Master’s Thesis
Why is this news?
A qualitative approach towards the audience’s
perspec-tive on the news value theory
University of Amsterdam Graduate School of Communication Master’s programme Communication Science
Author: Felix Biermayer (11846283) Supervisor: Dr. Lukas P. Otto Word Count: 8069 01.02.19
Abstract
Why do certain events become news while others do not? This phenomenon is explained by the news value theory. The news value theory is widely used and researched in communication science. But the latest contribution to it by Harcup and O’Neill (2017) has the same flaw as earlier concepts. They exclude the audience’s perspective on the news values. Thus, for this research four focus groups were conducted with 19 participants in December of 2018 in order to examine this perspective. Harcup’s and O’Neill’s (2017) set of news values of journalists was used for that purpose. The data suggest that the participants share the news values of journalists but also the need for some additions: proximity, information, emotions, representa-tion, complexity and logistics of news production. Furthermore, the participants attributed the news values proximity and representation with high importance and entertainment rather low. On the basis of the data, a concept of the news value theory including the audience’s perspective is proposed. But further, especially quantitative, research is needed in order to develop a com-prehensive theoretical framework on the matter.
Keywords: News value theory, audience’s perspective, audience’s needs, proximity, represen-tation, journalism, journalistic selection
Introduction
In the field of communication research, it has always been of interest why certain events become news and on what bases they are selected. Early on, Galtung and Ruge (1965) identified the so-called news value as a key factor in how journalists proceed in their daily work of news selection. Even a public figure like Elon Musk based his recent criticism of the media, and why they cover every minor incident of one of his self-driving cars, on questioning the news values of the journalists (Chu, 2018). It even goes so far that Galtung and Ruge have been mentioned in an Op-Ed piece by psychologist Steven Pinker (2018) in the British newspaper the Guardian earlier last year. He used them and their news value theory in order to explain why negative news stories are so prevalent in today’s news landscape. So there appears to be an interest in the topic not only in the scientific community but in the general public as well.
Over time, the concept of news values was widely researched, established and updated (Golding & Elliott, 1979; Schulz, 1982; Harcup & O’Neill, 2017). Logically a lot of scientific work has been based on that theory: News values were used in order to explain which stories end up in TV news (Maier, Ruhrmann & Stengel, 2009), to predict what will be in the news (Kepplinger and Ehmig, 2006), how they influence discourse (Bednarek & Caple, 2014) or their influence on interpersonal conversations about stories in the news (Sommer, Fretwurst, Som-mer & Gehrau, 2012). But most of the studies approach the matter of news values from its end. Often using content analyses (Maier, 2010), they investigate what news values are in the pub-lished work of journalists. On the other hand, ethnographic interviews with journalists (Schultz, 2007) showed that they mainly trust their instinct for that task. Golding and Elliott (1979) stated that journalists take the audience’s needs into consideration as well. But how do they know what the audience wants?
So it seems that the audience as a group has been neglected to some extent in the news value theory, which as a major shortcoming for a theory, communication scientists so heavily
rely on. Recipients have been rarely asked if they actually share the proposed list of news values or if they recommend changes and additions. And the audience’s influence is growing.
Over the past decade the role of journalists changed from gatekeepers to gatewatchers (Bruns, 2009). Journalists are not the only ones who decide what is reported in the news, but that the audience assigns importance to issues as well, especially through social media. Conse-quently, audience metrics are influencing the working routine of journalists nowadays (Vu, 2014). But again, these metrics only rely on stories already selected by the journalists. In the light of such developments, there is a need for a thoroughapproach of news values which in-cludes the audience’s perspective on the matter.
Societal and economic importance
A better insight in the audience’s opinions on the topic could have further benefits as well. There has been a straight decline of trust in journalists since the 1970s (Gallup, 2018). That fact is worrying, since journalism and the press are needed as the so-called fourth estate in a democratic society to hold those in power accountable (Hampton, 2010). With low trust in journalism, there is a higher risk for fake news to arise, because people then search for alterna-tive news sources that may lack in quality. And only 40% of the Americans think the news media is doing a good job of keeping fake news out (Newman et al., 2017). Furthermore, the audience is not satisfied with the topic selection shown in the news in general (Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006). A reworked news value theory that includes the audience’s opinion might help journalists to better tailor news stories. Thereby they could gain back trust. In the end, the dem-ocratic society as a whole would profit from such an effort.
News production is not only important for a functioning society, but also economic in-terests are involved of course. Lately, revenues of news organizations are declining (Bakker, 2012). Partly this is based on changing publishing models, caused by new technologies. But Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) state that this is caused by the failed attempt to serve the audi-ence’s needs as well. This implicates that these businesses might have false assumptions of
what their recipients want. A correction of these assumptions can help to gain their revenues again.
Concerning all these perspectives, one point is obvious: There is a need for an extension of the news values theory in regard to the audience. The basic question is: What is the audi-ence’s opinion on the news values of journalists?
Theoretical Background
Firstly, it will be explained in this section, what the news value theory is and what it is used for. After that, the different approaches that exist in the field are elaborated. Then, it will be shown how news values differ across media types. Finally, what is known so far about the news value theory and the audience’s perspective on it will be described.
The news value theory and why it is needed
The theory of news values originates from Galtung’s and Ruge’s (1965) initial work, in which they investigated the coverage of the Congo, Cuban and Cyprus crises in Norwegian newspapers. They identified some selection criteria on why these events receive coverage by journalists. For those criteria they crafted the term news values. A list of twelve news values were identified by them, containing negativity, meaningfulness, unexpectedness, frequency, threshold/intensity, unambiguity/clarity, consonance, continuity, composition, elite nations, elite people and reference to persons. They additionally argued that the news values are additive and complementary, which means the more news values a story has, the more likely it is to receive coverage and if one is missing it can be replaced by another. Kepplinger and Ehmig (2006) accordingly found that “the chances of news stories to get published can be predicted by […] news values” (p.25). Additionally, Ziegele (2016) argued that the news values are “in-herent to events and the news selection process” (p.92). So the news value theory in general
tries to explain, based on a list of certain characteristics, why some events become news while others do not.
