Practical constraints on selecting news stories: Time, money, technical issues i.e. access, competition i.e. 'will this story be better than our competitors story.
New Values: - Bureaucratic (current, simple, brief - big news is better than small news) - Cultural (unexpected, focus on important people, relevant - bad news is preferred to good news) Agenda-setting: Journalists and editors select which stories to publish. News only becomes news when they choose to go with that story. The angle that they take on the story will have an effect on how the audience perceives the story. Gate-keeping: Gans (1979), describes how the editor decides how much space is given to each story and what 'features'. I.e. the editor opens or closes the gate to stories. |
key termsNews values
Agenda-setting Gate-keeping |
Teaching ideasStarter: Ask class to discuss the what they think about the various front pages (above), and why they think those stories have been selected.
Presentation of information. 'Gate-keeper activity': Split the class into groups of 3-4. Each group gets 12 news stories and a template newspaper front page. The groups then have to discuss and decide which 5 out of the 12 stories gets published, and how much space each story gets. The groups must justify why they have chosen what they have. |