News Values from an Audience Perspective

This book focuses on journalistic news values from an audience perspective. The audience influences what is deemed newsworthy by journalists, not only because journalists tell their stories with a specific audience in mind, but increasingly because the interaction of the audience with the news can be measured extensively in digital journalism and because members of the audience have a say in which stories will be told. The first section considers how thinking about news values has evolved over the last fifty years and puts news values in a broader perspective by looking at news consumers’ preferences in different countries worldwide. The second section analyses audience response, explaining how audience appreciation and ‘clicking’ behaviour informs headline choices and is measured by algorithms. Section three explores how audiences contribute to the creation of news content and discusses mainstream media’s practice of recycling audience contributions on their own social media channels.

“News values are no longer only the domain of expert judgements by journalists and editors. How audiences interact with the news, what they select and how they embed news in daily conversations becomes increasingly relevant for practitioners to consider. The editors and authors of this volume show a broad range of approaches to studying “news values from an audience perspective”, underlining the need for critical reflections and new methodologies to understand how news becomes relevant. This fine, comprehensive volume maps the current transformation in news value research, revisiting and adapting the legacies and presenting transnational perspectives for a dynamic field of development in journalism. It recommends itself to the student and researcher in journalism studies and beyond, as much as it offers a useful resource for journalists to reflect how news matters to their audiences in different ways.” (Christoph Raetzsch, Department of Media and Journalism Studies, Aarhus University,Denmark)

“In the age of active and participatory audiences and increasing use of audience analytics, this welcome new addition to news values research puts the spotlight squarely on the audience. A unique feature is the diversity of approaches that are included, such as interviews, language analysis, personal and theoretical reflection, global survey data, ethnographic research, and quantitative content analysis. A book for anyone interested in the interplay between audiences and the ever-fascinating question of what counts as ‘news’!” (Monika Bednarek, Associate Professor of Linguistics, University of Sydney, Australia)

“This is an important and timely book about news and news selection in what is a rapidly changing and blurred media landscape, bringing together new concepts and recent research to examine the influences on news and newsworthiness, while also rekindling a conversation about what news journalism should be.” (Deirdre O'Neill, Member of the Executive Committee of the Association for Journalism Education, UK)

“This book revisits the classic paradigm of news values from a new angle. Anticipating the audience turn in journalism studies, it offers important new insights to understand the profound changes in how news is made.” (Marcel Broersma, Professor of Media and Journalism Studies, University of Groningen, Netherlands)

Martina Temmerman is Associate Professor at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium. She is Director of the master’s in journalism programme of the Languages and Humanities Faculty. Her research interests focus on critical discourse analysis and the linguistic characteristics of journalistic communication.

Jelle Mast is Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Chair of the Brussels Institute for Journalism Studies and the Visual Communication Studies Division of the International Communication Association. His research is located at the intersection of visual communication, journalism practice and professional ethics.