MEDIA: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION of the NEWS

Is the news a window on the world?

For the majority of society, TV is the number one form of media that provides information about what is going on in the world. However, it can be argued that news broadcasts are carefully managed to give an impression of seriousness and credibility. News is manufactured and manipulated with a high degree of selectivity and bias, caused by institutional factors (time and money), the culture of the news production and journalism (how news professionals think and operate) and the ideological influences on the media (the cause and nature of bias).

Schlesinger looked at the influence of the 'News Diary', a record of forthcoming events, e.g. the Queens birthday or the Olympics. It shows that the news is not a spontaneous response to the current world events - that many news reports are planned well in advance.

Financial costs also influence the news as companies have a budget to stick to every year. So much has been spent covering world events (flight and accomodation costs for example), that the event will continue to get reported even though little has happened, such as the Chilean Miners in 2010. 

The pressure to be the first company to report news can lead to companies cutting corners. An example comes from the Glasgow University Media Group who accepted evidence from sources without properly checking it. 

There is also a fixed amount of time and space which means news items are excluded, meaning we do not get a full picture as journalists have to decide what is 'newsworthy' and what isn't. Churnalism is a…