News Values Sheet Three (Lesson 3)

News Stories Tracking and Analysis

TASK

You need to select three different stories from any newspaper web-site you like. However, the three different stories must fit into the following categories.

One International (world) Story

One National (UK) Story

One Celebrity Story (Person)

Do the following for all three of your stories.

Begin by gathering information about the story from different web-sites / news organisations. Look at the headlines that accompany the story (Media Language). How is the story being represented to us, is it the same across a range of headlines or is different language being used to create a different viewpoint? This can then be directly linked to a possible choice of theories. (Representation, Identity, Patriarchy, Gender, Structuralism, to mention a few) Then consider the narrative being created. How is the audience being positioned? Are there different narratives being created? How has the narrative evolved as more information is revealed?

Then consider the images that are being used to anchor the story (Media Language). How do they develop the narrative? How do they position the audience?

You can also attempt to see if the story is being covered on mainstream TV news. Remember to consider the News Values of the story.

The next step is to look at how we the (end of audience) are discussing the story. Return to the newspaper sites and try and follow the story on their social media pages. Again, are you getting the same viewpoints or different viewpoints? How are others reacting to comments and discussions? Have we impacted upon the story?

Remember to cut and paste any useful comments. Also copy the headlines and the images of the story.