The following list of news values has been adapted from Galtung and Ruge's study of news criteria;
- Immediacy - this refers to recent stories, stories that can be classed as "breaking". This news value is likely to push the story up the news agenda - often the first story in a bulletin will be breaking news.
- Familiarity - this refers to whether the news story is culturally or geographically close to the audience - so for listeners in the UK, this refers to stories that have taken place in this country (or affect citizens of this country) or possibly within Europe and the USA (are close cultural/political allies). Familiarity can be applied to national news and local news - a national radio station may include stories from across the country whilst a local radio news bulletin would include stories from that regional area.
- Amplitude - this is refers to the size of the event covered in the story and whether or not it involves large numbers of people. Often stories towards the beginning of a news bulletin will contain this news value as lots of people may be affected by the story.
- Frequency - this refers to how often the event covered in the story happened. As a news value frequency sometimes pushes a story up the news agenda (if it is a story whose frequency is likely to provoke outrage) whilst sometimes frequency will push the story down the news agenda (as people become used to the event happening so often).
- Impact - this refers to whether or not the story has a profound effect on the public's lives and whether the story contains elements that would make the public feel threatened. Again, a story that contains this news value is likely to appear near the top of a news bulletin because of its potential to affect large numbers of people.
- Predictability - this news value is found in stories that the public expect to happen. Because events are expected this may push such a story down the news agenda.
- Surprise - This news value is the opposite of predictability and refers to stories that contain unusual or unexpected events. Because these stories are unusual and surprising they often find themselves higher up the news agenda.
- Continuity - This news value is almost the opposite of immediacy- here the story has already been defined as news. If the article is part of an ongoing or long-running story. It may appear further down the news agenda than it did when it was 'breaking'.
- Conflict - This is probably the most dominant of all news values. Conflict can take a wide range forms. Many news stories report disagreements, arguments or fights between two or more people/organisation. Stories involving conflict are popular with the public as conflict is often the driving force in most narrative forms that the public will be familiar with.
- Elite people - within certain publications and on certain radio stations, stories involving elite people such as celebrities are often found towards the top of the news agenda- this reflects our country's obsession with celebrity. Many news stories, which we wouldn't normally consider to be newsworthy, appear to make the news purely because they involve a celebrity.
- Personalisation - stories that provoke an emotional response from the public. These are known as 'Human Interest Stories' and present real people and their problems, concerns or achievements. This news value often dominates news stories as the public are asked to sympathise with or relate to the subjects within the stories.
- Negativity - often news stories can be classified as 'bad news', containing elements that make people feel threatened or that will affect people in a negative way. These stories are usually found towards the beginning of news bulletins (almost completely dominate the whole news bulletin)
- Scandal - stories involving scandal often centre on celebrities or people in prominent positions within society, and are likely to provoke outrage within sections of the audience.
- Balance - Often stories are chosen largely to balance the other news stories- For example a positive heart warming story to counteract the bad news stories that may have dominated the rest of the news.
When I am analysing news stories in more detail I am going to make a note of the news values these stories contain. This is to try and determine what effect the news values have on a stories inclusion and also its position within a bulletin's running order. I will think carefully in future about the importance of news values when writing my own news stories.
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