The question remains, why the news values are needed in the first place. Galtung and Ruge (1965) have already stated that they derived the news values from a psychological back-ground. Shoemaker (1996) added that humans are “hardwired for news” (p.32). She argues that biologically speaking, information proved to be an evolutionary advantage. Furthermore she states, that humans are culturally taught that news are important and thereby are primed for the surveillance of it. But the vast amount of news and information causes a need for selection (Maier, Retzbach & Glogger, 2010). Therefore humans develop selection criteria in order to identify what is relevant to them (Eilders, 2006; Maier, Retzbach & Glogger, 2010). Logically, it is not only about the initial events themselves. The human behavior and priming should never be underestimated in how news values are assigned to a certain story (Bednarek & Caple, 2014; Caple, 2018). An appropriate explanation for this selection appears to be found with the news value theory. Of course, it is not only humans in general who have to make that selection, but especially journalists. Reasons for that are the limited amount of space and time in their medium as well as the limited intake capacity of the recipients (Maier, 2010). So the news values are a useful concept for them, which helps them to complete their task.
Different approaches
The news value theory is very established and widely used by communication scientists all around the world to explain why a certain event receives coverage by journalists (Eilders, 1996; Maier, Ruhrmann & Stengel, 2009; Garcia, Salaverrí, Kilgo & Summer, 2017; Ziegele, Quiring, Ebau & Friess 2018). But naturally, over the past decades there have been a lot of contributions and extensions to the initial concept by Galtung and Ruge (1965). The three major attempts are discussed and explained in the following.
Golding and Elliott (1979) conducted an elaborate study in countries with different me-dia systems, namely Ireland, Sweden and Nigeria. They did not only use a content analysis but
also conducted interviews and direct observations of journalists. Thereby they could provide a culturally more independent approach. They concluded with a new set of news values (Table 1). Their major additions were drama, size, proximity and brevity. Proximity is the most obvi-ous addition. It appears to be logical, that an event is more important for journalists when it happens nearby rather than on the other side of the globe. Shoemaker, Lee, Han and Cohen (2007) underlined the importance of proximity as a crucial news value. They defined it as “the geographic distance between an event and the media organization’s newsroom and/or its audi-ences” (p.231). Thus, proximity is important for the audience as well. Golding and Elliott (1979) argued as well for the importance of routines in news production and their influence on the selection of events. Schlesinger (1987) supported that argument by stating it is important, concerning the selection of an event, how retrievable the information about an event is.
Schulz (1982) aimed for a better oversight within the concept. In his study he included non-political news as well. He clustered 19 initial characteristics into six dimensions or news values (Table 1). In his concept a news value consists of multiple news factors. His most prom-inent additions, apart from the structure he provided, were the news values valence and a better explanation of consonance. Valence refers to conflicts and values. So in the contrary of the previous explained sets of news values, Schulz explicitly mentions actions of protagonists. In the prior sets, actions themselves have been more of an implicit nature. Consonance indicates that an event fits a theme or a stereotype. Also the predictability of an event plays a role. Bell (1991) backed that by explaining that a scheduled event can be anticipated by journalists more easily. Thereby the probability of selection of such an event is higher. This also corresponds with the importance of routines in news production (Golding & Elliott, 1979; Schlesinger, 1987).
The most recent contribution to the concept has been done by Harcup & O’Neill (2017) based on a further development of their initial work in the field (2001).This resulted in 15 news values (Table 1) in their most recent study (Harcup & O’Neill, 2017). They performed a content analysis of ten UK newspapers and investigated how these articles performed on social media.
Thus, they added shareability to the set to depict the development of social media and the in-ternet in the concept as well. But they argued themselves, that shareability might just be a com-bination of all other news values and thereby resembles the whole concept of newsworthiness to some extent. Furthermore, they proposed entertainment and good news as news values. Good news also derives from social media to a certain degree, since they are shared more often. En-tertainment on the other hand is an obvious addition again. The older concepts were developed in a time, when the news landscape looked different. In a process, often referred to as Ameri-canization, the news became faster, shorter, simpler and more entertaining. The events being reported changed as well. Sports, the showbuisness and human interest topics are widespread in the news nowadays. On this basis, the addition of entertainment to the set is necessary. It has to be noted, that Harcup and O’Neill (2017) do not mention proximity as a news value of its own anymore. For them it is included in relevance.
However, a fact that should not be underestimated, is the rising economic pressure news organizations are under. Besides the journalistic routines, there is an ever increasing competi-tiveness in the market, that also has an influence on the topic selection (Phillips, 2015). Allern (2002) even advocates to differentiate between journalistic and commercial news values. She argues that all of the above concepts mingle those two aspects together. But since they are mingled in reality as well, it is fair to do so in the concept as well. Nevertheless, the economic interest in news production should always be kept in mind.
The three major contributions to the initial concept (Table 1) highlight different aspects of the news value theory like proximity, concrete actions or entertainment for example. So there is not the definitive one concept. This indicates that it is an ever developing theory with a steady need for additions and new perspectives. This is especially true regarding the audience’s per-spective, which is not part of any model yet.
