1. MODELS ON MEDIA
SYSTEMS, PRODUCTION,
SELECTION AND FLOW
COM 630 (Advanced Theories and Models in Communication)
Presented by: Paul Michael A. Perez
Master in Communication major in Broadcast Journalism
3. BACKGROUNDER:
• Few works have been devoted to
analysis of the interactions of newsmen
and their news sources, particularly to
treating the newsman as an actor
involved in specific sets of political
relationships with his news sources.
Attention has been restricted to the
reporter's role in local political processes.
4. BACKGROUNDER:
• Walter Gieber's study efforts to define the roles of
sources and reporters making up a communications
system. During the development of the study, an
analysis of the role expectations of news sources and
news channels appeared.
• The study was published as "The City Hall 'Beat': a
Study of Reporter and Source Roles" (1961) by Walter
Gieber and Walter Johnson. The aforementioned
study identified a level of assimilation between the
interests of city hall journalists and local officials.
5. CONCEPT
Gieber and Johnson (1961) develop three models of the
relationships between reporter and source:
1. Separate source-reporter roles - actors are members
disparate social systems, they remain independent of
one another, and their perceptions of role and function
are dissimilar
2. Partially assimilated source-reporter roles - actors
members of different structures, they cooperate to some
extent, and they are partially agreed in the perceptions
of function
3. Assimilated source-reporter roles - actors are
of convergent social structures and, as a result, share
perceptions of function.
7. CONCEPT
• Cooperation was based on shared values and an
understanding of their respective functions in
society. Journalists require news on a regular basis
while their sources desire the publication of material
in news outlets to communicate information to a
broad audience.
• Although the aims of journalists and their sources
may not always overlap completely, it has often
since been argued that news is usually a product of
this "transactional" or "symbiotic" relationship.
8. THE PROCESS OF ASSIMILATION
• Gieber and Johnson's study (1961) gave
emphasis on "assimilation." It is a complex
process of socialization by which the journalist's
frame of reference, methods of working, and
personal system of perceptions and
understandings are brought into line with the
expectations of his sources.
• The importance of mutual trust, confidence, and
understanding is emphasized and the journalist
is encouraged to conform to his source's model
of the 'good reporter.'
9. APPLICATION/SAMPLE
SCENARIO
Crime Reporter and policemen depend on each other's good
will and trade information and ideas. For the sake of
information, the crime reporter initiates interaction with the
police, and actively cultivates the relationship. Thus, as the
relationship develops, it is the reporter's world which is drawn
towards that of the policeman rather than vice versa. By
fulfilling his sources' expectations, the reporter, not only
receives good copy of information, he alse earns the respect of
his sources (Chibnail, 1977).
11. DEFINITION OF GATEKEEPING
• the process through which information is filtered or
regulated for dissemination, whether for
publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some
other mode of communication.
• The academic theory of gatekeeping is found in
multiple fields of study, including communication
studies, journalism, political science, and
sociology (Barzilai-Nahon, 2009).
12. BACKGROUNDER OF GATEKEEPING:
Kurt Zadek Lewin (1890-1947)
• Kurt Lewin, German-
American psychologist and
pioneer in social
psychology, was the first
one to coin the term
"gatekeeping."
• Lewin originally posited
gatekeeping to describe
the flow of groceries
during food shortages in
World War II.
13. • Lewin first observed food habits in families and
seeing housewives as gatekeepers at that
time (for example, a wife or mother as the
person who decides which foods end up on
the family's dinner table).
• Although he applied it originally to the food
chain, he then added that the gating process
can include a news item winding through
communication channels in a group.
14. • David Manning White of
University of Iowa (1950)
suggested the selection process
in newspapers and argued that
news items were rejected for
three reasons:
1. personal feelings of the
gatekeeper
2. insufficient space
3. the story had appeared
previously David Manning White
(1917-1993)
15. • In the 1970s, McCombs and
Shaw took a different direction of
gatekeeping when they looked at
the effects of gatekeepers'
decisions.
• McCombs and Shaw pointed out
that the gatekeeping concept is
related to the newer concept,
agenda-setting. (McCombs et al,
1976). Agenda-setting theory
describes the "ability [of the news
media] to influence the salience
of topics on the public agenda."
