Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ‫المملكة العربية السعودية‬

Ministry of Higher Education ‫وزارة التعليم العالي‬

King Saud University ‫جامعة الملك سعود‬
Deanship of Graduate Studies ‫عمادة الدراسات العليا‬
College of Arts – Mass Comm Dept. ‫ قسم اإعام‬- ‫كلية اآداب‬

:‫القيم اإخبارية في الصحافة اأوغندية‬

‫تحليل مض و لصحيفتي نيوفيجن و يلي مونيتور‬

NEWS VALUES IN THE UGANDAN NEWSPAPERS:

A CONTENT ANALYSIS STUDY ON THE
NEW VISION AND THE DAILY MONITOR NEWSPAPERS

By
Muyingo Rajab Idd
University No: 431106422

A Thesis
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts in Mass Communication at the
College of Arts, King Saud University

Supervisor
Prof. Ali Shwael Alkarni

1435 H – 2013 G
ii
 DEDICATION

This thesis is dedicated to my parents. Through meticulous determination they

ensured that I went through school. It is also dedicated to my wife, Lailah Nakitto, for

precious time provided and patience while pursuing the course at the university. The

thesis is also dedicated to my children, AbdurRahman and AbdurRaouf plus the entire

Menya family who missed my company due to this scholarly project.

iii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I am so thankful to the Almighty Allah for enabling me come up with this piece of
work. I sincerely thank the following individuals and institutions for their support,
advice, guidance plus encouragement, both manifest and latent devoted to this project.
I am so appreciative to my supervisor Prof. Ali AlKarni, who provided foundation for
this project and tirelessly guided me until its accomplishment.

I acknowledge the support from all staffs in the Mass Communication Department
Communication at King Saud University, in particular members of the examining
committee Prof. Othman Al Arabi and Prof. Fahad AlTayash. Special thanks also go
to Dr. Osama Annasari, the HOD Mass Comm, Dr. Abdul Malik Ashalhooby, Prof.
Abdullatif Aloofy, Dr. Ali Al Enezi and Mr. Saber Tor for their guidance during my
study. I recognize Mr. Okwir Robert of the New Vision Group for the time dedicated
in rereading this thesis and making linguistic corrections.

I am honestly grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saud Arabia and Islamic
University in Uganda (IUIU) for the financial and moral support extended to me.
Special thanks in IUIU go to Dr. A, K. Sengendo, Dr. M. Mpezamihigo, Dr. A.
Adikata, Mr. A. Mpoza and Mr. J. Kasadha plus other colleagues.

Lastly, distinct appreciations go to all my colleagues at King Saud University for

encouragement and moral support especially F. Muhindo, Y. Masereka, T. Abiti, H.
Kato, Mousa Salisu and Y. Kizito. May the almighty Allah reward you abundantly.

iv
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Description Page No.
Dedication………………………………………………………………..……………….…...iii

Acknowledgement....……………………………………………………………………….....iv

List of Maps, Tables & Charts…………………...…………………………………………....ix

Abstract in Arabic……………………………………………………………………………..xi

Abstract in English…………………………………………………………………………..xiii

Chapter One: Introduction………………………………..………………………...….……1

1.1 Research Problem…….………………………………………..…………………..……. ..5

1.2 Significance of the Study…….....………………………………………………….………6

1.3 Objectives of the Study………………….…………………………………………………7

1.4 Research Question………………………...………………………………..………………8

Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework and Literature Review……………………..…...10

