Annotated Bibliography

Schudson, M. (2000). The Sociology of News Production Revisited (Again). (J. Curran & M. Gurevitch, Eds.) Mass Media and Society, 3, 175 – 200.

The author, Michael Schudson, has written a revision of his article The Sociology of News Production Revisited, to discuss more current thoughts on the mechanisms and manufacturing of news. Schudson notes three perspectives on news making that are traditionally used by sociologists. The first intertwines news and the political and economic process, while the second focuses on how journalism is affected by the structure of reporting. The third approach studies how cultural traditions and structures constrain journalistic practices. Schudson then goes on to critically analyse each approach, within a framework of global news processes. The author examines different journalistic and news values, finding common practices in the production of news and its political implications across the globe. He also notes a shift in reporting styles, from a traditional, detached form of reporting to one that is more informal, critical and intimate. Schudson makes extensive use of other researchers’ publications, using them as reference points for his own article, increasing both his credibility and access to global news phenomenon. He is known and respected in his field for his numerous works on media, journalism, and news, with nearly a dozen books published and over 100 journal articles. These works have contributed greatly to the formation of The Sociology of News Production Revisited (Again).  

Government to release media regulation inquiry. (2012, March 2). ABC News. Retrieved May 14, 2012, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-02/government-to-release-media-regulation-inquiry/3863666

The article, posted online by the ABC, an established, government-subsidised media organisation, details an inquiry the Federal Government proposes to release to examine the effectiveness of media regulation. The article then expands on the topic, explaining the reasoning behind the sudden decision to implement a regulatory inquiry. The inquiry will examine whether more stringent disclosure rules should be put in place in Australian media, following the News of the World scandal, and whether there should be a ban on the gathering of information through unethical means. This includes an examination on what body or group would have the power to implement penalties if a media outlet or organisation transgresses these news codes of conduct. This article is relevant in that the new regulations may dramatically impact methods of news production (like those suggested by Schudson) as unethical news-gathering methods, such as those previously employed by News of the World, would have to be immediately declared. Traditionally, internet content is not considered as trust-worthy as traditional news media. However the authors of the text, ABC News, are known for being trustworthy and impartial in their recounting of news, giving this article credibility and authority.

Grimm, N. (2011, November 11). A quick guide to the phone hacking scandal. ABC News 24. Retrieved May 14, 2012, from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-10/quick-guide-to-phone-hacking-scandal/3657216

The presenter, Nick Grimm, a reporter for ABC News 24, explains the origins of the News of the World hacking scandal, in light of the recent investigation conducted by the British police. He details its beginning, leading up to the present day, including the arrests of journalists and private investigators in 2005 and 2006, and the breaking of the scandal to the public in 2009, when competing British newspaper The Guardian, alleged that thousands of phones had been hacked into by News of the World. He continues, relating the events of 2010, when former employees of News of the World stated that phone hacking and other illegal techniques had been regularly employed, and the questioning of Rupoert and James Murdoch by law makers in 2011. Unlike other articles published, this report lists the history of the affair, instead of detailing new occurrences. While this style of reporting may not provide the in depth analysis of events such as in news papers, it is useful in that it gives the viewer the history of the affair, meaning they have the best possible understanding of events as they occur. As News 24 operates under the umbrella of the ABC, it is an extremely trustworthy news source.

Taylor, D. (2012, May 10). News Corp’s result a box office hit. PM. Retrieved May 14, 2012, from http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3500190.htm

The report, presented by David Taylor, an experienced reporter with ABC Radio, details the findings of the British parliament’s committee, which said that Mr Murdoch displayed “wilful blindness” towards the illegal activities, and that he should step down from his role as CEO of News Limited. However the main focus of the report is a discussion of News Corp’s finances: despite the recent litigation and criminal charges, and the closure of News of the World, News Corp has increased earnings in this latest quarter by several billion dollars. This result is thought to be driven by increased cable television audiences. Taylor discusses the news with fund manager Roger Montgomery, who describes newspapers as a diminishing business that must move to an online model to continue forward. This report is reliable as the reporter is affiliated with the ABC, a well-known impartial media organisation, and their interviewee is an independent funds manager, thus unaffiliated with News Corp or any other interested parties. This means the commentary provided is accurate and unbiased, making it relevant information for interested audiences. The style of this story is similar to other News of the World stories released by television stations, perhaps because the mediums utilise similar story-telling methods.

2012 Air and Land Spectacular

 
As always, it was heaps of fun; everyone was really friendly and the re-enactments were as spectacular as promised in the title.

How the Media Constructs Reality

An individual’s conception of reality is socially constructed through a process of communication using shared language.

Reality exists, but the way we come to know it, talk about it, understand it, is mediated through social life.

The media play a large role in constructing or mediating the social world as we understand it. Within this process, what is journalism’s role in constructing public opinion, what agenda do they have with which they inform the public?

