News values

News values are the specific criteria that influence how events are selected and presented as published news. These values help explain the concept of "newsworthiness," which is why certain stories reach the public while others do not. Journalists use these values to decide which events deserve widespread coverage and how to present them to viewers.

By applying these guidelines, newsrooms can manage the massive amount of information occurring globally. Understanding these values provides a framework for seeing how news is constructed.

To understand how news reaches a reader, one must look at the "chain of news communication." This process begins with selection, where journalists pick events that satisfy specific news factors. The more factors an event meets, the higher its probability of being selected. This is known as the additivity hypothesis. Once an event is selected, the next step is distortion. This involves accentuating or emphasizing certain newsworthy factors to make the story stand out. Finally, there is replication, where the processes of selection and distortion are repeated at every step from the original event to the final reader.

Scholars have identified several distinct categories of news values. Some values relate to the actors and events themselves. For example, negativity suggests that bad news is often more newsworthy than good news. Conflict involves opposition between people or forces that creates a dramatic effect. Eliteness refers to stories involving famous, powerful, or influential people and nations. Proximity, or familiarity, means the event is geographically or culturally close to the audience. Other event-based values include timeliness, unexpectedness, and superlativeness, which refers to events with a large scale or high intensity.

Other values relate to the internal processes of the newsroom. Continuity occurs when a story already in the news gathers inertia because media organizations are already reporting it. Composition involves stories competing for limited space, such as page real estate in a newspaper. Competition happens when media outlets follow the lead of their rivals. Co-option occurs when a marginal story is covered because it relates to a major ongoing story. Even prefabrication plays a role, where a ready-made story is chosen over a more important one that requires more research.

The study of news values began in earnest with Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge. In their seminal 1965 study, they identified twelve factors that contribute to newsworthiness. They tested their theory by analyzing international news in Norwegian newspapers during the Congo and Cuban crisis of July 1960. They also studied the Cyprus crisis of March and April 1964. Their findings showed that stories involving conflict or major figures were more likely to be published. This suggested a degree of universality in how editors select news across different outlets.

In 2001, researchers Tony Harcup and Deirdre O'Neill updated this work by studying the British press. They conducted a content analysis of three major national newspapers in the UK. Their findings showed notable shifts in news priorities over forty years. They noted the rise of celebrity news and found that "good news" had become a significant value. They also observed the influence of a newspaper's own specific agenda. This research helped create a contemporary set of news values that reflected a changing media landscape.

Modern developments in digital technology have further altered these traditional values. In a rapidly evolving market, media outlets must maintain market share by giving audiences the news they find interesting. This has led to an increased focus on shareability and immediacy. Harcup and O'Neill (2017) noted that digital metrics, such as the likelihood of generating clicks, now influence reporting. While traditional values like conflict remain important, they now interact with digital trends. The rise of interactive media and citizen journalism is even changing the traditional distinction between news producers and the audience.

Researchers approach the study of news values from four different perspectives. The material perspective focuses on the actual reality of events. The cognitive perspective examines people's beliefs and value systems. The social perspective looks at actual journalistic practices. Finally, the discursive perspective examines how news values are constructed through words and images. This is often called "discursive news values analysis" or DNVA. This approach uses linguistics and social semiotics to study how the "distortion" step in the communication chain actually works in published stories.