporting favourably from any war zone involving UK troops. Language is distorted – 'friendly fire,' 'collateral damage,' the 'war on terror,' and the dehumanisation of 'enemy combatants' and civilian populations.

7. Greenwashing: Harper considers how the media report climate change. What Harper points out is that whatever your answer, similar to critiques of unemployment which may appear 'liberal' and concerned in editorial content, in fact, the fundamental structural causes of environmental degradation are seldom if ever scrutinised. Discussions are constrained within the capitalist paradigm. Green capitalism can solve the crisis! Becoming a 'green consumer' diverts our concerns towards individual, rather than collective and structural solutions. Diverts our attention away from MNCs that are doing all the polluting!

8. The myth of liberal media:

Harper: Criticism for the liberal media. By providing cover for capitalism's worst excesses, they play a crucial role in its maintenance he argues. We think the media is liberal and progressive but actually it is biased and RW and devalues protest movements and any differing voice. We vilify people who appear to be radical who are in fact not so different to the government – Nick Griffin on QT below

-Harper points out that the panellists on the programme, while attempting to position themselves far outside the orbit of the BNP, have in fact long accepted a consensus of language hostile to immigration and asylum seekers.