Full Text
News Factors
Hans Mathias Kepplinger
Subject
Communication and Media Studies
»
Communication Studies
Media Production and Content
»
Journalism
DOI: 10.1111/b.9781405131995.2008.x
Extract
The term “news factors” denotes characteristics of news stories about events and topics that contribute to making them newsworthy (→ news ; News Values ). Other than events (e.g., the attacks on the US of September 11, 2001) and topics (terrorism), news factors like “damage” are scientific constructs, which can be related to all kinds of events or topics. News factors are regarded as – among other things – causes which make news stories newsworthy: the more news factors a news story carries, the more newsworthy is it. For example, a news story about a well-known actor killed in a car accident (two news factors: “prominent person” and “damage”) is more newsworthy than a news story about an unknown person killed (one news factor: “damage”). Besides the number of news factors, their intensity has an influence on the newsworthiness of news stories. A news story on three people killed is more newsworthy than a news story on one person killed. The concept was first used in the seventeenth century by the German author Stieler (1969) , who particularly elaborated on the importance and proximity of events and on the relevance of damage (war) and deviation (crime; → Negativity ). After Lippmann (1961) had published his reflections on the newsworthiness of events, Merz (1925) presented the first quantitative analysis of news factors in the press (→ Lippmann, Walter ). A decade later, ... log in or subscribe to read full text
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