Journal articles on the topic 'Newsworthiness criteria'

Science communication in online media is a discursive domain where science-related content is often expressed through styles characteristic of popular journalism. This article aims to characterize some dominant stylistic patterns in magazine articles devoted to environmental issues by identifying the devices used to enhance newsworthiness, given the fact that for some readers environmental topics may no longer seem engaging. The analytic perspective is an adaptation of the newsworthiness framework that has been applied in news discourse studies. The material is a sample of the 38 most-read environment-oriented articles in the online version of the international science magazine New Scientist collected between late 2013 and late 2014. The articles are analysed qualitatively to show the instantiations of such newsworthiness criteria as novelty and superlativeness, timeliness and impact, negativity and positivity as well as other strategies aimed at engaging the readers: rationalization and speculation, direct address and conversational style. The analysis reveals how, in this case study, science communication is turned into infotainment and considers the implications of this discursive shift for the public understanding of environmental science.

This article consists of a reflection on the citizenship regarding means of communication, more specifically television. It is based on the principle that the viewer’s participation in television news program content should be configured as a right and, therefore, a citizenship guarantee. The study shows how journalists can be involved in the practice of citizenship, basing on the newsworthiness criteria that shape these professionals’ routines in the production process of news that is conveyed in telejournalism. The object of this research is the news frame “Quero ver na TV” (“I want to see on TV”), created by Anhanguera Television, affiliated with Rede Globo, to be aninteractivity channel among viewers and journalists.

Social media have become one of the most important news delivery channels due to their interactivity and large audiences. The content published by news organizations on social networking sites is of particular value to sociologists, because it allows measurement of users’ attitude to certain events. However, we understand that the media choose which events become news in accordance with certain criteria, such as news values. In this study, we decided to examine how news values determine the public’s response as expressed by likes, reposts, and comments. To analyze the characteristics of different media and their audiences, we selected four popular newsgroups on the social networking site Vkontakte: TASS and Russia Today, representing the state media, alongside RBC and Meduza, representing the private media. The posts of the selected newsgroups were coded and analyzed by means of Harcup and O’Neill taxonomy of values (2016). The study showed that news organizations tend to have preferences for some news values rather than others. Regression analysis revealed positive relationships between 1) the sharing of likes and good and entertaining content, 2) the sharing of comments and the presence of celebrities or conflicts in news, 3) the sharing of reposts and comments and significant events. An unexpected discovery was a negative dependency between the number of comments and the presence of exclusive content.

This Frontline article documents and analyses the process of creating a piece of journalism about an Indigenous-run legal bid in the Solomon Islands to challenge potentially corrupt government logging approvals. It also documents the responses of 12 editors to whom the piece was presented to, including the reasons, in terms of standard newsworthiness criterion, that some of them gave for not running the article. This process illustrates how the criteria exclude coverage of some international issues. According to lawyers working on it, this case could set important legal precedents that change the way companies deal with both the government and traditional land owners in the Solomon Islands. Spreading its relevance to other places, the story, when told at length, differs from and therefore challenges stereotypical narratives about PacificIslanders. In doing so, it contributes to a process called ‘social bridging’ described by Ward (2010) as being an aim of ethical journalistic practice. The writing and publication process are analysed with reference to Foucault’s (1972) model of discourse and enunciative modalities.Pictured: Figure 1: ‘Cloud forest’: Mt Rano from the crater rim near Mt Veve on Kolombangara Island. Image: Andrew Cox/Pacific Scoop

Photojournalism contests have been criticized for continually awarding top prizes in hard news categories to images that depict conflict, disaster, poverty, and other problems. Pictures like these, which have a social issues visual frame, usually focus on people from countries other than the United States and on minorities. Some photojournalism contests, like Pictures of the Year International (POYi), include a features category. Traditionally, the purpose of feature photographs is to celebrate the human condition; however, in recent years of the POYi contest the features category has been dominated by images that stress hardship. To investigate whether this represents an increasing trend in POYi of awarding prizes to pictures that focus on social issues, a content analysis of the winning photographs from the past 20 years was conducted. Understanding whether the feature category in Pictures of the Year International has evolved is important because when it comes to shaping discourses about social issues, national identities, ethnicity, and race, feature photos have the potential for emphasizing commonality. If the newsworthiness of feature photos starts to become tied to similar criteria as hard news photos, that potential will be diminished.

