News agenciesA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWtion and presentation, we would be alert to the
capacity of audience to choose alternative read-
ings to the realities with which they are being
presented. We will most certainly have noted
how news presentation has developed over the
years; that it is more lively than ever before in
style and content; that it is more entertaining.
We might need to ask whether such develop-
ments have increased or decreased audience
comprehension of the matters being presented:
how much of what is read or seen on TV news is
fully grasped, contextualized; indeed, how much
of it has been retained as meaningful informa-
tion?
No form of public communication has a higher
profi le than news production and management,
and issues relating to this concern a number
of high aspirations – objectivity, balance and
impartiality – each diffi cult to defi ne both in
theory and in practice. Many commentators
would argue that a more pressing issue is the
nature of ownership and control and whether, in
any given society, there is a plurality in the ways
in which information and opinion are presented.
Finally, news and news production have to
be seen in relation to trends – the impact of
new media technologies, the transnationaliza-
tion of media ownership, the privatization of
public media services and the globalization
of message/meaning systems. See blogging;
blogosphere; churnalism; journalism;
journalism: celebrity journalism; jour-
nalism: citizen journalism; journalism:
data journalism; journalism: investiga-
tive journalism; journalism: ‘postmodern
journalism’; new media; news: audience
evaluation, six dimensions of; news: audi-
ences for news; news provision: three
elements; news: structure of reassur-
ance; news: the ‘maleness’ of news; news
waves. For a full listing, see topic guide under
news media.
▶Daya Kishan Th ussu, News as Entertainment: Th e
Rise of Global Infotainment (Sage, 2008); Stuart
Allan, News Culture (Open University, 3rd edition,
2010); Graham Meikle and Guy Redden, eds, News
Online: Transformations and Continuities (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010); Kaitlynn Mendes, Feminism in
the News: Representations of the Women’s Movement
Since the 1960s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).
News agencies ‘The invention of the news
agency,’ writes Anthony Smith in Th e Geopoli-
tics of Information (Faber, 1980), ‘was the most
important single development in the newspaper
industry in the early 1800s, apart from the rotary
press.’ Th e early agencies – Reuter, Havas andIn this sense, news can actually be described
as ‘olds’: what has by precedent been counted
as news continues to be classifi ed and used as
news. We become acutely aware of the selective
nature of news, of the fact that, for example, the
elite – persons, societies, nations – appear
more often in the news than ordinary people or
less prestigious societies and nations. And there
is a reciprocal nature about inclusion in the
news: if you are important, the news covers what
you do or say; if the news covers what you do or
say, what you do or say becomes better known.
You become a Known instead of an Unknown.
Th e focus of study will shift from the analysis
of news sources, to the predisposition, reporto-
rial approach, and the constraints upon that
approach, of the practitioners of news; and
their activities will be examined in micro and
macro situations. At the micro level we would
scrutinize the relationship of practitioners to the
organization that employs them and thus directs
and infl uences their professional activities.
At the macro level we would study the infl u-
ences from outside the organization, from
society itself: what part in shaping news content
and presentation does big business have, or
government, or the law? What social, cultural,
economic or political pressures are brought to
bear on news production that will infl uence the
shape and tenor of it as it reaches the audience?
We would be equally interested in how the
news is put together, how decisions are made
about what is considered important or less
important. Th is might lead us into an investiga-
tion of agenda-setting, in turn providing us
with a useful guide to the processes of gate-
keeping. Th e agenda controls the gate; but what
controls the agenda? We would need to explore
the basic principles of what information, at
any given time, is considered newsworthy. We
would focus on the news values which both
practitioners and media analysts have identifi ed
as infl uencing decision-making.
Very importantly, we would be interested in
investigating how news is received by audience.
We would attempt to discover how audiences
actually use the news; how far it actually does
inform them, and whether it infl uences them.
We soon understand that news reconstructs
the world according to the perceptions of those
who produce the news, and those who employ
or infl uence the news producers; and we would
be interested in discovering to what extent audi-
ences take on board the ‘reality’ presented by
news.
In examining the approaches to news produc-