Volume 31, Issue 1

It is one of the most relevant questions of journalism research: Why do journalists select certain events or topics for publication, neglecting the overwhelming majority of news available to them? Communication scholars have been addressing this question from very different theoretical perspectives, applying a wide variety of social research methods to answer it. But although there are various models identifying a multitude of influences on news decisions, a theory capable of exactly predicting the news selection of tomorrow's newspapers and news programs is still missing. Journalistic decision-making is a complex phenomenon that depends on a number of preconditions which are hard to tackle in a single theoretical approach or empirical investigation. Due to this complexity, there are still many unanswered questions that stimulate both empirical studies and theoretical thinking on news-making. Moreover, the media, journalism, and the factors shaping them are constantly changing. Yesterday's answers may not be appropriate to explain today's or tomorrow's news decisions.

News value research has contributed a great deal to the understanding of news selection. For a long time scholars focused exclusively on news selection by the media. Yet, more recent approaches — inspired by cognitive psychology — have conceptionalized news factors as relevance indicators that not only serve as selection criteria in journalism, but also guide information processing by the audience. This article examines the theoretical and methodological developments in the German research tradition and discusses selected results for newspaper and television news. Its theoretical perspective focuses on the conceptionalization of news factors as either event characteristics or characteristics of the reality construction by journalists and recipients. This article explores how and why news factors affect media use and the retention of news items. Finally, this contribution's empirical perspective discusses various modifications of the assumed factors and presents methodological advancements in the measurement of news factors in selection processes.

The purpose of this study is to test the two-component theory of news selection. Its components are (a) news factors included in articles and (b) news values of news factors. It is assumed that news factors have different news values for various media outlets. The theory was tested comparing the empirical (measured) with the theoretical (calculated) newsworthiness of news stories. First, news values of five news factors for national quality papers, regional papers, and tabloids were identified. Then, based on theory, the theoretical newsworthiness of news stories was calculated. The independent variables were the news factors included in these articles and the news values of these news factors. In addition, in a laboratory setting, the empirical newsworthiness of the news stories was measured. Finally, measured newsworthiness was compared to the predicted one. Results confirmed the two-component theory and demonstrated that the chances of news stories to get published can be predicted by news factors and their news values.

Empirical studies which examine the theory of newsworthiness and the predictability of news coverage in transnational or developing countries still remain on the agenda of journalism research. Therefore, this study examines the influence of news factors on the foreign news coverage of three Mexican newspapers. Two main questions guide the research. First, is the theory of newsworthiness a valid approach for predicting news selection in a cultural context that is significantly different from western industrialized countries? Secondly, which are the relevant news factors that predict foreign news coverage in the Mexican press and thus shape the image of foreign nations? The results of a quantitative content analysis confirm the hypotheses of selection, additivity, and replication as they were originally postulated by Galtung and Ruge and thus prove the external validity of the theory of newsworthiness beyond western journalism.

This article deals with frames and schemata in news reporting. It distinguishes frames and schemata in newsroom discourse and news reports. On the individual cognitive level, a frame is defined as a set of schemata for different aspects of reality. They emerge in newsroom discourse and in exchange with other (media) discourses, i. e., they are not idiosyncratic but shared among those working in a newsroom. It is supposed that news report structures (media frames) correspond to these newsroom frames and schemata. The article discusses these considerations in regard to related explanations of news production, especially attitudinal approaches such as news bias. While the latter assume that journalists prefer information consistent with their own attitudes or that news reporting is ‘synchronized’ with editorial tendencies, the framing approach proposes that information in routine news reports correspond to newsroom frames. In this study I will use xenophobia as an example to identify newsroom frames in a qualitative frame analysis. In the second part of the study, quantitative analysis of news framing examines whether news report information correlates with newsroom frames. Finally, I will present empirical evidence that shows that newsroom frames play a role in news reporting.

Normative theories of media functions require a clear distinction between the media's two roles as forum and speaker in public spheres. This article seeks to study potential violations of the rule of separating fact from opinion. The comparative content analysis takes a European political conflict, the so-called Haider debate, as a litmus test of objectivity of news reporting. The study reveals some critical consequences of the press' political involvement in the debate. In all countries under study, the press tends to incorporate journalistic evaluations into the news. The Haider debate was characterized by a ‘political parallelism’ of the press in a manner which Hallin and Mancini re-defined as ‘party-press parallelism’. The newspapers favorably gave voice to speakers supporting their own positions, thus instrumentalizing opportune witnesses. As a result, the newspapers ‘synchronized’ the coverage with their editorial stances, which lead to biased news reporting in all outlets.

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.