Debate Whether Galtung and Ruge's (1967) Model of the News Value Is Still Relevant in an Age of New Media, Citizen Journalism and User-Generated Content.'

Ð''DEBATE WHETHER GALTUNG AND RUGE'S (1967) MODEL OF THE NEWS VALUE IS STILL RELEVANT IN AN AGE OF NEW MEDIA, CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND USER-GENERATED CONTENT.'

The media in Western society provides a Ð''fourth estate' that alleges a neutral, objective and balanced perspective, independent of political input. The news forms the basis of this Ð''fourth estate', playing an important role in keeping the public informed and therefore promoting democracy (Marris and Thornham, 1996).

Daily there are millions of possible news headlines of which, only a small sample are published (Harcup and O'Neill, 2001). Journalists appear to have an unvoiced compilation of guidelines or news values passed down through education as well as industry experience, which aid them to decipher the newsworthiness of a story. It is these news values, which Galtung and Ruge attempted to identify in their 1967 study. Galtung and Ruge suggested in their key hypothesis that the more news values that are adhered to, the more likely a story is to be published (Reinemann and Schulz, 2006).

Walter Lippman first introduced the concept of the Ð''news value' in 1922. Lippman focused on news factors such as whether a story involved Ð''influential institutions, dramatic increase of damage, or a breach of order such as a strike or lockout.'(Kepplinger and Ehmig, 2006). As would be expected research into news values has progressed immensely since this period, however, despite contemporary research having been undertaken, it is Ð''Galtung and Ruge's paper, which has long been regarded as a Ð''landmark' study of news values and news selection.'(Watson, 1998 cited in Harcup and O'Neill, 2001).

News values can be defined as "Ð'...Ð''journalists' hypotheses about the relevance of events" (Schulz, 1976 cited in Reinemann and Schulz, 2006). In a rapidly evolving and competitive market, it is vital for journalists to interpret what it is that is relevant, interesting and appropriate for their readership.

Modern research implies that Ð''the Internet has altered journalistic norms and values as well as public expectations in terms of news content.'(Kovarick, 2002 cited in Yun et al, 2007). Therefore, it is important to consider if Galtung and Ruge's Ð''landmark study' is still relevant in a digital era of new media, citizen journalism and user-generated content.

The twelve news values (See AX p. 10) proposed by Galtung and Ruge (1967) define the criteria of news worthiness with the last four values relating specifically to the Western Media. The study can be criticised methodologically because the sample of texts was limited purely to the study of foreign news. Therefore, arguably it cannot be generalised to other cultures - an important quality for social research in today's multi-cultural society. However, Reinemann and Schulz (2006) found this not to be the case after their analysis of Ð''news values' in Mexican newspapers. Their study concluded that even in a non-western culture such as Mexico, the Ð''news values' model is still relevant including Ð''the hypothesis of selection' which was Ð''able to predict the selection process.'

The study is limited demographically in terms of the researchers themselves, as

Galtung and Ruge were two Ð''white-middle classed men'. Therefore, experimenter bias is an issue as the two researchers were likely to have mad similar ideologies. It is through these men that journalists have acquired their knowledge and it must be questioned as to whether their beliefs on what is deemed important and what is labelled Ð''soft' is relevant to the generations of the twenty-first century, which include multi-race, multi-gender and multi-classed citizens (Coote, 1981, cited in Hartley, 1982).

In terms of its' historical context, Galtung and Ruge's study could be considered by some to be dated, particularly Ð''within the context of increasingly multi-media landscape.'(Harcup and O'Neill, 2001). However, as McQuail (1994, cited in Harcup and O'Neill, 2001) states, Ð''More than three decades after published it remains Ð''most influential explanation' of news values.' One of the reasons for this proposed by Gans (2005, cited in Anderson, 2006) is that although the techniques involved in news production may have been modernised with the introduction of the mass-media, this does not necessarily affect the underlying formation of a news story Ð'- the journalists' judgement. It is this judgement and the reasons behind it, which was studied by Galtung and Ruge and so it is arguable that their theory is still highly relevant.

However, it is undeniable that since the production of Galtung and Ruge's paper in 1967, journalism has frequently been reported to be suffering a "Ð'...significant deteriorationÐ'..." (Ursell, 2001) in terms of quality and production. This view is reinforced by Franklin (1997) whose study discovered a movement from traditional news such as politics written to inform, towards news written with the purpose of entertainment. Franklin's findings support his suggestion that broadsheet newspapers have an increasingly tabloid agenda, which may be a result of user-generated content being used to inform journalists what the readership wish to read about. E.g. coverage about celebrities instead of politics (Franklin, 1997 cited in Ursell, 2001). Using Galtung and Ruge's news values, this particular example would fall under the category of Ð''Elite People' (see AX p. 10) yet the coverage of celebrities although prominent in today's society, was not the intended news story that this category was created for. This emphasises that while the categories may be broadly meaningful, they are somewhat ambiguous and so may be misread (Boyd-Barrett and Newbold, 1995).

The increase in the production of news focusing on Ð''entertainment' also links to Galtung and Ruge's twelfth news value Ð''Reference to Something Negative' (see AX p. 10), as in celebrity culture bad press does not necessarily mean a decrease in popularity. Often it can result in the readership sympathising with the celebrity, therefore reinforcing that no news is bad news (Harcup and O'Neill, 2001). A recent example of this is Britney Spears. She has had terrible press for nearly two years now including divorce, alcohol addiction