Message flow

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Graphical representation of the typical news flow from sources via news agencies and mass media to media users.

The model of message flow (English: newsFLOW ) comes from the Journalism and Communication Studies and belongs to the domain of news research . It tries to describe how information about events becomes news in the mass media . The path extends from the news sources via the news agencies and the mass media (such as the press and radio ) to the media users (recipients).

The communication scientist Walter Lippmann was already concerned with the "news flow" in the 1920s. The current model of the flow of messages, however, was only further developed by researchers such as Hans Mathias Kepplinger in the 1960s .

News origination

The creation of news is mostly neglected in journalism and communication studies and is secretly assumed in the flow of news. In general, two basic assumptions become clear, namely that (first) an event is communicated to the mass media by (second) an observer . Events are often divided into different types: Kepplinger differentiates between genuine (original) and staged (staged) events as well as mediated (media-friendly) events that would also take place independently of reporting. Observers can not only be journalists on site (such as correspondents or reporters ), but also, for example, official bodies, the organizers of the event or random witnesses. Of course, several observers can appear at the same time - in the event of an accident, for example, eyewitnesses, participants, police officers and reporters. Such observers of events are the actual sources of news in the news flow, although news agencies or the mass media are often referred to as "sources".

Message flow

According to the model of the news flow, the information about events gets from the news sources to the news agencies and from there to the mass media. The news agencies have a special meaning in the worldwide flow of news because they have many correspondents internationally and spread the information they have gathered around the world. In this way, the agencies create a global forum in the international flow of news, through which the world is brought together through mass media. On the other hand, however, they mostly report from the point of view of the industrialized countries (democracy, market economy, prosperity), while countries of the so-called “Third World” are presented one-sidedly (disasters, conflicts, corruption). The most important are the four big world news agencies ("the big four"), namely the two US agencies Associated Press and United Press International as well as the British news agency Reuters and the French Agence France-Presse .

The information often reaches the mass media (such as the press and radio ) directly without being mediated by the news agencies - especially if the media have their own correspondents or reporters at the scene. Daily newspapers almost never use agency reports for their reports in the local section. In addition, major newspapers and radio stations around the world usually have their own employees in major (capital) cities.

Information about events is processed further in the editorial offices of news agencies and, above all, of the mass media. Here they are reworked into finished messages through multi-stage selection, correction, addition, shortening and rewriting. One tries to explain these processes with the help of other message theory models, which include message gates and factors as well as message rules and routines . According to the model of the news flow, the information eventually reaches the media users ( recipients ) through the mass media .

Criticism of the news flow model

The message flow model (like all communication and message models that use metaphors (symbols) from the fields of hydraulics or transport ) can only be used to a limited extent. The very idea of ​​news originating from a news source is misleading. The term “source” assumes that every observer of an event can basically “skim” the same “outflow” of information from it. The information about events, however, has no objective properties that are neutrally recorded and passed on by the observer. Rather, the same event is never perceived in exactly the same way by two people. Every perception of an event by an observer is at the same time a construction of reality .

See also

literature

  • Roger Clausse: audience and information. Draft of an event-related sociology of communications. Cologne / Opladen 1962.
  • Mark Fishman: Manufacturing the news. Austin (Tex.) 1980.
  • Hans Mathias Kepplinger: Event Management. Reality and Mass Media. Zurich 1992.
  • Walter Lippmann: Public opinion. Reprint of the journalism classic. Bochum 1990, reprint, first time New York (NY) 1922.
  • Dietz Schwiesau, Josef Ohler: The news in the press, radio, television, news agency and internet. Munich 2003.
  • Siegfried Weischenberg: Journalism. Theory and practice of current media communication. two volumes, volume 2: media technology, media functions, media actors, Wiesbaden 2004.

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