what is news

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what is news?

• 24 news cycle to constant update.

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is this news?
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media bias?

• News discourse is a form of mediation between
  social institutions, that is to say the
  discourses of politics are mediated through the
  discourses of news journalism to the institutions
  of the public. The public is not just the
  audience of the news they are also, on the whole,
  citizens of the state who are subject to the
  administration of the state. These relationship
  are intricately intertwined.

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the professions

• discourses of news
• discourse - a set of statements that invoke the
  values of cultural institutions.
• ie medicine, pornographyhttp//www.breastcancer.
  org/breast_anatomy.html
• http//www.hooters.com/
• JOURNALISM
• journalist / reports / news
• professional 1st person witness
  immediate and significant

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news as profession

• positive negative
• rational irrational
• impartiality bias
• firmness weakness
• freedom of choice monopoly etc

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outfoxed

• http//www.outfoxed.org/clips_trailer_qt.php

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news values

• Timeliness ( news cycle)
• Event Orientation (sudden or dramatic events -so
  event rather than process)
• Prominence (use of spokespeople) whos saying
  what- treasurer more important and directly
  involved with policy than say ACOSS spokesperson)
• Negativity (negative rather than positive- racial
  conflict versus racial harmony)

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news value (cont)

• Dramatisation focusing on dramatic elements -plot
  focus spokespeople and negativity
• subsection -personification -focussing on
  people involved-characters and conflict
• Stereotyping- oversimplifying a problem-
  unchanging analysis of situations- framework of
  interpretation
• Unexpectedness reporting rare thing

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other issues to think about

• Composition- what gets prominence?- what get
  covered- sport- world- politics
• Omission- what gets left out? this is where the
  idea of agenda -setting occurs and leaves the
  media vulnerable to its idea of
  representativeness- whats not newsworthy??
• Placement? what page is it on?
• Distinctive reporting- separating events into
  different types of coverage ie report
  commentary-
• Structured access- tendency to relate news to
  formal authority and experts
• Titillation- focus on sexual or deviant
  behaviour

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and a few more.

• Conventionalism- tendency to situate new events
  within old structures (watergate- irangate-monica
  gate etc..over -analogising so reducing
  complexity)
• Personalisation- elite personalities etc-
  emphasise individual agency in social processes
• Novelty- multiplying stories by adopting new
  angles.. (Chapelle Corby)

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incoherent media (Bell)

• discourses of legitimacy ( professional-
  neutral- self-effaced) combine with discourses of
  controversy.
• quite literally the outrageous is legitimated
  through media discourse (cf Bell - Pauline
  Hansen)

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news as content trading

• http//about.reuters.com/home/

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News as algorithm

• http//news.google.com/intl/en_us/about_google_new
  s.html

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news as participation

• the rise of blogging..
• the use of mobile cameras ( ie london tube
  bombing)
• use of network (ie SMS) or local (pirate
  TV/Radio) media where state media has lost (never
  had?) credibility
• more in later weeks
• cu in the TUT! (do yer readings!)

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http//www.outfoxed.org/
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