That is, if a news item is covered
frequently and prominently the
audience will regard the issue as
more important.
Dr. Maxwell McCombs
(born 1938)
Dr. Donald L. Shaw
16. WHO IS A GATEKEEPER?
- decides which of a certain commodity – materials, goods, and
information – may enter the system.
- one who is able to control the public’s knowledge of the actual
events by letting some stories pass through the system but keeping
others out.
* Gatekeepers exist in many jobs, and their choices hold the
potential to color mental pictures that are subsequently created in
people’s understanding of what is happening in the world around
them.
17. GATEKEEPING IN NEWS MEDIUM
Gatekeeper has to decide what kind of news items will publish and what
should not... based on an institution's/ organizations's ethics, principles
and policies. According to Berkowitz (1991), "news judgment" and news
values" influence gatekeeping.
As stated by Fourie (2008), gatekeeping includes:
1. Source of the news items
2. Abilities of the news people
3. News policy of the medium
4. Different influences on the news medium (e.g. legal constraints,
financial impediments)
5. The mere fact that a specific news has to make way for other news
items considered to be of higher news value
6. How new is perceived by news people and news audiences
18. LEVELS OF MEDIA GATEKEEPING:
1. Individuals - personal decisions
2. Routine Practices of Communication Work -
decisions are made according to a pre-established
and generalized set of practices
3. Communication Organizations - exists within an
environment of social institutions that affect the
gatekeeping process
4. Social Institutions - events vary to a degree that
they are culturally available as news items.
5. Societies - culture, indicators of social significance,
including political, influences selection decisions
affecting the extent to which different parts of the
world are covered and how they are covered.
19. HOW IT GOES?
According to White's model, number of news items (N) go
through the process of selection.
In the media organization (which is a gate), the sub-editor
("Mr. Gate") selects some news items considered of
sufficient interest and importance to be passed through to
the next process of news production. Thus some news
stories like N2 and N3 have been selected and have gone
through the first stage of transformation.
On the other hand, some other news items N1 and N4
have been rejected in the gatekeeping process.
21. KEY POINTS:
1. The selection criteria depend mainly on factors that
are subjective.
2. The decision not to report an event is linked either
to the fact that it is deemed uninteresting or that it
has already undergone previous treatment by other
media.
3. Some news is not selected due to lack of space
4 . The editor is considered the gatekeeper ( i.e. of
the newspaper)
22. APPLICATION/SAMPLE SCENARIO:
An international news channel receives numbers of news items within
day:
N1: Texas bull fighting
N2: International terror issues
N3: UN discussions
N4: religious abuse on international community
A news channel can’t show all those news items to audience because it
may affect the channel reputation in public and organizations policy.
Here, chief editor decides the news items as the gatekeeper.
23. Selected News Items:
N2: International terror issues, N3: UN
discussions,
Discarded News Items: (on popularity)
N1: Texas bull fighting
Discarded News Items: (on policy)
N4: Religious abuse on International
community
24. ANALYSIS/CRITICISM:
• White's model was important because it showed that news
does not flow freely and untampered from one point to another;
at different stages or gates, various influences determine the
final product (Galtung and Ruge, 1965)
• It expressed the flow of news in a linear way without taking
cognisance of the wider societal system influences (Fourie, 2008).
• It shows only one gatekeeper rather than several, as one would
normally expect to find in complex news operation (Kerala
Journalism, n.d.)
• Bass (1969) explained that the focus of White on the editor is not
relevant because he (editor) is not the key decision-maker.
26. BACKGROUNDER:
• Applying Kurt Lewin's concept of "gatekeeping,"
David Manning White (1950) wrote that news
stories were gathered by reporters but were often
rejected by editors who only ‘opened a gate’ in the
editing process to allow very few to reach the
printed page. An early point of criticism of White's
model was that it showed only one gatekeeper
rather than several, as one would normally expect
to find in complex news operation.