Table 1. An overview of different sets of news values
Galtung and Ruge (1965) Golding & Elliott (1979) Schulz (1982) Harcup & O’Neill (2017)
1. Frequency 2. Threshold/Inten-sity 3. Unambigu-ity/clarity 4. Meaningfulness 5. Consonance 6. Unexpectedness 7. Continuity 8. Composition 9. Elite nations 10. Elite people 11. Reference to per-sons 12. Negativity 1. Drama 2. Visual attractive-ness 3. Importance 4. Size 5. Proximity 6. Negativity 7. Brevity 8. Recency 9. Elites 10. Personalities 1. Status - Elite nations Elite institu-tions - Elite persons 2. Valence - Aggression - Controversy - Values - Success 3. Identification - Proximity - Ethnocentrism - Personaliza-tion - Emotions 4. Relevance - Consequence - Concern 5. Consonance - Theme - Stereotype - Predictability 6. Dynamics - Timeliness - Uncertainty - Unexpected-ness 1. Exclusivity 2. Bad News 3. Conflict 4. Surprise 5. Audio-visuals 6. Shareability 7. Entertainment 8. Drama 9. Follow-up 10. Relevance 11. Magnitude 12. Celebrity 13. Good News 14. News Organiza-tion’s Agenda 15. The Power Elie
News values across different media
Joye, Heinrich and Wöhlert (2016) have found that the initial theory by Galtung and Ruge (1965) as well as its later added extensions always need to be understood in new contexts and changing technological and societal conditions. Therefore, a closer look at news values in different media is helpful. Since the concepts discussed above mainly derive from content anal-yses of newspapers, the following explanations focus on TV and online media.
Firstly, in TV it appears that celebrity status, controversy/conflict, aggression and prox-imity are the most used news values in the long run, at least in Germany (Maier, Ruhrmann & Stengel, 2009). In the online sphere on the other hand, a high intensity of the news value con-troversy works best in regard to get people to click on a story (Engelmann & Wendelin, 2017). Additionally, a lot of research concerning online media focuses on how news values effect the interaction with a news item on social media, including sharing an item. Proximity and impact perform best there (Weber, 2014). Also controversy and negativity seem to have an impact
(Ziegele, Breiner & Quiring, 2014). Although Harcup and O’Neill (2017) argue that good news prevail on social media in the end.
Generally speaking, a high news value positively effects the selection of a news item by a recipient, but also formal characteristics are used as cues (Eilders, 1996). It shows, that every medium has news values which work best for it. Then again, some news values are of a univer-sal importance across different media types. First and foremost this is controversy. This fact seems to be well-reflected in Schultz’ (1982) and Harcup’s and O’Neill’s (2017) concepts of the news value theory. But it shows that news values are of different importance depending on the circumstances like the medium or who is applying them.
The audience’s perspective
All the approaches mentioned above only address the journalists’ perspective. This sec-tion will examine what is known about the audience’s perspective on the matter. Of course, journalists always have their audience in mind when selecting events for their news outlets. They make that selection based on what they presume is important to the recipients (Golding & Elliott, 1979). Schultz (2007) suggests that journalists trust their gut-feeling for such deci-sions. But as shown with the different sets of news values (Table 1), journalists rely on some consistent criteria, even if this happens unconsciously, for their selection.
However, the question remains if the recipients agree with these sets. Some research points in that direction. Eilders (2006) states that “news factors can no longer be seen as exclu-sively journalistic selection criteria” (p.19) but that recipients make use of them as well. Weber and Wirth (2013) found accordingly that recipients attribute importance based on news values and that such news values as controversy, proximity and damage increase that perceived im-portance (Weber & Wirth, 2013). But it seems that recipients are not satisfied with the news stories they consume regarding topics and thereby the news values of those stories (Artz & Wormer, 2011; Sherwood, Osborn, Nicholson & Sherry, 2017). Artz & Wormer (2011) found a big difference, when comparing user-generated questions for a TV-show with the questions
the editors thought are interesting to their audience. And Sherwood et al. (2017) found that not even the editors themselves agree on what is of importance for the audience. Furthermore, the recipients are not only dissatisfied with the topic selection but also with the quality of the news. Urban and Schweiger (2013) found that recipients are clearly able to judge the quality of a news item and thereby might neglect to consume it at all. According to them, recipients use relevance, impartiality and diversity of a news item to evaluate its quality.
In the most comprehensive work in that direction so far, Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) investigated in a cross-national project how audience members judge their local newspapers. All of the participants rated the same kind of topics as newsworthy, mainly major events of importance to either them or their society as a whole. However, there was dissatisfaction with what their newspapers published and how prominently they cover certain topics. The recipients wanted more deviance and social significance to be reflected in the news. In the project’s study in Germany (Reinemann & Eichholz, 2006), it showed that people with a low socio-economic status were the most dissatisfied. In the study for the U.S. (Skewes & Black, 2006) audience members questioned whether news stories have to be always negative. One major shortcoming of this research is, that Shoemaker and Cohen (2006) focused on topics, rather than explicit news values. But at least, they included recipients’ perspective in their study and did not only rely on content analyses or journalists’ opinions as so many have before (Maier, 2010).
Obviously, there are other theories regarding the audience and their media selection, namely selective exposure (Klapper, 1960) and the uses and gratifications theory (Katz, Blum-ler & Gurevitch, 1973). But these theories concern media selection in general made by the audience and not specifically news selection. Furthermore, these theories are based on the se-lection of already existing media, while the news value theory addresses the process of news production and selections made by journalists. This research focusses on the audience’s evalu-ation of that process and not on their own media selection behavior. Thus, neither the selective exposure nor the uses and gratification theory can be used to explain that evaluation.
So for news values, there remains unclarity about how the recipients judge or if they even share the proposed sets. This research aims to fill this gap. Of course, as the theory above indicates, recipients use them as cues but only after journalists already made selection based on their news values. Thus, it should be investigated what the set of news values, and not only favorized topics (Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006), of the recipients is. And to what extent they differ from those of journalists:
RQ1: How do the news values of journalists differ from those of young audience members?
