ÂDebate Whether Galtung and Ruges (1967) Model of the...

‘DEBATE WHETHER GALTUNG AND RUGES (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 ‘fourth estate that alleges a neutral, objective and balanced perspective, independent of political input. The news forms the basis of this ‘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 ONeill, 2001). Journalists appear to have an unvoiced compilation of guidelines or news values passed down through education as well as industry experience, which†¦show more content†¦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 Ruges paper in 1967, journalism has frequently been reported to be suffering a Â…significant deteriorationÂ… (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. Franklins 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 Ruges news values, this particular example would fall under the category of ‘Elite People (see AX p. 10) yet the coverage of celebrities although prominent in todays society, was not the intended news story that this category was cre ated for. This emphasises that while the categories may be broadly