2.1 Theoretical Framework………………..…………………………………..……….……..10

2.1.1 The Concept of News…………………………………………………………………...10

2.1.2 Background of the News Value Theory……………………….……………….……….11

2.1.3 Underlying Assumptions of the News Value Theory…………………………….…….13

2.1.4 A contemporary List of News Values………………………………….……………….17

2.1.5 Critiques of News Values……………………………………………………………....27

2.1.6 How do Journalists use News Values…………………………………………….…….29

2.1.7 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….………………..31

2.2 Literature Review………………………………………..………….…………………….32

2.2.1 Western Studies……………………………………………………..…………………..32

2.2.2 Middle East and Asian Studies……………………………………...………….………36

2.2.3 African studies……………………………………………………………..…….……..45

v
2.2.4 Comments on the Previous Studies………………………………….………………….48

Chapter Three: The Press in Uganda……………………….……………...………...……50

3.1 Development of the Press in Uganda…………………………………………….……….50

3.2 The Status of Newspaper Industry in Uganda Today……………………………….……51

3.2.1 The New Vision………………………………………………………………………...51

3.2.2 The Daily Monitor……………………………………………………………………...52

3.2.3 Bukedde………………………………………………………………………………...53

3.2.4 Other Ugandan Newspapers……………………………………………………….……54

Chapter Four: Methodology……………………………………………………….……….56

4.1 Content Analysis…………………………………………………………………….....…56

4.2 Study Population………………………………………………………………….………57

4.3 Sample and Sampling Technique…………………………………………….….………..59

4.4 Data Collection…………………………………………………………………………...61

4.5 Unit of Analysis……………………………………………………………….…….……61

4.6 Recording and Measurement………………………………………………………….….61

4.5 Validity and Reliability…………………………………………………….……………..61

4.5.1 Validity………………………………………………………………….………………61

4.5.2 Reliability……………………………………………………………………………….62

4.8 Data Analysis and Presentation……………………..……………………..……….……..63

4.9 Limitations of the Study………………………………………………………...………...64

Chapter Five: Findings of the Study…………………………………………………….....65

5.1 General Data Analysis…………………………………………………..………………65

5.1.1 Months of Issue…………………………………………………………………………65

5.1.2 Day of Issue…………………………………………………………………………….66

vi
5.1.3 Newspaper studied and Space covered…..……………………………………………..67

5.1.4 News Placement...............................................................................................................68

5.1.5 Visual Presentation..........................................................................................................68

5.1.6 News Treatment...............................................................................................................69

5.1.7 News Focus......................................................................................................................69

5.1.8 News Context...................................................................................................................70

5.1.9 News Topic......................................................................................................................70

5.1.10 Sources of News.............................................................................................................71

5.1.11 Geographic Focus..........................................................................................................72

5.1.12 Domestic News Focus....................................................................................................73

5.1.13 International News Focus...............................................................................................73

5.1.14 Featured Countries in the International News................................................................74

5.1.15 News Values..................................................................................................................75

5.2 Comparative Data Presentation......................................................................................77

5.2.1 Months of Issue per Newspaper......……………………………………………….……57

5.2.2 Day of Issue per Newspaper…………………………………………………………....58

5.2.3 News Placement by Newspaper.......................................................................................79

5.2.4 Visual Presentation by Newspaper..................................................................................80

5.2.5 News Treatment by Newsapper.......................................................................................81

5.2.6 News Focus by Newspaper..............................................................................................81

5.2.7 News Context by Newspaper...........................................................................................82

5.2.8 News Topic Covered by Newspaper................................................................................83

5.2.9 Sources of News per Newspaper.....................................................................................84

5.2.10 Newspapers' Geographic Focus.....................................................................................85

vii
5.2.11 Domestic News Focus per Newspaper...........................................................................86

5.2.12 International News Focus by Newspaper.......................................................................87

5.2.13 Featured Countries in the International News per Newspaper......................................88

5.2.14 News Values in the New Vision and the Daily Monitor................................................90

5.3 News Values Covered........................................................................................................92

5.3.1 News Values' Placement in the Newsapper.....................................................................92

5.3.2 News Values by News Treatment....................................................................................94

5.3.3 News Values by News Focus...........................................................................................96

5.3.4 News Values by News Topics.........................................................................................97

5.3.5 News Values in Domestic & International News..........................................................101

5.3.6 News Values per Domestic News Focus.......................................................................102

5.3.7 News Values per International News Focus..................................................................104

Chapter Six: Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations...........................................107

6.1 Discussion of the Finding.................................................................................................107

6.1.1 News Values in the Ugandan Newspapers....................................................................107

6.1.2 News Values in the Domestic and International News..................................................110

6.1.3 Comparison between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor.......................................113

6.1.4 News Values in the News Categories............................................................................119

6.2 Conclusion........................................................................................................................121

6.3 Recommendations.............................................................................................................122

English References…………………………………………………………………….…….124

Arabic References………………………………………..………………………………….128

Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………..129

viii
 LIST OF MAPS, TABLES & CHARTS

Map 1: Map of Africa Showing the Geographical location of Uganda………………….…….4

Table 1: The Constructed Weeks..............................................................................................60

Table 2: News Distribution by Months of Issue.......................................................................66

Table 3: News Distribution by Day..........................................................................................67

Table 4: News Distribution by Newspaper...............................................................................67

Table 5: Space Covered by News.............................................................................................68