Furthermore it is a matter of interest, if the recipients assign a different importance to the news values. As explained above, news values are used with varying prominence across different media types. Additionally, it appears that journalists make use of certain news values more often, with namely bad news, surprise and entertainment being the top three (Harcup & O’Neill, 2017). But it should be investigated what the audience’s ranking looks like. This leads to the next research question:
RQ2: What importance do young audience members assign to those news values?
The research so far suggests that the audience is not satisfied with the news they receive (Shoemaker & Cohen, 2006). This indicates that they might miss something. Thus, it is not only of interest if the audience’s news values differ from those of journalists (RQ1). But if they do, what does the audience miss specifically and what are their suggestions. Accordingly, the last research question aims to cover that:
RQ3: What news values are the young audience members missing in specific news items and in general?
Methodology
As explained above, the audience’s perspective on the news value theory has not been researched sufficiently yet. So this study aims to explore why audience members rate certain events as worthy of coverage and whether this decision is based on the same set of news values as those of journalists. Thus, a qualitative approach is taken in this study, due to its explorative nature (Bryman, 2016). Only with that approach the audience’s opinions and judgments can be discovered in depth. In order to achieve that, four focus group discussions have been conducted. The advantage here is that through the interaction of the group members, the meaning of the news factors can be constructed (Bryman, 2016). Thus, a vivid discussion can help to discover characteristics of an event relevant to the audience members’ selection of it as newsworthy and provide insight in their reasoning. A detailed description of the concepts used and the research process is given below.
Operationalization of concepts
Firstly, a closer look at who is regarded as an audience member is needed. As stated in the research questions already, this study focusses on young audience members. The main rea-son for this decision is the feasibility. The study is conducted in a university environment. Thus, students can be recruited reliably as participants. On the other hand, young people have a dif-ferent media consumption behavior than their older counterparts. To limit this influence, it seems helpful to have a more homogeneous sample in that regard. And additionally, a rather small difference of age and social status between participants in a focus group discussion can have positive impact as well. All participants feel on the same level of knowledge and life experience and thereby feel more free to express their honest opinion. Therefore, young audi-ence members are operationalized as enrolled students between 18 and 28 years of age.
Secondly, the concept of importance is addressed in RQ2. Thus, importance is opera-tionalized as the different position participants assign to a news value in their personal ranking.
The higher up a news value is in this ranking, the more important it is and vice versa. This operationalization is also based on the Q-sort method (Müller & Kals, 2004). Additionally, importance is operationalized as how prominently a news value is mentioned throughout all discussions.
Thirdly and mainly, the concept of news values in this study requests an operationaliza-tion as well. For this purpose the set of news values by Harcup and O’Neill (2017) is used. It has been the latest major contribution to the field and acknowledges the influence of social media and the internet as well. The reason that only one set of news values is used, and not a combination of the sets introduced in the theory section of this paper, is that they are conceptu-alized based on a logic within themselves. This means, the news values of one concept are supposed to be an exclusive and to some extent exhaustive system of categories. Thus, includ-ing news values of other concepts would infrinclud-inge this logic. Due to that, Harcup’s and O’Neill’s (2017) news values are used (Table 1). A list of them with detailed operationalizations is pro-vided in Appendix E (VII).
Selection and characteristics of participants
Based on the operationalization stated above, participants were recruited amongst the students of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and the University of Stuttgart (UoS). Two different universities in different countries were chosen, to increase the variety in the sample and minimize the bias induced by of country of origin and the study program students are in. Possible participants were targeted through a flyer campaign as well as through social media. The aim was to acquire between five and seven participants per focus group. It was important to recruit participants without any background in communication science or journalistic work, because they are likely to have prior knowledge about the news value theory then. That would have been counterproductive to the research intention. The recruitment process lasted until the goal was reached. This way of sampling is related to the original theoretical sampling in quali-tative research (Bryman, 2016). Although it misses further rounds of sampling, e.g. adding
more participants if there is a need after the analyses, it is rooted in the theory that this study tries to extend. The later rounds of sampling were also dropped due to feasibility reasons. As an incentive participants had the chance of winning one of five 20€-vouchers for an online shop of their choice.
This procedure resulted in 19 participants, due to some last minute drop outs. The par-ticipants have an average age of almost 23 (M=22,74; SD=2,941). The majority of them is fe-male (fefe-male=13; fe-male=6). Most of the participants are either German (N=6) or Dutch (N=5). Their news consumption, which was captured on a 7-point scale from very seldom (1) to very often (7), is rather high (M=5,16; SD=1,344). Most of them have a Bachelor’s degree (N=10). And the majority is enrolled in study programs related to political or social sciences (N=10). A more detailed description of the participants is provided in Appendix A (I).
Procedure and materials
The four focus groups were conducted between the 10.12.18 and the 18.12.18. Each session lasted one hour. Three of them were held at the UvA Roeterseilandcampus with students of that institution. One group met in Stuttgart with students of the UoS at the private place of one of the participants. The discussions in Amsterdam were held in English, while the discus-sion in Stuttgart was held in German. Nevertheless, the materials used in the latter have been in English, in order to provide comparability. The group size ranges between 2 and 7 partici-pants (Appendix F, VII). The difference in numbers derives mainly from the high short notice drop-out rate in group 2. All sessions have been audio-recorded to simplify the transcription of the discussions. Additionally, the gatherings were video-taped to provide clarity about the at-tribution of statements.
