NDM: News values

Galtung and Ruge (1981) defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. 

The following list is adapted from their work:

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
Negativity: is it bad news?
Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.

How has new and digital media technology changed Galtung and Ruge’s news values?

I don't think there much alteration in the news values in new and digital media apart from the fact that the news is more immediate, and we can get hold of the news through other platforms such as social media i.e. twitter etc.

How would you update them for 2015?

In a blog post, write how EACH news value has been affected by the growth of new and digital technology.

Though social media the amplitude of people is considered less because its user generated and people tent to talk about what concerns them on a personal level rather than tweeting or instagramming about something more general affect a large population. 

The familiarity has also had an impact on new and digital media as, platforms such as diverse twitter are personalised accounts and are owned by people of different ethnic minorities and any news can start circulating or trending on twitter allowing for more people to speak about things that may not necessarily involve Britain. 

Additionally continuity is affected as social media platforms do not have a certain agenda backing them up, it is usually stories that people find interesting and may differ and not always be the same. This can be interlinked with balance, as they don't need to alter the order  on news being presented social media.