While existing work explains how journalists use news values to select some stories over others, we know little about how stories that meet newsworthiness criteria are prioritized. Once stories are deemed newsworthy, how do journalists calculate their relative utility? Such an ordering of preferences is important as higher ranked stories receive more media attention. To better understand how stories are ordered once they are selected, we propose a model for rational journalistic preferences which describes how journalists rank stories by making cost-benefit analyses. When faced with competing newsworthy stories, such as in an election context, the model can generate expectations regarding news coverage patterns. To illustrate model utility, we draw on a unique case – the US 2016 presidential election – to explain how reporters order newsworthy stories (e.g. scandal and the horse race) by observing changes in the volume. Our content data captures coverage featuring Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on major broadcast and cable networks over 31 weeks. We find that the rational journalistic preference model explains the imbalance of scandal coverage between the two candidates and the dominance of horse race coverage. In 2016, such preferences may have inadvertently contributed to a balance of news stories that favored Trump.

RESUMO Este artigo tem como objetivo atualizar os critérios de noticiabilidade usando como referencial as manifestações sociais que ocorreram em diversas cidades do Brasil em junho de 2013. Num primeiro momento é feita a revisão teórica de pesquisas focadas no modelo broadcasting de comunicação, dos primeiros estudos na década de 1960 ao newsmaking da década de 1970. Em seguida, debate-se a cultura da participação e do compartilhamento no início do século XXI. Finalmente, são propostos três novos valores-notícia consoantes ao atual cenário de mídia móvel e ubíqua: hashtag, redundância e participação.Palavras-chave: Critérios de noticiabilidade; Valor-notícia; Manifestações sociais; Dispositivos móveis; Jornalismo.ABSTRACT This paper aims to update newsworthiness criteria using as referential the social demonstrations that took place in several cities in Brazil in June 2013. It firstly reviews theoretical approaches focused on a broadcasting communication model, from the first studies in the 1960s to the newsmaking in the 1970s. Then, the participation and sharing culture of the early twenty-first century is discussed. Finally, it proposes three news-value definitions consonant with the contemporary scenario of ubiquity and mobile media: hashtag, redundancy and participation.Keywords: Newsworthiness criteria; News value; Social demonstrations; Mobile devices; Journalism.

Drawing upon the newsworthiness model that posits that media outlets rely on criteria (news values) to determine which stories are newsworthy and deserve prominence and the media coverage predicts audience attention to the event, this study examines the news values that lead social media users to like, comment on, and share mainstream news stories on Facebook. A content analysis of 2480 articles from three major news newspapers in South Korea ( Chosun, Hankook and Hankyoreh) found that news stories of higher social significance are more common than news stories of higher deviance on the Facebook pages of the three news outlets. Although audiences comment on news stories of higher social significance more frequently than stories of higher deviance, they hit more ‘likes’ on news stories of higher deviance. The results are mixed for sharing – for the conservative Chosun’s Facebook page, stories of higher deviance were more often shared than stories of higher social significance, while the opposite pattern occurred with the moderate Hankook and liberal Hankyoreh.

AbstractDrawing on selected approaches from pragmatics, functional linguistics, discourse space theories and evaluation theories, this article proposes a methodological framework for the study of science journalism. It presents the institutional context of science journalism, which is considered a hybrid discourse, as it combines features of science communication and of market-driven journalism, particularly the need for the coverage to meet the criteria of newsworthiness. To enable the study of how science journalists tend to engage the readers linguistically without foregoing the appearances of credibility, the article demonstrates the analytic potential of such pragmalinguistic categories as illocutionary force, reference and positioning, agency and stance, proximization and alignment, as well as emotivity and evaluation. Finally, the article illustrates the applicability of the above categories in a qualitative analysis of a special corpus of “most-read” medicine and biotechnology reports published in the online version of the popular international science magazine New Scientist. The analysis shows how to combine these categories in a productive way in order to develop a methodologically viable and theoretically grounded approach to doing (critical) discourse analysis of science journalism.

Whereas social movement–media relations were, in the era of mass media, a dialogic relationship of mutual, albeit asymmetric, dependency between news makers and social movement organizations, the hybridization of the media system has complicated matters considerably. The dialogic tensions that drove organizations’ access to the political information environment have been supplanted by new tensions—tensions that have transformed organizations’ media work routines. Organizations must now manage tensions over the temporality of issue emergence, tensions between identity and policy knowledge as sources of expertise, tensions between emotional charge and informational novelty as criteria of newsworthiness for journalists, and tensions between policy demands and media demands in the formation of communications strategy. And these new tensions demand new work practices oriented toward addressing multiple audiences concurrently and via multiple media streams. Because the discourses of social media influence the press to such an extent, the successful management of press discourse requires both direct influence via routine media work targeting journalists and indirect influence via steering digital media discourse—the combination of which presents significant resource costs to movement organizations. This article draws on an ethnographic case study of media work in the U.S. transgender rights movement to extend theorizations of movement–media relations to account for the structuring influence of the hybrid media system, illustrating these news tensions in the context of the panic over transgender passport policy that erupted in the summer of 2018.