In the beginning of each session, the participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire concerning their personal information and their news consumption (Appendix D, VI) and to sign a form of consent. In an opening statement the nature and agenda of the meeting was explained to them and they were encouraged to voice their honest opinions and to ask question
when unclarity occurred. Afterwards, the actual focus group discussion started. The sessions, as well as the interview guideline, have been divided into three blocks (Appendix B, II). The questions in this guideline derive from the RQs as well as from Shoemaker’s and Cohens (2006) study. The interview guideline was pre-tested in a focus group with two members. Accordingly, adjustments were made, mainly of a clarifying manner.
In the first block participants were asked to read three news items (Table 2) and write down on cards why and based on what characteristics they think these news items are reported. After writing them down, group members explained and justified the characteristics they pro-vided. The topics of the news items were inspired by The Guardian’s first page of their website on the 6th of December 2018. They had a mixture of entertainment, politically and socially
impacting news. Existing articles have not been used, because with artificial news items it is easier to control what news values they contain (Weber & Wirth, 2015). Furthermore, the par-ticipants have no preconceived opinions on the exact stories. Regarding the time of the discus-sion, there is a limited amount of news items that can be processed. Thus, artificial news items were produced to ensure most of the news values are included (Appendix C, V). Audio-visuals were excluded as a news value, because pictures have news values within themselves (Maier, Stengel & Glogger, 2010; Urban & Schweiger, 2013) and would thereby make the discussion more complicated. Exclusivity, follow-up as well as the news organization’s agenda were ex-cluded, because they could not be depicted in the settings of this study.
Table 2. News Items and their intended news values
Number of News Item 1 2 3
Content (Summary) Story about the possibly career-ending injury of FC Barcelona’s Goalkeeper.
Story about Mexico’s President’s and Trump’s dispute over USMCA trade deal, caused by Trump’s border policy.
WHO found a vaccine for Ebola, which caused a massive drop in the num-bers of new infections.
Intended news values ac-cording to Harcup & O’Neill (2017) - Celebrity - Bad News - Surprise - Entertain-ment - Relevance - Power Elite - Bad News - Conflict - Drama - Drama - Magnitude - Good News
In the second block participants were required to rank the characteristics according to the importance they assign to them. This happened as a group, so it is the aggregated opinion of the group in the end. Before that, some of the characteristics were matched together if they fitted an overarching term. This was done by the researcher together with the participants. In the third block participants were requested to explain if they miss characteristics in the set they produced and if they are satisfied with the news in general. Additionally and based on Shoe-maker’s and Cohen’s (2006) findings, they were asked to discuss whether they want more pos-itive or negative news. Finally, the discussion was concluded with a closing statement in which the participants were debriefed about the artificial nature of the news items they just read. Fur-thermore, the purpose of the research, e.g. the news value theory and their contribution to it, was explained to them.
Analyses
After the discussion, the interviews were transcribed (Appendix F, VII). The discussion of Group 4 was first transcribed in German and later translated to English. The coding was executed based on the grounded theory approach (Bryman, 2016). The ranking system was analyzed according to the qualitative version of the Q-sort method (Müller & Kals, 2004). After the sampling, the grounded theory approach consists of three more steps: coding, theoretical saturation and constant comparison (Bryman, 2016). The coding process is done in three stages. Firstly, in an open coding procedure all relevant statements are assigned with a suitable code, that reflects the core meaning of the statement. In axial coding, these codes are grouped together in regard to which news value they belong. For example, the codes entertainment, gossip, sports and escapism were grouped as entertainment, corresponding to an existing news value. Of course not every statement is related directly to an existing or a possible new news value. There-fore in selective coding, additional groups are created, reflecting this fact. The coding process lasts until theoretical saturation is reached. This means, that no new codes emerge that could enhance the theory. For the whole coding process the software Atlas.ti was used. Of course, it
is important to constantly compare the codes to the data, so the data and the derived concepts stay connected at all time. In the open coding procedure 100 codes emerged. They were then structured into 23 code groups. Every code only belongs to one code group (Appendix G, VII).
Validity and reliability
In order to maintain validity of the data, participants were requested to elaborate their opinions as much as possible and to clarify their views when needed. To provide reliability notes and memos were taken throughout the process, so that no information or thoughts got lost during the research and analysis. Generalizability or transferability of the data are provided by an extensive description of the participants’ characteristics and their judgment of the news val-ues. In addition, validity, reliability and generalizability are provided by a detailed report of all methodological choices made throughout the research and analysis process. To ensure an in-clusive discussion, the host aimed for equal shares of talking of the participants. This was achieved by actively motivating group members who remained reluctant and slowing down participants who spoke out extrovertly.
Results
Initial news values and additions
The first and the third RQ are analyzed together, because the latter is the logical exten-sion of the first. If the news values differ, it is also very likely that the participants propose additional ones. For RQ1 the data indicates, that the participants share the news values of Har-cup and O’Neill (2017), and thereby the journalists’ news values (Figure 1). Surprisingly enough, the participants addressed news values of the set used, that were not even intended in the news items: Follow-up and the news organization’s agenda:
P5 (24, female): “But it made me think of when the outbreak [of Ebola] first happened”1
P3 (23, female): “Let’s say the news coverage about the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It is so biased even at the public broadcaster (NOS). I just wonder what in-terest are behind that.”
Furthermore, there was one news value that was not supported at all. The shareability was judged low by the participants for all news items. But it was also stated that they do not share much news in general:
P17 (23, female): “No definitely not. I don’t share anything usually”
The other news values proposed by Harcup and O’Neill (2017) have all been mentioned by the participants (Figure 1), although with varying prominence. Surprise and drama were less discussed, while entertainment, magnitude, relevance, conflict and the power elite were broadly debated. For relevance it was stated that it is highly subjective and that it depends on the indi-vidual criteria of the recipient:
P8 (24, female): “I think it [sports] gives you a lot of opportunity to cover stuff, because sport is always there. I think a lot of people care about it. And if a lot of people care about it, it is important to cover it“
Entertainment was identified as a news value regularly. But it was not only sports related. It was also mentioned in relations to political affairs, especially in the context of Trump’s presi-dency:
P14 (23, male): “It [Trump] is almost entertainment as well. I’m noticing that if I read news with Trump in it, I’m automatically thinking: oh what has he done now?“
Good news as a news value have been discussed as well. It was stated that progress is something positive to read about and thereby is part of good news as well.
