The Content Pertemuan 21 - 22

Matakuliah : O0394 – Teknik Reportase dan News CasterTahun : 2010

Learning ObjectivesThis section (1) will discuss news from its psychological aspect. The

discussion will focus on 2 (two) components: (1) The Content-Based

Approaches to News Media, and (2) The Information Processing

Approaches to News Reception.

The material will discuss how news are put together to set the mind

of people. It is actually known that news can be arranged in line

with certain situation or even demand.

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media

Which one is the most preferred way of receiving news?

It was predicted that the arrival of new media technologies

will invariably be accompanied by fears that traditional new

sources will become redundant;

But newspapers have remained popular perhaps because

they perform functions different than those of television

and online news;

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media When first aired, the BBC radio was severely restricted by

newspaper owners for fear of losing sales, until the BBC

became the state corporation (Scannell & Cardiff, 1991);

There are 3 (three) reasons of fearing the lost of sales:

First, the more varied program that can be aired in almost as

simple and clear way: even the news bulletin can be aired in

less than 15 minutes;

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media

Second, another reason is that the new media offered a more

varied news subjects from “human interests” to serious

crimes;

Third, with the improved technology, the new media can now

provide news 24 hours a day, with the most well-known Cable

News Network (CNN) – a US channel that achieved worldwide

fame with its breaking news on Gulf War in early 1990s;

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media On contrary, the newspapers are also favored for its general interest in

political issues and current affairs and being a better predictor than

television;

It is also stated (Gunter, 1997) that television is less effective in

conveying semantic messages than is the newsprint:

First, it takes just a slight of time for television to present more than the

essential facts while the newspaper may devote several pages for a

story/ news;

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media

Second, news programming is chronological and it may cause

the loss of attention for a less interest news subject, or it may

cause the switch off the television for other activity.

With newspaper, we can move to another interesting headline

Third, the television does not allow us to refresh our memory

on certain interesting subject, while the newsprint allows us to

re-read the earlier parts and update our memory.

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media

Then how can the news and the reader be put

together?

First, the approach that concerns with the content

itself;

Second, the approach that examines the impact of

news on the viewer or the reader.

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media

The approach that concerns with the content itself.

What is That?

The Content-Based Approach is the way the news is put

together by journalists and broadcaster to obtain the expected

effects. Meaning, the news is set to form a certain situation.

It is the opposite of “magic window” theory that argues

that television news is simply a reflection of what’s really

happening in the world.

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media Agenda Setting is the popular content-based approach where it

views news as the reflection of the interests in media owners;

Agenda Setting is mostly used in purpose by politicians during

their elections day - that they cunningly disguise the news or

advertisement as their vehicle to win the election;

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media Other components that use Agenda Setting to set their

goals are celebrities, public relations or advertising firms

upon the launching of commercial products;

The most explicit form of Agenda Setting concerns with the

censorship of news where the all sensitive information is

hidden on the interest of the news sources.

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Content-Based Approaches to News Media Another explicit issues of Agenda Setting concerns

with large sums of money that is used to secure the

“exclusives’ or to compensate for running the

scandalous gossip;

In politics, there is a term called ‘money politics’ – an

amount of fund provided by a certain people or group

for the purpose of running their political programs.

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Information Processing Approaches to News Reception

How to measure our ability to interpret or understand

news?

The knowledge of news reception (how readers and viewers

actually understand and interpret news) has two theoretical

approaches: the short-term cognitive approach, and the

cultivation approach;

The short-term cognitive approach is where memory for news

material is measured in laboratory-type settings;

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Information Processing Approaches to News Reception

The cultivation approach is where we look at people’s general media

use and their understanding of news content;

As Gunter (1987) stated that our memory for news is not particularly

good due to distracting visual footage that does not always tally

perfectly with the verbal material;

Means that people may switch their attention from a message because

there is a more/ less interesting picture that follows the message.

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Information Processing Approaches to News Reception

With that fact, a news producer would usually delay showing

pictures until the details of the story have been read out;

Or if the images shown are negative, it will be better if the

images are shown upfront because the emotive pictures are

considered heighten the viewers’ attention;

As Schlesinger (1978) pointed out, news producers organize

bulletins in clusters of stories based on thematic similarity (for

example: sports, fashion, technology, food, etc).

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Information Processing Approaches to News Reception

The Schelinger’s theory of putting news items in similar

theme is very much different with Mundorf and Zillmann

(1991) that pointed out the existence of the powerful

effect of memorable or spectacular single items that

distract viewers or listeners from remembering

neighboring items that are rather less spectacular.

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Closing

By learning this material, it is expected that the

students can also see news from its other interesting

aspect, the psychological aspect.

By understanding the other side of news, hopefully

the students may be able to view news differently,

apart from the meaning of news itself.

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