“Agenda setting is the process of the mass media presenting certain issues frequently and prominently with the result that large segments of the public come to perceive those issues as more important than others. Simply put, the more coverage an issue receives, the more important it is to people.” (Coleman, McCombs, Shaw, Weaver, 2008)

Whose agenda? The four players.

The Four Players.
This may not be appropriate, but the only other picture I could find had nazis, so don't complain.

I was taught there were three agendas: the public, the media and the policy makers (generally the government). Although this is in my Politics and the Media course, so it would make sense to only discuss agenda setting in terms of the key players I guess?

According to Bruce, the four agendas are

1. Public Agenda – the set of topics that members of the public perceive as important

2. Policy Agenda – issues that decision makers think are salient

3. Corporate Agenda – issues that big business and corporations consider important

4. Media Agenda – issues discussed in the media

Note that these four agendas are all interrelated. And they all affect each other, it’s not a case of the one effects the other, effects the other, etc.

The Two Assumptions of This Theory

1. That the media do not merely reflect and report reality, they filter and shape it

2. Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as more important than other issues.

A Short History of Agenda Setting

There were theories developed before the concept of ‘agenda setting’, which Bruce discusses, such as the ‘Hypodermic Needle’ – mass media ‘injects’ direct influence into the audience, which was eventually discredited, because it assumed too much agency upon the media. But I’m going to focus on the development of agenda setting as an established theory. Also I’ve written about this previously so this is a copy/paste kthnksbye

The concept of ‘agenda setting’ was first established in the early 20^th Century, by Walter Lippmann. In his book, Lippmann argued that “mass media are the principal connection between events in the world and the images of these events in the citizens' minds”. Basically, the media sets the public agenda – what it displays as important, the public comes to think of as important.

From this early beginning, the concept of agenda setting – through the media, for the public - grew, until the 70’s, where it was ‘properly’ formalised in papers published by McCombs and Shaw. McCombs himself was not only influenced by Lippmann, but also by Bernard Cohen, who in the 60’s stated that “the press may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about”. This encouraged McCombs to collaborate with Shaw in writing The Emergence of American Political Issues: The Agenda-setting Function of the Press. This work achieved much acclaim and helped spark an interest in the agenda setting abilities of the media amongst their peers.

Nearly ten years later, in 1988, Rogers and Dearing theorised that agenda setting is a process with three elements. “News media identify and give prominence to important issues, constructing a 'media agenda'.   News coverage and priorities influence the way the public thinks. In turn the ''public agenda' influences the priorities and thinking of policymakers or the 'policy agenda'”.

Layers and layers of theory

mmmm, layers...

- First Level Agenda Setting Theory: Framing

At this level the media suggests what the public should focus on through coverage, ie: it’s about what they show

- Second Level Agenda Setting Theory: Priming

It’s about how they present the issue or topic, affecting how people think about

Note: Major media players can set the agenda within the industry (affecting what other stations portray as newsworthy)

Why Set the Agenda

Bruce says it’s because they can.

However I think that assumes insidious behavior on the part of the media, and I have a couple thoughts on the issue I’d like to ramble through, if you’ll bear with me…

Firstly, you need to remember that (except in exceptional cases like Fox News) a lot of the selection of news by editors, etc, is subconscious. It may be because of their unacknowledged biases towards certain situations or people, or it may be because their set of news values is stuck in the 1980’s, but not all agenda setting is intentional.

Also, as I’ve already touched on, the media covers the same stories. Even if a station doesn’t like a certain story, if every other station in the district is covering it they won’t want to be left out. Thus, they help set the agenda, even if they don’t want to.

Thirdly, in its current incarnation, the media’s purpose is to present news. To do this, they have to decide from the outset exactly what is news worthy. Again, they are creating a media agenda, but not necessarily for the nefarious purposes that such a phrase conjures up.

McCombs said it much more eloquently in 2004 when he stated

“Agenda setting is not always the diabolical plan by journalists to control the minds of the public, but ‘an inadvertent by-product of the necessity to focus’ the news”.

Keeping it in the family

This family, to be precise.

1. Media Gatekeeping

- How individuals control the flow of messages through a communication channel

- What the media chooses to reveal to the public: an issue’s exposure

2. Media Advocacy

- The purposive promotion of a message through the media

3. Agenda Cutting

- Most events and issues aren’t represented in the media

- The example Bruce uses is that Justin Bieber’s new haircut garnered more media attention and scrutiny than people dying of AIDS do

- Because AIDS isn’t represented, it’s cared about less, meaning the media won’t represent it as much, creating a vicious cycle

4. Agenda Surfing

- The media follows ‘the crowd’ and trends

- The media ‘surfs’ (hence the hilarious name) the wave of topic originally mention in the opinion-leading media

- This is an example of the public influencing the media

5. The Diffusion of News

- The process through which an important event is communicated to the public

6. Portrayal of an Issue

- Framing the issue – how you talk about the issue, what aspect of the issue you cover

- The way an issue is portrayed will influence how it is perceived by the public

7. Media Dependence

- The more dependent a person is on the media for information, the more susceptible that person is to media agenda setting

- Media includes Facebook and Twitter. How often do you need to check Facebook?