P11 (20, female): “So it [vaccination for Ebola] is very positive and about the progress they are making. It has a very positive tone. People like reading about positive things.“
After investigating how the participants share the news values of the initial set, it is interesting to examine their proposals. The participants argued that journalists should focus more on the informational content. Additionally, they explained that emotions can help to transport these information. Furthermore, they acknowledged, that journalists do not work in-dependently but have to serve economic interests of their companies and sometimes even gov-ernments:
P18 (26, male): “It [the news media] is a very quick business. It is always about who is first”
Proximity was discussed very prominently. The participants argued, that on the one hand this is because of a national identity of the recipients:
P7 (19, male): “The reason they would be sad is the feeling of national identity. The
player being a symbol of this identity, because the team is a symbol of the country.“
On the other hand they argued, it is important to them if they are personally affected by an event (or the story about it). They want to be informed about possible threats for example:
P18 (26, male): “If something happens at the Stuttgart Christmas market... or if some-body attacked the Strasbourg Christmas market, that bothers me more compared to a terror attack in Bagdad”
Furthermore, the issue of representation arose during the discussion. The participants stated the need for more stories about inequality, socially significant events and a better repre-sentation of minorities in the media:
P3 (23, female): “But the Dutch public broadcaster [NOS] is paid by tax money they should be democratic then. Similar to how the Dutch people constitute for example. So not news from only the global north like also about more representation of gay people or people not from the global north.“
In their opinion, journalists should be more socially aware. Therefore they should strive for a wider variety of topics and cover the complexities of a society more in depth. Some participants justified that need by stating the power of the news media in shaping, mostly negative, stereo-types of minority groups. Additionally they proposed a less westernized approach for the se-lection of events. Moreover, the participants expressed a need for more complexity in the news. In their opinion, news stories should reflect the complex backgrounds of an event and not sim-plify it. Expert opinions should be heard and the latest findings of scientific research should find their way into the news. So complexity can mean both reporting of a complex issue in its true nature as well as in depth reporting of an issue:
P15 (23, female): “They don’t explain issues. They just give issues and don’t explain how complex they are. So they make everything way more simple than it is.“
The points above indicate what the participants miss in the original set of news values by Har-cup and O’Neill (2017) and in the news in general. A comprehensive concept-indicator-model of all points regarding RQ1 and 3 is provided in Figure 1.
Importance of news values
Now it is interesting to take a closer look at what importance the participants assigned to these news values (RQ2). The Q-sort method for qualitative research (Müller & Kals, 2004) was used in order to rank the characteristics identified by the participants in block one. The rankings for each group can be found in Appendix H (VIII). Additionally, the importance de-rived from the discussion and what sparks the participants’ discontent with current news. Those statements can be found in the discontent group in Appendix G (VII). This analysis resulted in an assignment of all mentioned news values into three levels of importance (Table 3).
Table 3. Importance of news values
Importance Harcup & O’Neill (2017) Participants’ additions
High - Conflict - Relevance - Power Elite - Complexity - Representation - Proximity - Information
Medium - Bad News
- Good News - Magnitude - Emotions Low - Drama - Surprise - Entertainment - Celebrity - News organization’s Agenda - Follow-up - Shareability - Logistics of news production
Of course, the participants’ own news values are of striking importance to them. Namely prox-imity and representation received a lot of attention throughout the discussion. Regarding
representation, there was a high discontent with the discriminatory and westernized nature of the news. They addressed the role of the media as an integrating force as well and that the press should rather fight stereotypes than actively promote them:
P12 (25, male): “Because I think the emphasis is on the WHO. So it is them coming into Sierra Leone and Liberia, them having all the poor people there because they cannot care for themselves backwards as they are. There is a very big colonial underpinning“
Even though stating that they think of it as bad behavior, the participants acknowledged, that the most important news stories to them concern issues that might impact them. In the case of the news item about Ebola, they were happy to hear that there that there are no people dying no more. But it was more important to them, that a risk of a possible infection of themselves has vanished:
P15 (23, female): “Because I would care about something [Ebola] having an impact on the Netherlands first before I would care about global importance... which is very bad actually”
Regarding good and bad news, there was no clear opinion on which one is more im-portant. On the one hand, participants stated they want to hear what happens in the world. And sometimes that is negative. Additionally, they do not want to read a story about good news, just because it is good news. On the other hand, some participants argued that all the negative news stories have a bad influence on the society. Therefore some proposed that maybe the ratio of good and bad news reported has to change:
P17 (23, female): “Not only in the sense of positive and negative. But the 90:10 thing we have right now is not working. They create so much negativity. There is no motivation to do something good. Because everyone thinks it will not work anyways.”
The most discontent was expressed regarding the news organization’s agenda and en-tertainment as news values. An agenda is seen by the participants throughout the news land-scape. They think that news are biased, sometimes misinform or even engage in creating fake news. Furthermore, they argued that entertainment, especially sport, receives way too much coverage. In their opinion there are more important things to report on:
P14 (23, male): “I really don’t care at all about soccer. It is just a bunch of millionaires running after a ball and kicking it in a net. Of course it has entertainment value but there are many things in the news that are not reported on that are more important“
But they do acknowledge that they read entertainment news themselves sometimes and enjoy it. However, they think of it as a less important news value.
