Deciding What's News

In 1970, sociologist Herbert Gans released his book Deciding What's News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time, which combines content analysis and ethnographic analysis to explore news and journalists. Twenty-five years later the book was re-released with a new preface by the author. Whereas the first text was depicted as an exploration of current news operations, the new one is recast as a close look at the “golden age” of news.

Gans introduced the new edition by talking about the changes in the news media environment. He noted the fragmentation due to more national news sources, the declining ratings for the four news outlets he examined, large corporate ownership of news outlets, increasing coverage of soft news items, the opinionated ...

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