27. • Journalism and mass
communication professor
John T. McNelly of
University of Wisconsin-
Madison was one of a
number of researchers
who thought that White's
model was too simplistic a
view. McNelly wrote a
1959 paper to further a
debate about
‘gatekeepers’ by theorising
the stages by which
newspaper staff handle
news stories.
Prof. John T. McNelly
(1924-2014)
http://host.madison.com/news/local/obituaries/m
cnelly-john-t/article_0a1b7779-944a-56c1-be8c-
34b2c84f93a7.html
28. CONCEPT:
• McNelly's model showed how news items (e.g.
international news) pass through multiple individuals
gatekeepers as they travel from the source to the
audience (Shoemaker and Vos, 2009).
• McNelly (1959) observes that information about an
event to reach audiences requires to "run an
obstacle course of reportorial error or bias, editorial
selection and processing, translation, transmission
difficulties, and possible suppression or censorship"
(McNelly, 1959).
29. HOW IT GOES:
A story (S) is written about a newsworthy event (E) by a
foreign correspondent (C1). The story (Sn) then passes
through a chain of other gatekeepers, or intermediaries (Cn),
each of whom may edit, rewrite or cut it, combine it with a
related story, or otherwise shape it. The story may also be
eliminated. In addition to foreign correspondents, the
gatekeepers en route may include editors, rewritemen,
deskmen, telegraph editors of newspapers, or radio or
television news editors. Ultimately, the story reaches the
receiver (R), who may pass on an oral version of the story to
other people (Rn). The broken arrows represent feedback.
31. KEY POINTS:
1. The gatekeeping may well have been completed before the news
reaches the telegraph editor of a newspaper (i.e. the case of
news where foreign news decisions are made in a major bureau of
big telegraph services)
2. Gatekeeping is much more than just selecting or rejecting, since
the intermediaries often alter the form and substance of those
stories that survive the journey
3. There may well be two or three additional stages (i.e. there will be
witness to an event or one of the participants, hence often a local
report, taken up by a stringer, and passed the agency
correspondent) (Kerala Journalism, 2007)
4. Gatekeeping does not end with the news medium, since the initial
receiver often acts as gate keeper for others
5. Feedback is often infrequent and delayed.
32. APPLICATION/SAMPLE
SCENARIO:
A foreign news agency correspondent learns of a news worthy
event and writes a report which goes first to a regional bureau, from
where it may be sent in shortened form to the agency central
bureau. There it may be combined with a related story from
elsewhere and sent to a national or regional bureau of the country,
where it may be again cut for transmission to the telegraph editor of
a newspaper or radio/television.
Through out the process, various forms of feedback response occur
which may guide further acts of transmission.
34. ANALYSIS/CRITICISM:
1. The models tends to take 'newsworthiness' for granted and treats
the agency correspondent as the primary source. (Kerala
Journalism, 2007)
2. The model fails to differentiate functions and roles of workers in
the newsroom (Bass, 1969)
3. The model doesn't indicate the most significant point of selection
(Bass)
36. BACKGROUNDER:
• A. Z. Bass' criticisim of previous conceptualizations in both
White and McNelly is that there is no differentiation between
the roles of different 'gatekeepers' and no indication of what
is the most significant point of selection.
• Bass (1969) looked at individuals as gatekeepers, but in his
approach, the individual's job within the organization is of
interest---not the person.
• Bass argued that all news gatekeepers do the same sorts of
things, and he produced yet another model to show the two
primary functions that result in "double-action internal
news flows."
37. CONCEPT:
Bass argues that most important gate keeping activity
occurs within the news organization
In his model, Bass states that news are processed in
two stages before release:
1. News gathering - concerned only with factual
reporting; mostly done by news gatherers
2. News processing - more concerned with the
values and norms of the news organization; done
by processors and editors
38. HOW IT GOES?
• At Stage 1 (news gathering), news gatherers (writers, reporters, local
editors) take the information that comes from various sources and
channels in raw form and transform it into news copy.
• At Stage 2 (news processing), news processors (editors, copyeditors
and translators) modify and integrate the news copy into a finished
product that can be broadcast to a target audience (Shoemaker and
Vos, 2009).
• This model also remains as the only news gatekeeper model that
recognizes translation as part of the news production process.