Discussion & Conclusion
In this section the research questions will be answered. Then the findings are linked back to the existing theories and it is described what contribution this study can offer to them. Finally, the limitations of this study as well as its implications for practice and further research are explained.
This study puts the news values of Harcup & O’Neill (2017) to test, of course in a qual-itative manner, to see how young audience members judge them. So in response to RQ1, it can be concluded that news values of young audience members do not differ from those of journal-ists, with the exception of shareability. At least, the participants could identify all other news values and mentioned them throughout the discussion. But, in regard to RQ3, the statements of the participants indicate that they want additions to the set. These additions are proximity,
information, emotions, representation, complexity and the logistics of news production. Through these additions, the young audience’s perspective would be included in the model. Concerning RQ2 however, not all of these news values are of the same importance (Table 3). Overall it can be stated that most of the news values proposed by Harcup and O’Neill (2017) are of medium or low importance to the participants. In contrast, the news values the partici-pants propose themselves rank rather high in importance.
It appears that especially the news value relevance, as defined in the initial concept, is rather broad and unspecific. That might be caused by the inclusion of proximity by Harcup & O’Neill (2017) in this news value. But the data strongly suggest that the participants request proximity as a news value of its own. Accordingly, proximity is included in multiple other concepts of the news value theory (Golding & Elliott, 1979; Schulz, 1982; Shoemaker et al., 2007). So this is by no means a new suggestion of the participants, but more a major shortcom-ing of the news value set at hand. Of course people care more about thshortcom-ings that happen close to them, even more so if they are personally affected by it. Schulz (1982) already argued the same way and logically put proximity in his identification category. Furthermore, the data suggests emotions and information as additions to the concept. Emotions relate to proximity as suggested by Schulz (1982). He puts them both in the same category of identification. But the data suggest emotion as a news value of its own. According to the participants, emotions can work as a transmitter for informational content because they can spark interest in an otherwise dry subject. Nevertheless, information itself is a news value of high importance to the participants.
Another major extension deriving from the interviews, is the requirement of represen-tation as a news value. The participants want more diverse news. They request a better repre-sentation of minorities, a wider variety of topics and an addressing of inequality and social significance in the coverage. This opposes the notion of proximity to some extent, since it does not include necessarily being personally impacted directly. Furthermore it opposes Schulz (1982), who argued for ethnocentrism and stereotypes as news factors. On the other hand it
aligns with Shoemakers and Cohens (2006) findings of the audience’s request for more socially significant topics.
The participants’ request for more complexity in news opposes the news value of brev-ity, postulated by Golding and Elliott (1979). Participants voiced the proposal for more scien-tific topics and perspectives as well as more quality in general in the news. Yet they describe that they themselves do not consume such news items as often as they wished to. They reason with a lack of time for that situation. However, this illustrates a certain self-contradicting nature of the statements by the participants as already seen in the request for proximity and the to some extent contradicting representation. Furthermore, the participants recognize struggles that jour-nalists have, namely economic pressure and governmental influence. Again this is nothing com-pletely new, it is just not part of Harcup’s & O’Neill’s (2017) proposed set. The news value of logistics of news production has already been proposed by Schlesinger (1987), while the eco-nomic aspect of news production was extensively addressed by Allern (2002).
Even though not being the primary focus of this study, the findings also align with some parts of other media-selection-based theories. The importance of proximity is reflected in the selective exposure theory as well (Klapper, 1960). Recipients usually select media, that contain information with high potential impact on them. And the closer a recipient perceives something, the higher the chance is that it might has a personal impact on him. Accordingly, the uses and gratifications theory (Katz, Blumler & Gurevitch, 1973) states the importance of identification, when selecting media items. Furthermore and based on these two theories, the participants’ request for more complexity and their discontent with simplistic news could lead to a non-selection of news items. So the quality and complexity of the journalistic work is not only a news value, but becomes a selection criterium of the young audience members.
Finally, the participants’ contribution in this study can be a first step towards developing a comprehensive model of the news value theory that includes the perspective of young audi-ence members. A proposal of what such a model could look like, is given in Figure 1. Through this research proximity, information, emotions, representation, complexity and logistics of
news production as additional news values of young audience members and the rejection of shareability are proposed, based on the set by Harcup and O’Neill (2017). It has to be stated though, that there is an overlap between proximity and relevance, that requires further investi-gation. As stated above, not all of these proposals by the participants are entirely new. However, it is the first time an inclusion of the audience’s perspective into the concept is approached. Thus, these news values are put in a new context. So the people who news are produced for, namely the audience, are finally considered specifically in the field’s most prominent theory on the matter.
Limitations
As any other research this study has some shortcomings. Firstly, in an interview situa-tion there is always a big social desirability and an interviewer bias. The participants do not want to appear uninformed and thus might exaggerate their opinions. Furthermore, the sample was not balanced regarding gender or the study program of the participants. This could lead to further bias of the results. There was also some self-selection in the recruiting process. So some might have participated just for the money or because they have a strong opinion on the subject. Also, they all had the same socio-economic status and belonged to the same age group. More variety in that regard could lead to different results of course. Additionally, the participants’ statements are self-reported behavior and opinions. Their actual behavior might deviate from what they tell.
Furthermore, it was sometimes hard for the participants to distinguish between the topic and the characteristics of a news item. Thus, it appears that some topics and news values are connected. A different topic selection for the news items could lead to different opinions of the participants. And only print news items were used. A different media type could influence the ranking of the news values for example. It is also possible that the news items shown in the first block, had an influence on what has been said about general news in the third block, by creating
salience of certain issues. And it has been a problem that not all news values are exclusive and exhaustive.
