Mass Media 3 | The Selection and Presentation of News

Following hot on the heels of Defining and Researching the Media and The Ownership and Control Debate comes a new set of notes looking at The Selection and Presentation of News.

When I say “new”, the bulk of the text was actually written around 5 years ago but I’ve updated it slightly to take account of newer research on areas like:

News Values – more specifically, Harcup and O’Neill’s (2017) recent re-evaluation of their 2001 study that looked not just at possible changes to old media  news values but also news values related to new media – Facebook in particular.

Gatekeeping and the impact of computer algorithms on new media sites such as Facebook and YouTube

Neo-Marxism – a few statistical updates relating to concept of hegemony and levels of trust in old and new media.

New Right: I’ve expanded this section slightly to include new examples of anti-competitive behaviour in new media and I’ve added a short section on the Cairncross Review (2019) in the context of State attempts to regulate old and media to encourage competition and innovation.

Postmodernism: This section has seen a fewer minor changes to clarify things like Goffman’s ideas about Frontstage / Backstage applied to new media and how Baudrillard’s concepts of simulacra and hyperreality relate to news selection and presentation.

It’s quite a large file (18 or so pages) and, in places, a little complicated (particularly the postmodernism section). If you use this with your a-level students you may need to check that it’s an appropriate level.

Otherwise.

Happy Days!

Update
This chapter is also now available as an online flipbook.