Table 6: Distribution of Newspalcement..................................................................................68

Table 7: Distribution of Visual Presentation.............................................................................69

Table 8: News Treatment..........................................................................................................69

Table 9: Distribution of News Focus........................................................................................70

Table 10: Distribution of News Context...................................................................................70

Table 11: Distribution of News Topics.....................................................................................71

Table 12: Distribution of News Sources...................................................................................72

Chart 1: Showing the Geographic Focus for the News.............................................................72

Table 13: Distribution of Domestic News Focus......................................................................73

Table 14: Distribution of International News Focus.................................................................74

Table 15: Featured Countries in International News................................................................75

Table 16: Distribution of News Values.....................................................................................76

Table 17: Distribution of Months per Newspaper....................................................................78

Table 18: Distribution of Days by Newspaper.........................................................................79

ix
Table 19: News Placement by Newspaper................................................................................80

Table 20: Visual Presentation by Newspaper...........................................................................80

Table 21: News Treatment by Newspaper................................................................................81

Table 22: News Focus by Newspaper.......................................................................................82

Table 23: News Context by Newspaper....................................................................................82

Table 24: Distribution of News Topic covered by Newspaper.................................................84

Table 25: Distribution of News Sources by Newspaper...........................................................85

Table 26: Distribution of Geographic Focus by Newspaper.....................................................86

Table 27: Distribution of Domestic News Focus by Newspaper..............................................87

Table 28: International News Focus by Newspaper.................................................................88

Table 29: Featured Countries in International News per Newspaper ......................................89

Table 30: Distribution of News Values in the New Vision and the Daily Monitor..................92

Table 31: Distribution of News Values' Placement by Newspaper..........................................94

Table 32: Distribution of News Values by News Treatment....................................................95

Table 33: Distribution of News Values by News Focus...........................................................97

Table 34: Distribution of News Values by News Topic.........................................................100

Table 35: Distribution of News Values by Geographic Focus...............................................102

Table 36: Distribution of News Values in Domestic News Focus.........................................104

Table 37: News Values by International News Focus............................................................106

Table 38: The five Dominant News Values in International & Domestic News....................111

Table 39: The Leading News Topics in the New Vision & the Daily Monitor......................115

Table 40: The Foremost News Values in the New Vision & in the Daily Monitor................118

x
 ‫مل ص الدراســــــــــــــــــــة‬
‫لس ب‬ ‫ت سي‬ ‫ين ع‬ ‫لع‬ ‫من لق‬ ‫ل سي ي‬ ‫م‬ ‫إعامي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫يع ل ع ء إت‬
‫س ئل إعا ‪ .‬ك‬ ‫في ل حف‬ ‫أه ي خ ي ق ب ل‬ ‫أح‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي عل بعض لق‬ ‫ل‬
‫)‪ (Ruge‬ع‬ ‫كل من ج ل ج )‪(Galtung‬‬ ‫س ق ب‬ ‫ل اسي ي‬ ‫من بين ت ك أع‬
‫ل ح ف "‪ .‬ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ل‬ ‫صاحي ل‬ ‫لح م ع‬ ‫‪ 1665‬عن " لقيم إخ ي ‪ :‬ج نب من مع يي‬
‫‪ ،‬تع ي ي‪,‬‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ل حف ل‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ع ء إعا ع‬ ‫ج نب من ت‬ ‫س‬ ‫تك ل‬
‫ف لقيم إخ ي‬ ‫س تسع إس‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ه فإ ه‬ ‫انس ني ‪ .‬ع‬ ‫ع‬ ‫في ل‬ ‫ت في ي ل‬
‫في ل ح ف أ غ ي ‪.‬‬

‫فق ل قيم إخ ي في‬ ‫ل‬ ‫صاحي ل‬ ‫لح م ع‬ ‫مع يي‬ ‫لع ف ع‬ ‫س ل‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ه فت ه‬
‫لع ل ي‬ ‫ل حي‬ ‫أخ‬ ‫لقيم إخ ي ف‬ ‫لع فع‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ل ح ف أ غ ي لي مي ‪ .‬ه فت أي‬
‫اخ ي ي بين لقيم‬ ‫في ل ع يي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫به‬ ‫أ جه ل‬ ‫في ل ح ف أ غ ي ‪ .‬ك لك بي‬ ‫ل‬
‫ل ص‪.‬‬ ‫م ني‬ ‫ي‬ ‫إخ ي بين صحي ي ني في ن لح مي‬

