News values in a digital age- Intra-media, inter-media, and extra-media platforms

Abstract

News values and newsworthiness have been central concepts of Journalism Studies since they were first introduced to the public over a hundred years ago. Seminal studies of 20th-century media examining news values and the intricately connected concept of gatekeeping have been cited, added to, and rigorously criticized. In the digital age, news travels effortlessly across the Internet, permeating the once exclusive and closed-off platforms of legacy news organizations. Audiences increasingly rely on alternative platforms for news consumption. This complicates our previous understandings of the flow of news, and it invites new gatekeepers to the table, simultaneously shaping and deciding what is considered newsworthy. This article recontextualizes the classical concept of news values by reviewing news value research of 21st-century digital legacy media resulting in three archetypical platform types through which legacy media news travels: intra-media, inter-media, and extra-media platforms. Inspired by social psychologist Kurt Lewin’s gatekeeping theory and the concept of platformization, this article presents a new conceptual framework that delineates the forces and factors that affect news flow in a digital era.