for everyday stories or news reports.
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There are three principal elements to be considered when constructing a news piece: message, audience, and
medium.
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Each of these affects how the news is written.
a. Message
The messages news pieces convey is related to the quality of the information they deliver. Information becomes news when a researcher
discovers evidence that the self-examination process is flawed or can be improved.
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News practitioners have to know about the new development of the news piece on their own and then investigate and
present the information to the audience.
b. Audience
The audience should always be kept in mind when writers are collecting facts and arranging them into a story. The constant doses of
newsthe audience receive each day are a significant factor in social control, and they account for a proportion of the involvement in
discourse.
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Audiences expect news media to fulfill six functions; to provide information about the availability of products and services
advertising, to entertain special feature, to inform basic news, to provide a forum for ideas editorials, interpretatives, documentaries,
and commentaries, to educate them in-depth pieces, self-help stories
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Teun A. van Dijk, Discourse and Context: A Sociocognitive Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, p. 59.
68
Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert, op. cit., p. 3.
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Michael Ryan and James W. Tankard Jr., Writing for Print and Digital Media, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005, p. 37.
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Norman Fairclough, Language and Power, New York: Longman Inc., 1996, p. 37.
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and columns and informative items presenting facts not otherwise readily available, as in science writing, to serve as a watchdog of
government investigative reporting and coverage of trials and other public events. How the news media go about fulfilling these
expectations depends in part of the technical qualities of the medium.
c. Medium
How an audience responds to the technology of the medium affects how the respond to the message being sent. The capacities of the
medium also control how writers can use that medium. In short, the medium is the message itself.
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To be able to reach broader audiences, news institutions need to utilize a far-reaching media, as we know as
mass media. The term “mass” implied that they have created a socially
undifferentiated audience with the lack of clear divisions on classes, sexes, or races.
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The term “media” implied to their referenceto the printand electronic instruments of communicationthat carry and
widespread messages to their audience.
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Mass media involve particular assumptions about their nature and their formation process of becoming connected with broader social and
political relationships. Society, with its aspects, has always been a
71
Herbert Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore, The Medium Is the Message: An Inventory of Effects
in Doug Newsom and James A. Wollert, op. cit., p. 6.
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Tony Bennett, Theories of the Media, Theories of the Society, London: Mathuen, 1982, p. 32.
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Richard T. Schaefer, Sociology: A Brief Introduction 5
th
Ed ., New York: McGraw-Hill,
2004, p. 137.
central focus of mass media.
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Through the media we expand our understanding of people and social issues beyond what we experience
in person. There exist two forms taken by mass media; printed and electronic. Printed media include newspapers, magazines, and books;
electronic media include radio, television, motion pictures, and the internet. The latest type of electronic media, the internet, with the help
of computer technology has delivered a new variant of media, the digital media.
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5. The Relevance of Social Media and Twitter