‫ف‬ ‫فعي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫نظ ي لقيم إخ ي (‪ )News Value Theory‬نظ‬ ‫س ع‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ع‬
‫لي مي‬ ‫ل م ل ئل من أخ‬ ‫ه ل حف سط ه‬ ‫لي ت‬ ‫أخ‬ ‫خي‬ ‫تح ي‬ ‫أس‬ ‫ي‬
‫‪.‬‬ ‫تح يل ل‬ ‫ج ل ص ي بأس‬ ‫ل جه تم ت ي ل‬ ‫‪ .‬ل حقيق ه‬ ‫من م ف ل‬ ‫ليت‬
‫يي‬ ‫من ع ‪ 2111‬ل حي ي ني في ن (‪)New Vision‬‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ث‬ ‫تح يل م‬ ‫تم تح ي‬
‫‪.‬‬ ‫ن‬ ‫أك‬ ‫ه أهم ل حف أ غ ي‬ ‫(‪ ,)Daily Monitor‬ب ع‬ ‫م ني‬

‫ل حف أ غ ي ‪.‬‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ل‬ ‫أخ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫تسع قيم خ يى ب‬ ‫ج‬ ‫س ع‬ ‫ك ت ن ئج ل‬

‫في ل ح ف أ غ ي ت لي ع‬ ‫اخ ي‬ ‫مع يي‬ ‫ي ن ت تيب لقيم اخ ي ل ي هي ت ع‬
‫(‪)Unambiguity‬‬ ‫إنس ني (‪ %16 )Human Interest‬تاه ل ض‬ ‫ل ح ل لي ‪ - :‬اه‬
‫قي‬ ‫ل فيه )‪,(Entertainment‬‬ ‫كل من قي‬ ‫بلس‬ ‫ل ل‬ ‫ج ء في ل ت‬ ‫‪ ,% 14‬بي‬
‫ت ج يع‬ ‫)‪ (Meaningfulness‬ح‬ ‫ل ال‬ ‫لع‬ ‫أخ‬ ‫)‪,(Frequency‬‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ت‬
‫ل‬ ‫ل سس‬ ‫ل م أ‬ ‫ي‬ ‫بل‬ ‫هي ‪ .% 11‬أم لقيم ل ت‬ ‫م ب‬ ‫نس‬ ‫ع‬
‫لسي ( ‪Negative‬‬ ‫أخ‬ ‫جء‬ ‫‪,%11‬‬ ‫(‪ ،)Reference to Elite Persons‬ف نت نس‬
‫ل ج‬ ‫قيم اخ‬ ‫جء‬ ‫اخي‬ ‫في ل ت‬ ‫‪,% 6‬‬ ‫بس‬ ‫خ مس‬ ‫‪ )News‬في م ت‬
‫ح س ء‪.‬‬ ‫لك ب س ب غت ‪ %4‬ع‬ ‫(‪)Consonance‬‬ ‫إنس‬ ‫قي‬ ‫(‪)Unexpectedness‬‬

‫لقيم إخ ي في ل ح ف أ غ ي ت ق مع ل ئج ل ي ت ص ت ل‬ ‫ل ي ب ل احظ ه أ‬
‫م ب‬ ‫ئ في تح ي ق ئ‬ ‫ل ي ك نت‬ ‫)‪1665 (Ruge‬‬ ‫ج ل ت ج )‪(Galtung‬‬ ‫س‬
‫أح‬ ‫أ‬ ‫ل ح ي ‪ .‬ق أ ضح ل ح‬ ‫ل ع مل ل ي تس ع في تح ي لقيم أخ ي في ل سس‬

‫‪xi‬‬
‫اخ ي من‬ ‫لقي‬ ‫ع في‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ف ن ل ك أ ت ك لح‬ ‫أه ي ع لي في ل‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ل ي تس ح‬
‫س ‪.‬‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ه‬ ‫ك تع‬ ‫‪ .‬هي ن س لقيم ل‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ع‬ ‫لح‬ ‫حيث ت ف ل‬

