The Media of Mass Communication 8-9

News

A report on change

newsworthiness

a ranking of news that helps decide what makes it into news packages.

James Gordon Bennett

Early Penny Press publisher; founder of New York Herald 1835, also first to assign reporters to sports regularly

news beats

a specific subject or field that a news reporter covers as a specialty, like a police beat, science beat

Bennett Model

An enduring concept of news that emphasizes event-based reporting on deadlines

Joseph McCarthy

US senator from Wisconsin; fueled anti-communist hysteria 1950-1954

Edward R. Murrow

CBS television reporter who confronted McCarthy on demagoguery.

Robert Hutchins

Philosopher whose interests included news practices

Hutchins Commission

Recommended reforms in news practices to emphasize social responsibility.

Benjamin Harris

Published Publick Occurrences

Benjamin Day

Printed first successful penny paper, New York Sun 1833

Joseph Pulitzer

Emphasized human interest in newspapers; later moved sensationalism to greater heights. He also organized the first newspaper sports department.

William Randolph Hearst

Built circulation with sensationalism

yellow journalism

sensationalized news accounts

Curtis McDougal

His journalism textbook advocated interpretation

editorializing

Opinionated comments that go beyond just stating the straightforward reporting

Herbert Gans

Concluded that journalists have mainstream values. Also said that social,economic and intellectual levels of audience coincide

ethnocentrism

seeing things on the basis of personal experience and values

watchdog function

the news media role to monitor the performance of government and other institutions of society

news hole

space for news in a newspaper after ads are inserted: time in a newscast for news after ads

news flow

significance of events worth covering varies from day to day

staffing

available staff resources to cover news

consensible nature of news

News organization second-guessing competition in deciding coverage. Scanning environment so that they can be the first to get the big story.

gatekeepers

media people influencing messages en route

aggregation sites

news sites that regurgitate news compiled from elsewhere or that offer pass-through links to other sources

Arriana Huffington

Founder of online news site Huffington Post

news alerts

email links to news from search engines on subjects that users request with key search terms

Bob Woodward

Carl Bernsteins colleague in the Watergate revelations

Carl Bernstein

Washington Post reporter who dug up Watergate

Watergate

Nixon administration scandal

investigative reporting

Enterprise reporting that reveals new information, often startling ; most often these are stories that official sources would rather not have told.

muckraking

Fanciful term for digging up dirt but that usually is used in laudatory way for investigative journalism; aimed at public policy reform.

Ida Tarbell

Muckraker remembered for her series on monopolistic corruption at Standard Oil

soft news

Geared to satisfying audience's information wants, not needs

genres

Broad thematic categories of media content

authentic performance

a live performance with an on-site audience

mediated performance

a performance modified and adjusted for delivery to an audience by mass media

mediated message

adjusted to be effective when carried by the mass media

black music

folk genre from American black slave experience

rhythm and blues

distinctive style of black music that took form in the 1930's

hillbilly music

Folk genre from rural Appalachia, Southern white experience

rockabilly

a splicing of rock'n roll and hillbilly, used for early rock music

rock'n roll

popular dance music, heavy beat simple melodies and guitar, bass and drum instrumentation, usually on a 12-bar structure

Sam Phillips

a Memphis music producer who recorded and promoted early rock music

rap

Dance music with intense bass,rhyming rifts, the lyrics often with anti-establishment defiances

Henry Luce

Magazine publisher known for Time, Life, Sports Illustrated and others.

Roone Arledge

ABC television executive responsible for Wide World of Sports in 1961

loss leader

a product sold at a loss to attract customers

Ulysses

James Joyce novel banned in the United States until 1930 court decision.

obscenity

sexually explicit media depictions that the government can ban

pornography

sexually explicit depictions that are protected from government bans

Miller Standard

Current U.S. Supreme Court definition of sexually explicit depictions that are protected by the First Amendment from government bans

Sam Ginsberg

Figure in the U.S. Supreme Court decision to bar sales of pornography to children

George Carlin

Comedian whose satires on vulgarities prompted rules on radio programming to shield children

Pacifica case

U.S. Supreme Court ruling to keep indecency off over-air broadcast stations at times when children are likely to be listening

Andre Bazin

French film critic who devised the term auteur for significant cutting edge filmmakers

auteur

a filmmaker recognized for significant and original treatments

studio system

a production-line movie system devised by Hollywood in the 1920's

Harlequin

Canadian publisher known for romances with cliched characters, settings and themes; the term is applied generically to pulp romances

pulp fiction

quickly and inexpensively produced easy-to-read short novels

high art

requires sophisticated taste to be appreciated

low art

art that can be appreciated by everyone

elitist

mass media should gear to sophisticated audiences

kitsch

Pejorative word for trendy, trashy low art

populist

Mass media should seek largest possible audiences

Dwight Macdonald

Said all Pop was kitsch

high-, middle- and low- culture audiences

continuum identified by Herbert Gans

popular art

art that tries to succeed in the markeplace

pop art revisionism

the view that pop art has inherent value

Susan Sontag

Saw cultural, social value in pop art

Watchdog function

The news media role to monitor the performance of government and other institutions is called the

presenting the news in a context that gives it meaning

The Hutchins Commission called on the news media to become more social responsible by

a report on change

what is the news?

Genres

Broad thematic categories of media content are called

It must fail all three of the tests set fourth of the Miller standard.

In order for material to be banned as obscene,