Implications and further research
So there is a need for further research on the matter. This study has been of a qualitative nature. Thereby, the findings must only be seen as a starting point and are not generalizable. A quantitative test of them would be a logical next step. News items can be tailored based on the findings. Audience members could rate these items in a survey. Furthermore, these news values could be included in real articles of an online news outlet. Then the logfiles of this page could be analyzed in order to investigate if the new news values “worked” as proposed. Also it could be checked if the assigned importance of each news value is actually true in a real setting. Additionally, this study could be replicated with other target groups. In that way, it could be checked if age or socio-economic status have an influence on which proposed news values emerge.
Nevertheless, this study has practical implications as well. The study indicates that jour-nalists are not completely wrong in how they select events. But there still is room for improve-ment, of course only in the case journalists want to be better at delivering to the audience’s needs. The journalists could take the proposed news values, and select the events they cover accordingly. This might lead to more revenues from the group of young audience members. Furthermore, the ranking of importance of the news values could be used as an indicator for how to create an appealing mix of news for that specific target audience. Of course this research has by no means aspirations of delivering a final and holistic model of the concept. However, hopefully this study will spark further investigations into the matter of the news values and what audience members think of them. This would not only be of use for communication sci-entists, but could lead the way to gain back the audience’s trust into journalism and thereby help the society as a whole.
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Alias Age Gender Coutry of Origin Highest level of education Study program News consumption
P1 21 female Netherlands High School degree Psychology 5
P2 18 female India High School degree Business Administration 5
P3 23 female Netherlands Bachelor's degree Political Science 5
P4 25 female UK Bachelor's degree International Develeopment 7
P5 24 female USA Bachelor's degree International Develeopment 4
P6 27 female Germany Bachelor's degree International Develeopment 5
P7 19 male France High School degree Sociology 5
P8 24 female Netherlands High School degree Political Science 7
P9 18 female Ireland Bachelor's degree Sociology 3
P10 18 female China High School degree Sociology 6
P11 20 female Poland High School degree Political Science 4
P12 25 male UK Master's degree Literary Studies 7
P13 23 female Germany Bachelor's degree Literary Studies 7
P14 23 male Netherlands Bachelor's degree Anthropology 4
P15 23 female Netherlands Bachelor's degree Sociology 5
P16 26 male Germany Bachelor's degree Aerospace Engineering 3
P17 23 female Germany High School degree Biology 5
P18 26 male Germany Bachelor's degree Technology Management 7
Opening statement: Hello to all of you!
First, thanks for participating in this group discussion and helping me with my thesis project. Today we will discuss news. I will show you some news stories and after that I will ask you some questions about them. Don’t be afraid to speak out, there are no wrong or stupid an-swers. I just want to hear your honest opinion. Subsequently, we’ll have a discussion about news in general.
As you can see, this meeting will be recorded both visually and the audibly. I do that because I will make transcripts of the discussion in order to analyze them. The recordings are not shown to anyone else and will be deleted after the research is completed. In my final paper your statements will only be used in an anonymized form. So nobody will be able to relate what you’re saying in here back to you.
Alright. Let’s get started
Block 1 – news item examples
3 news items are presented, the participants are asked to explain why the think those stories are important or why they are covered. The identified characteristics should be written down on cards for later use. Every participant will explain what the wrote down for each news item.
So please now read those short news items. I want you to think about why those stories are reported. Please not only think about the topic of the news story, but also of the characteris-tics of the event that is reported about. So why do these events get covered? For example if you think it’s entertaining. Write down the characteristics of those vents on the cards please. Again there are now wrong answers.
News Item 1
The Goalkeeper Marc Ter Stegen was fouled severely in FC Barcelona’s match against Es-panyol Barcelona on the weekend. His left shoulder is now injured very seriously. Barcelona’s team doctor announced that it will take Ter Stegen up to nine months to recover. A source inside the club says that he even might not come back because of this injury and will end his career.
News Item 2
Mexico’s newly elected President Andrés Manuel López Obrador told in an interview that he wants to drop out of the USMCA trade deal. The deal was signed just recently by Mexico,
Canada and the US as a replacement for the old trade deal (NAFTA). “I don’t like Trump’s border policy and how he talks about Mexicans. So why should I sign a deal that benefits him?”, he justified his decision.
News Item 3
Sierra Leone and Liberia report that in 2018 the number of new Ebola infections is on the lowest since the disease’s outbreak in 2014. The drop in numbers is caused by a vaccination program carried out by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO’s program also re-quires now that all children and adults above the age of two in both countries will be vac-cinated to prevent future outbreaks.
Now please explain with what characteristics you came up and why. Do you think the stories are newsworthy?
Would you share them on social media?
Block 2 – Importance of assigned news values / ranking
The participants are asked to rank the ‘news values’ they identified. The news values are taken from all the 3 examples. The goal is to have a ranking the whole group can agree on. If some of the identified news values are congruent, they will be grouped together.
Ok now that you have come up with a lot of different characteristics I want you now to rank them. So what do you think are the most important characteristics that get those events covered?
Block 3 – Satisfaction with news in general
I will now ask you questions about the examples again, but also news in general. Please keep in mind that it is not so much about the topics but also the characteristics we discussed so far.
About the news item:
Why are the news items relevant to you? Or why not? Are you satisfied with the selection?
What would you make different or improve if you had the chance to select what appears in the news? (Focus on the characteristics/news values the group came up with)
About news in general:
Are you, generally speaking, satisfied with what news are covered?
Why do you think events are selected in the current way? à positive or negative news?
What do you think are the motives of the journalists behind their selection? Disclosure Statement
Explaining to the participants what the news value theory is and what or how they’re contri-bution to. (showing them the list of news values used in this study)
Debriefing about the artificial nature of the examples at hand. Telling them about the procedure of the gift card lottery.
Appendix C – News Items