39. WHO IS A NEWS TRANSLATOR?
• News translator acts as cultural gatekeepers who filter the flow of
information from stage I to Stage II.
• While local news editor usually acts as translation gatekeeper
deciding which translated news items should make it to the news
copy, the cultural gatekeeper role that news translator plays takes
place at the conversion and framing level.
• Translator plays a crucial role in how a message is conveyed from
the source language to the target language.
• A translator can filer, omit, add, alter and distort the original
message through choices and decisions of narrative frames at the
macro and micro levels of text, intentionally or unintentionally.
42. BACKGROUNDER:
• The research paper of two
Norwegian scholars Johan Galtung
and Mari Ruge in 1965 started the
concept of news values and criteria,
intended to explain the selectivity
criteria of three major international
crisis in four Norwegian newspapers.
• They pinned down a list of twelve
factors as news criteria according
which the gatekeepers make
decision about newsworthiness of
events and news stories to be
reported or not. Dr. Johan Galtung
(born 1930)
43. CONCEPT:
• Galtung and Ruge selective gatekeeping theory suggests that
news from around the world are evaluated using news values to
determine their newsworthiness (McQuail and Windahl, 1993)
• Galtung and Ruge's research was based on three hypotheses:
1. The more factors an event satisfies, the higher the probability
that it becomes news
2. The factors will tend to exclude each other
3. Events that satisfy none or very few factors will not become
news
44. TWELVE FACTORS FOR NEWS VALUES
ACCORDING TO GALTUNG AND RUGE (1965):
(F1) Frequency - an event that unfolds within a publication cycle of the
news medium is more likely to be selected than a one that takes place
over a long period of time.
(F2) Threshold - the greater the intensity (the more gruesome the
murder or the more casualties in an accident), the greater the impact
and the more likely it is to be selected.
(F3) Unambiguity - the more clearly an event can be understood and
interpreted without multiple meanings, the more likely it is to be
selected.
(F4) Meaningfulness - the culturally proximate, familiar or relevant is
more likely to be selected.
45. (F5) Consonance - the news selector may be able to predict (due
to experience) events that will be newsworthy, thus forming a “pre-
image” of an event, which in turn increases its chances of becoming
news.
(F6) Unexpectedness - among events meaningful and/or
consonant, the unexpected or rare event is more likely to be
selected.
(F7) Continuity - an event already in the news has a good chance
of remaining in the news (even if its impact has been reduced)
because it has become familiar and easier to interpret.
(F8) Composition - an event that contributes to the diversity of
topics and adds to a pile of similar news items.
46. (F9) Reference to elite nations - the actions of elite
nations are seen as more consequential than the
actions of other nations.
(F10) Reference to elite people - The actions of elite
people, likely to be famous, may be seen by news
selectors as having more consequence than others,
and news audiences may identify with them.
(F11) Reference to persons - news that can be
presented in terms of individual people rather than
abstractions is likely to be selected.
(F12) Reference to something negative - bad events
are generally unambiguous and newsworthy. (O‟Neill
and Harcup , 2009)
47. HOW IT GOES:
According to Galtung and Ruge (1965), news values/categories
overlap each other. If news assemblers find all twelve news
values/categories operating within a public occurence, they predict:
1. The more events satisfy the criteria mentioned, the more likely that
they will be registered as news (selection)
2. Once a news item has been selected what makes it newsworthy
according to the factors will be accentuated (distortion)
3. Both the process of selection and the process of distortion will take
place in all steps in the chain form from event to reader (replication)
As the news story passes from hand to hand within the organization,
the same news values/categories are applied and accentuated at each
level, creating a cumulative distortion.
49. OTHER SUGGESTED NEWS VALUES BY MEDIA
RESEARCHERS AND JOURNALISTS:
Categories of Harcup and
O‟Neill (2001):
• Power élite
• Celebrity
• Entertainment
• Surprise
• Bad news
• Good news
• Magnitude
• Relevance
• Follow-ups
• Media agenda
Categories of Denis MacShane
(1979):
• Conflict
• Hardship and danger to the
community
• Unusualness
• Scandal
• Individualism
50. ANALYSIS/CRITICISM:
1. “Galtung and Ruge‟s work remains an ideal starting-point
for any serious discussion of news values" (Brighton and
Foy, 2007)
2. Palmer (1998) stated that Galtung and Ruge were arguably
the first to provide a systematic list of news values.