Na sociedade industrial, os mass media produzem, excluem e transformam aspectos da realidade. Os critérios de noticiabilidade dos jornais se pautam pelo sensacionalismo, dando destaque a fatos impactuais e extraordinários, que provoquem reações imediatas nos receptores. A fragmentação e descontextualização são características da produção da notícia, enquanto mercadoria. A educação não se prende ao factual e, por isto, não adquire status de notícia e deixa de ser potencialmente problematizada. Isto ficou evidente na tramitação da LDB e na publicação de notícias sobre educação nos jornais Folha de S. Paulo e O Estado de S. Paulo, durante o impeachment do governo Collor de Mello. Abstract In industrial society, the mass media produce, exclude and modify aspects of reality. The criteria of newsworthiness used by newspapers are aligned with sensationalism, emphasizing facts that are shocking or extraordinary and which cause immediate reactions in readers. The production of news as merchandise is characterized by fragmentation and decontextualization. Education does not limit its action to the factual and, for this reason, does not acquire the status of news and is not questioned. This is evidenced by the news published in the newspapers "Folha de S. Paulo " and "O Estado de S. Paulo " with regard to the LDB (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação —general law regulating education in Brazil) which was being discussed and voted by the National Congress during the impeachment of Collor de Mello, president at that time. Résumé Dans la société industrielle, les mass media produisent, excluent et transforment des aspects de la réalité. Le principal critère de sélection des nouvelles par la presse est leur potenciel de causer des sensations, de produire de l'impact, de provocquer des réactions immédiates dans les récepteurs. La fragmentation et la descontextualisation sont les caractéristiques de la production de la nouvelle en tant que marchandise. L'éducation ne se prend pas au factuel et, de ce fait, elle n 'acquiert pas le status de nouvelle, c'est-à-dire, elle laisse d'être potenciallement problematisée. Ceci s'est rendu évident pendant le processus de discussion de la LDB (Loi de l'Education National) e au Congrès Nationale et dans la publication de nouvelles au sujet de l'éducation dans les journaux Folha de S. Paulo et O Estado de S. Paulo, pendant le processus de l'impeachment du président Collor de Mello. Resumen En la sociedad industrial, los mass media producen, excluyen y transforman aspectos de la realidad. Los criterios de noticiabilidade en los periódicos se pautan por el sensacionalismo, dando destaque a acontecimientos extraordinarios y de impacto que provoquen reacciones inmediatas en los receptores. La fragmentación de la producción de la noticia como mercancía. La educación no está fijada a lo factual y por eso no adquiere status de noticia y deja de ser potencialmente problematizada. Esto quedó evidente en los trámites de la LDB (Lei de Diretrizes e Bases) y en la publicación de noticias sobre educación en los periódicos "Folha de S. Paulo "y "O Estado de S. Paulo " durante el impeachment del gobierno Collor de Mello.

