Construction Of News Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Construction of news is the process by which information about events, people, and ideas is compiled into a format that allows it to be transmitted to an audience. The product of this process is the news, which the public consumes to varying degrees through media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and the Internet. To view news as a construction is to believe that it does more than just reflect the objective realities of the world. Rather, from this perspective, the news emerges from a series of decisions, habits, and external forces; the product both reflects reality and, to some extent, constitutes reality. This conception of news has its roots in some of the earliest examinations of mass media and the public, including Walter Lippmann’s Public Opinion (1922), and crystallized in scholarly thought during the 1970s with work such as Gaye Tuchman’s Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality (1978). In many commercial media systems worldwide, the primary factors that influence the construction of news are economic forces, journalistic norms, and the strategic communication practices of politicians and interest groups.

Economic Forces

Typically, commercial news media are owned by large corporate conglomerates and supported primarily by advertising revenue. As a result, those involved in constructing the news pay close attention to what information and presentation style is likely to generate the largest audience. Large audiences are desirable, because they generate more advertising revenue and, consequently, greater profits for news organizations and their parent corporations. As the corporations that own news media grow larger and audiences face a rapidly expanding range of news sources—trends facilitated by government deregulation of media companies and the growth of the Internet—the pursuit of profits through news becomes increasingly pronounced.

There is little question that economic considerations influence the construction of news, but there are different views as to the extent of that influence. Some feel as though the business side of news organizations is generally uninvolved with the news side, while others argue that the concentration of media ownership increases the pressures of commercialism and has a deleterious impact on the quality of the news. Some common concerns are that economic pressures lead journalists to rely too heavily on official sources, offer insufficient contextual information, and focus on a limited range of topics, especially emphasizing the problems of the public sector over those of the private sector. One well-documented outcome of modern economic constraints is that traditional “hard news,” such as politics and foreign affairs, has given way to more “soft news,” which emphasizes entertainment and human interest stories. Even in less commercially driven media systems, news construction is based to some extent on perceived audience interest.

Journalistic Norms

Like the employees of other organizations, journalists engage in a series of routines and practices that help them do their job. These journalistic norms influence the construction of news, because journalists act as gatekeepers; that is, their decisions about which stories to present and how to present them fundamentally shape the news that much of the public will receive. Studies of the gatekeeping process demonstrate that journalists’ views about what is newsworthy, stylistically pleasing, and ideologically acceptable all affect the form and content of the news. As cable news and the Inter net have expanded options for news consumers in many countries, the gatekeeping function of the press has diminished. Nevertheless, journalistic norms continue to play an important role in the construction of news.

Norms vary by country and change over time. Among the more common and consequential of these norms are the presumption of objectivity or neutrality, including the expectation that journalists will remove themselves from the story by relying on sources to present both sides of a given story; the tendency to favor sources that are deemed authoritative, especially those in positions of power; an emphasis on dramatic stories or the most dramatic elements within a given story, including crisis, conflict, or scandal; and the desire to find exclusive stories or “scoops” that will differentiate a story, journalist, or news organization from competitors. Journalists also have traditionally worked with limited time and space, which has led them to use the “inverted pyramid” style of presentation. This style frontloads the basic factual information of the story and limits further analysis.

Strategic Communication Practices

Political leaders and interest groups often perceive favorable news coverage as crucial to achieving their objectives. Because of this, they work to influence the construction of news though various techniques. In countries with an independent press, such techniques include giving public speeches, holding press conferences, issuing press releases or video news releases, developing relationships with journalists, and serving as sources in journalists’ stories. In countries that have more government involvement in the press, direct propaganda and censorship sometimes render such techniques unnecessary. Strategies for press management have become increasingly common and sophisticated over time, beginning in earnest during the early twentieth century and growing exponentially since then. Politics in particular are now practiced much more publicly than they were in previous eras, which has led politicians to devote a substantial amount of time and energy to news management.

Such attempts have mixed success. Journalists do use speeches, press conferences, press releases, and the like to generate ideas for stories. In some cases, news organizations will print such material in its original form. Further, in many news systems, journalists’ tendency to seek out seemingly reputable or authoritative sources encourages a heavy reliance on official sources and ensures that political news coverage regularly gives voice to those in positions of political power. Nevertheless, journalists often reject overt attempts at news management, and voices critical of politicians and interests groups regularly find their way into news coverage generated in independent media systems.

There is no consensus as to which of these three factors— economic forces, journalistic norms, or strategic communication practices—exerts the most influence on the construction of news. Journalists tend to view themselves as fairly independent, though acknowledging the economic constraints they face and the symbiotic relationship they maintain with politicians and interest groups. Practitioners of strategic communication often assume their techniques are effective, though research confirms that the success of these approaches is highly dependent on context and often limited. Many scholars emphasize the economic structure of commercial news media as the decisive factor. Regardless of which is the most influential, each of the three factors contributes meaningfully to the construction of news.

Bibliography:

Bagdikian, Ben H. The Media Monopoly. 5th ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
Bennett,W. Lance. News:The Politics of Illusion. 6th ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005.
Gans, Herbert J. Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time. New York: Pantheon Books, 1979.
Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1922.
Manheim, Jarol B. Strategic Public Diplomacy and American Foreign Policy: The Evolution of Influence. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Napoli, Philip M. Audience Economics: Media Institutions and the Audience Marketplace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.
Shoemaker, Pamela J. Gatekeeping. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1991.
Shoemaker, Pamela J., and Stephen D. Reese. Mediating the message: Theories of influence on mass media content. 2nd ed.White Plains, N.Y.: Longman, 1996.
Sigal, Leon V. Reporters and officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking. Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1973.

Tuchman, Gaye. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press, 1978.

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