Strengths of this theory

Presented without comment.

- It has explanatory power because it explains why most people prioritise the same issues as important

- It has predictive power because it predicts that if people are exposed to the same media, they will feel the same issues are important

- It has organising power because it helps organise existing knowledge of media effects

- It can be proven false. If people aren’t exposed to the same media, they won’t feel the same issues are important

- Its meta-theoretical assumptions are balanced on the scientific side

- It lays groundwork for further research

Weaknesses of this theory

- Media users may not be as ideal as the theory assumes. People may not be well-informed, deeply engaged in public affairs, thoughtful and sceptical. Instead, they pay casual and intermittent attention to public affairs, often ignorant of the details

- For people who have already made up their minds, the effect of media agenda setting is weakened

- News cannot create problems, they can merely altar awareness, priorities and salience. Although in my opinion they can conceal them: how many people know about what pharmaceutical giant Novartis is doing regarding the challenging of patent laws in India that could shorten millions of people’s lives, as it means they won’t be able to buy life-saving medicine? Because the media hasn’t covered it.

I will stop now, as this post is long enough. Thank you and good night!

All the Notes That Are Appropriate to Print

I’m sure the speedy turn over of my lecture notes is legendary by now.

News Values

The concept of ‘news values’ refers to the degree of prominence the media gives to a story or event. News values also refers to the attention the public gives a story, most probably as an affect of this publicity.

Even 40 years ago people were struggling to define news values and the undefinable ‘news sense’ that journalists miraculously possess. Stuart Hall writes

“All true journalists are supposed to possess (news values)…Journalists speak of ‘the news’ as if events select themselves. Further, they speak as if which is the ‘most significant news story, and which ‘news angles are most salient are divinely inspired….”

If, as Hall suggests, news is rather ephemeral, and the knowledge of which story will be on the front page does arrive out of the blue, it makes sense that journalists have certain routines and methods, certain ‘values’ they implement and follow, to ensure they gather ‘all the news that’s fit to print’.

But I may be getting off topic here.

News journalism has a set of broadly agreed set of  values, often referred to as ‘newsworthiness’…

News Values

1. Impact

·      News is anything that makes a reader say ‘gee wiz!’

2. Audience Identification

·      news is anything that’s interesting, relates to what’s happening in the world, what’s happening in areas of the culture that would be of interest to your audience.

3. Pragmatics

·      ethics – facticity – practice/practical – current affairs – everyday (24/7 news)

4. Source Influence

·      Journalists love to hate PR… whether for spinning, controlling access, approving copy, or protecting clients at the expense of the truth.

Some Thoughts:

- Are news values that same across different news services?

- Are news values the same across different countries/cultures?

No – they vary across different news service and different cultures/countries.

“A sense of news values is the first quality of editors – they are the human sieves of the torrent of news, even more important even than an ability to write or a command of language” – Harold Evans 2000

Then I could showcase the 33 different/same news values theorists who’ve never worked in the field pontificate on, but I’d rather get to the meat of the lecture.

Suffice to say the main news values we were told about were

- Significance

- Proximity

- Conflict

- Human Interest

- Novelty

- Prominence

But apparently there are concerns about the tackiness of some of these news values or something?

 “Media mergers are rapidly creating one huge news cartel … controlling most of what you see, hear or read. These mergers further corrupt the news process… news organisations cut down on serious coverage…”

This is exactly what I imagine when I hear the phrase 'media cartel'.

Some of the reasons people think journalism is crappytacky is because of:

- Lazy, incompetent journalism

- PR influence

- Tabloidization, hyper-commercialisation

“All of which leads to an unfortunate trend… in which pressures of the news room (or according to some, laziness or inadequately trained journalists) result in everyday reuse of press releases without re-writing, checking or analysis” – McKinnon

Harsh Realties?

-Journalistic practice is infected with PR

- Raid news cycles and commercial production makes journalism thin, incomplete, untrustworthy, irresponsible.

- Media mergers create news cartels that corrupt the news process, reduce serious coverage and limit the diversity of news

The consuming masses.

And then rebellion from the cattleconsuming masses:

“The people formerly known as the audience wish to inform media people of our existence, and of a shift in power that goes with the platform shift you’ve all heard about…

You don’t own the eyeballs. You don’t own the press, which is now divided into pro and amateur zones. You don’t control production on the new platform, which isn’t one-way. There’s a new balance of power between you and us. The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, less predictably. You should welcome that, media people. But whether you do or not we want you to now we’re here.”