To judge the quality of the media coverage of health information, research mostly focuses on ten criteria: adequately discussion of costs, quantification of benefits, adequately explanation and quantification of potential harms, comparison of the new idea with existing alternatives, independence of sources and discussion of potential conflicts of interests, avoidance of disease mongering, review of methodology or the quality of the evidence, discussion of the true novelty and availability of the idea, approach or product as well as giving information that go beyond a news release (Schwitzer, 2008, 2014; Smith et al., 2005). Other quality dimensions applied in content analyses of health news coverage are diversity, completeness, relevance, understandability and objectiveness (Reineck, 2014; Reineck & Hölig, 2013). These criteria are increasingly relevant as people use online health information more frequently and in addition to the information from their physician for medical decision making (Wang, Xiu, & Shahzad, 2019). Thus, analyzing the quality of health content in the media coverage becomes even more relevant. As Schwitzer (2017) points out, there is a variety of quality problems due to hurried, incomplete, poorly researched news. To measure quality, the content of health news coverage can be compared to content of the original research paper (e.g., Ashorkhani et al., 2012) or the quality of media content is continuously judged by journalist, medical experts or independent organizations such as HealthNewsReview with respect to different criteria (e.g., Schwitzer, 2008; Selvaraj et al., 2014). Field of application/theoretical foundation: Online health information, medical decision making, journalism studies References/combination with other methods: Focus group discussions with journalists, editors-in-chief and news gatekeepers (Ashorkhani et al., 2012), focus group discussions with consumers of health information (Marshall & Williams, 2006) Example studies: Anhäuser & Wormer (2012); Schwitzer (2008); Wormer (2014); Reineck & Hölig (2013); Reineck (2014) Information on Reineck & Hölig, 2013 Authors: Dennis Reineck, Sascha Hölig Research question: Which factors contribute to the quality of health journalism? Object of analysis: Sample of all health-related articles in four German newspapers: Süddeutsche Zeitung (n = 167), Die Welt (n = 426), Frankfurter Rundschau (n = 219) and die tageszeitung (n = 84) Time frame of analysis: March, 1, 2010 to February, 28, 2011 Info about variables Variables: Variables defining five dimensions of quality for health-related newspaper articles, deduction of a quality index: coding of 0 to 100 points for each indicator of the different variables, deduction of a quality index for each article based on these points Level of analysis: news article Quality dimension Variable Indicator(s) Diversity (rH= 0.78) Quantitative diversity Length of the article Source diversity Number of sources Opinion diversity Discussion of contrary opinions Completeness (rH= 0.86) Journalistic completeness and scientific completeness, risks For diseases: information about prevention, symptoms and remedies Scientific completeness For research studies: information about method, sample and results Risks For treatment options: addressing of risks and side effects Relevance (rH= 0.85) Source credibility Sources with the highest reputation Usefulness Take-home-messages, references to additional information Newsworthiness News factors (e.g., topicality) Understandability (rH= 0.86) Simplicity Simplicity vs. complexity of language Structure Well-structured vs. inadequately structured presentation Conciseness Concise vs. circuitous presentation Storytelling Storytelling vs. matter-of-fact presentation Objectiveness (rH= 0.95) Emotionalization Emotional language Dramatization Dramatization of information References Anhäuser, M., & Wormer, H. (2012). A question of quality: Criteria for the evaluation of science and medical reporting and testing their applicability. PCST 2012 Book of Papers: Quality, Honesty and Beauty in Science and Technology Communication. http://www.medien-doktor.de/medizin/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/downloads/2014/04/Paper-Florenz.pdf Ashorkhani, M., Gholami, J., Maleki, K., Nedjat, S., Mortazavi, J., & Majdzadeh, R. (2012). Quality of health news disseminated in the print media in developing countries: A case study in Iran. BMC Public Health, 12, 627. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-627 Marshall, L. A., & Williams, D. (2006). Health information: does quality count for the consumer? Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 38(3), 141–156. https://doi.org/10.1177/0961000606066575 Reineck, D. (2014). Placebo oder Aufklärung mit Wirkpotenzial? Eine Diagnose der Qualität der Gesundheitsberichterstattung in überregionalen Tageszeitungen. In V. Lilienthal (Ed.), Qualität im Gesundheitsjournalismus: Perspektiven aus Wissenschaft und Praxis (Vol. 325, pp. 39–60). Springer VS. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-02427-7_3 Reineck, D., & Hölig, S. (2013). Patient Gesundheitsjournalismus: Eine inhaltsanalytische Untersuchung der Qualität in überregionalen Tageszeitungen. In C. Rossmann & M. R. Hastall (Eds.), Medien + Gesundheit: Band 6. Medien und Gesundheitskommunikation: Befunde, Entwicklungen, Herausforderungen (1st ed., pp. 19–31). Nomos. Schwitzer, G. (2008). How do US journalists cover treatments, tests, products, and procedures? An evaluation of 500 stories. PLoS Medicine, 5(5), e95. Schwitzer, G. (2014). A guide to reading health care news stories. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(7), 1183–1186. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.1359 Schwitzer, G. (2017). Pollution of health news. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.), 356, j1262. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.j1262 Selvaraj, S., Borkar, D. S., & Prasad, V. (2014). Media coverage of medical journals: Do the best articles make the news? PloS One, 9(1), e85355. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0085355 Smith, D. E., Wilson, A. J., & Henry, D. A. (2005). Monitoring the quality of medical news reporting: Early experience with media doctor. The Medical Journal of Australia, 183(4), 190–193.