3. McQuail (1994) describes Galtung and Ruge's list of news
values as “the most influential explanation of news values."
4. Watson (1998) believes that Galtung and Ruge's model is
"nevertheless a landmark in the scholarship of media.”
51. REFERENCES:
Books:
• Nimmo, D. (2014). Newsgathering in Washington: A Study in Political Communication (with a new
preface by Georgie Anne Geyer). New Jersey, USA: Transaction Publishers
• Bennett, D. (2013). Digital Media and Reporting Conflict: Blogging and the BBC's Coverage of War
and Terrorism. New York, USA: Routledge Research in Journalism
• Darwish, A. (2010). A Journalist's Guide to Live Direct and Unbiased News Translation. Victoria,
Australia: Writescope Pty Ltd.
• Shoemaker, P. & Vos, T. (2009). Gatekeeping Theory. Oxforshire, UK: Routledge Research in
Journalism
• Stacks. D. & Salwen, M. (2009). An Integrated Approach to Communication Theory and Research
(Second Edition).New York, USA: Routledge Research in Journalism
• Fourie, P. (2008). Media Studies: Media History, Media and Society, Second Edition (Volume 2:
Policy, Management and Media Representation). Cape Town, South Africa: Juta & Co. Ltd.
• Johnson-Cartee, K. S. (2005). News Narratives and News Framing: Constructing Political Reality.
Oxford, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
• Chibnall, S. (2001). Law-And-Order News. Oxforshire, UK: Routledge Research in Journalism
• Hornby, M.S., Jettmarova, Z. & Kaindl, K. (1997). Translation as intercultural communication:
selected papers from the EST Congress. Prague, Czech Republic: John Benjamins B. V.
•
52. REFERENCES:
Journals:
• Stanoevska-Slabeva, K., Sacco, V. & Schenker, Y. (2013). Influence of the
Blogosphere on Media Agenda: The Case of Swiss French Journalists Covering
International Events. Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER)
Conference Paper Series, MED2013-0401 http://www.atiner.gr/papers/MED2013-
0401.pdf
• Aghagolzadeh, F. & Kheirabadi, R. (2012). A Discoursive Review of Galtung and
Ruge's News Factors in Iranian Newspapers. Theory and Practice in Language
Studies, Vol. 2, No. 5, pp. 989-994.
http://ojs.academypublisher.com/index.php/tpls/article/viewFile/tpls0205989994/4936
53. REFERENCES:
Powerpoint Presentation:
Saravanan, M. (Presenter) (2011, April 10). Tuesday Talk: Gatekeeping Theory.
Retrieved July 14, 2014, from http://www.slideshare.net/tuesdaytalks/media-gate-
keeping-theory
54. REFERENCES:
Web site Contents:
Beam, Michael A. (n.d.). Gatekeeping: From Inception to the Internet. Ohio, USA: The
Ohio State University. Retrieved July 13, 2014, from
http://citation.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/2/0/4/2/4/pages2042
48/p204248-3.php
Kerala Journalism. McNelly's Model of News Flow. Retrieved July 12, 2014, from
http://keralajournalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/mcnellys-model-of-news-flow.html
Kerala Journalism. Bass Double Action Model of Internal News Flow. Retrieved July 13,
2014, from
http://keralajournalism.blogspot.com/2007/12/bass-model-of-news-flow.html
Alan Machin: Tourism As Education (n.d.). A Showcase in Tourism: A landscape feature
which communicates something, rather than one which has merely utilitarian value.
Retrieved July 14, 2014, from http://www.alanmachinwork.net/Showcases
University of Twente (n.d.). Gatekeeping. Retrieved July 15, 2014, from
http://www.utwente.nl/cw/theorieenoverzicht/Theory%20clusters/Media,%20Culture%20
and%20Society/gatekeeping/
