News and newsworthiness: A commentary
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Pamela J Shoemaker
Abstract
This commentary argues that the concept of news is a primitive term, one whose existence is not questioned, and that assumptions about the news need to be identified and questioned. One common assumption is that news is composed of things that are newsworthy, i. e., that news and newsworthiness are essentially the same, and that the prominence with which an event is covered in the news is an indicator of newsworthiness. Shoemaker's recent research with Akiba Cohen shows that news and newsworthiness are in fact not the same. News is a social construct, a thing, a commodity, whereas newsworthiness is a cognitive construct, a mental judgment. Newsworthiness is not a good predictor of which events get into the newspaper and how they are covered. Newsworthiness is only one of a vast array of factors that influence what becomes the news and how prominently events are covered.
© Walter de Gruyter
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction to the special issue: News decisions and news values
- News factors and news decisions. Theoretical and methodological advances in Germany
- Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two-component theory of news selection
- The theory of newsworthiness applied to Mexico's press. How the news factors influence foreign news coverage in a transitional country
- Frames, schemata, and news reporting
- Political parallelism in news and commentaries on the Haider conflict. A comparative analysis of Austrian, British, German, and French quality newspapers
- News and newsworthiness: A commentary
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Introduction to the special issue: News decisions and news values
- News factors and news decisions. Theoretical and methodological advances in Germany
- Predicting news decisions. An empirical test of the two-component theory of news selection
- The theory of newsworthiness applied to Mexico's press. How the news factors influence foreign news coverage in a transitional country
- Frames, schemata, and news reporting
- Political parallelism in news and commentaries on the Haider conflict. A comparative analysis of Austrian, British, German, and French quality newspapers
- News and newsworthiness: A commentary