‫ك‬ ‫مح ي ‪ ,‬ق‬ ‫ك نت أخ‬ ‫ل حث ب ح ي‬ ‫ليق‬ ‫س أ ‪ %55‬من أخ‬ ‫ك أث ت ل ئج ل‬

‫ت‬ ‫ح‬ ‫ي ‪ .‬بي‬ ‫ي ل‬ ‫لق‬ ‫أ غ ي ع‬ ‫في ل ح ف‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ل حي‬ ‫‪ %53.5‬من أخ‬
‫ك ت‬ ‫ب ‪.‬‬ ‫أ‬ ‫لع ل ي ع‬ ‫ك نت معظم ت كي ت ك أخ‬ ‫‪%25‬‬ ‫نس‬ ‫لع ل ي ع‬ ‫أخ‬
‫ئي (‪)Unexpectedness‬‬ ‫هي‪ -:‬ل‬ ‫ل حي‬ ‫ئيسي في أخ‬ ‫س ع قيم خ ي‬ ‫س عن ج‬ ‫ل‬
‫‪، %55‬‬ ‫ئح (‪ )Scandals‬نس‬ ‫‪ ,%58‬ل‬ ‫(‪ )Consonance‬نس‬ ‫‪ ,%84‬إنس‬ ‫نس‬
‫لس ي‬ ‫إنس ني (‪،)Human Interest‬‬ ‫‪ ، %56‬أم اه‬ ‫(‪ )Statistics‬نس‬ ‫ئي‬ ‫إح‬
‫ح‬ ‫‪ %55‬ع‬ ‫ل ال (‪ )Meaningfulness‬ف نت نس‬ ‫ل ع‬ ‫(‪ ،)Negativity‬أخ‬
‫ي (‪,)Continuity‬‬ ‫لع ل ي هي‪ - :‬اس‬ ‫في أخ‬ ‫ل س ل ي‬ ‫لقيم إخ ي‬ ‫س ء‪ .‬بي‬
‫أ ل سس‬ ‫بأأش‬ ‫(‪ ,)Frequency‬لقيم ل ت‬ ‫(‪ ,)Controversy‬ل‬ ‫ل‬
‫(‪.)Unambiguity‬‬ ‫(‪ ,)Reference to Elite Persons‬ل ض‬ ‫ل‬

‫م ني‬ ‫ي‬ ‫في ني في ن (‪)New Vision‬‬ ‫ل أ لقيم إخ ي ل‬ ‫س أي‬ ‫ت صت ل‬

‫لقيم ل ت‬ ‫اخ‬ ‫ل هي ‪,‬‬ ‫إنس ني‪,‬‬ ‫اه‬ ‫(‪ )Daily Monitor‬هي‪ - :‬اخ‬
‫ئي ‪ ،‬أخ‬ ‫‪ ,‬لس ي ‪ ،‬ل‬ ‫في ل‬ ‫ل‬ ‫‪ ,‬اخ‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ل سس‬ ‫ب أش‬
‫ال‬ ‫خ اف‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ع‬ ‫(‪ )Chi-Square‬ع‬ ‫ل فق‪ .‬ق بي ت ن ئج م بع ك‬ ‫إنس‬
‫لقيم‬ ‫ي من حيث ت ين خ ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫م ني‬ ‫ي‬ ‫صحي‬ ‫ئي بين صحي ني في ن لح مي‬ ‫ح‬
‫‪.‬‬ ‫ل‬ ‫إخ ي ع‬

‫‪ABSTRACT‬‬

‫‪xii‬‬
Since the 1950s, both scholars and practitioners examining the gatekeeper functions
of the news media have sought to explain why some issues and events become
newsworthy while others remain obscure. Subsequently, in 1965 Galtung and Ruge
published a seminal paper on “news values”—aspects of events that make them more
likely to receive coverage. However, the consent among media scholars and
professionals that the press is responsible for informing, educating and entertaining
the public, highlights the duty and power the press has in a given society like Uganda.
Therefore, this thesis is an exploration of “news values in the Ugandan newspapers”.

The major aim of this study was to determine the most common news value in the
Ugandan newspapers. The study also aimed at exploring news values in both the
domestic and foreign news published in the selected Ugandan newspapers.
Furthermore, the study intended to notice the differences between the New Vision
where the government is a majority shareholder and the Daily Monitor a private
newspaper in their news values.

This study was grounded on the “news value theory”; the justification for adopting
this theory is due to its effectiveness in clarifying the reason for which specific news
are chosen for publication in a newspaper, despite the presence of thousands of daily
news. In this study, the researcher adopted a survey methodology with focus on the
content analysis technique. The researcher analyzed content of twelve issues of all
news items published in the year 2011 by The New Vision and The Daily Monitor, the
two Ugandan major dailies.

Results of this study found nine dominant news values in the news published in the
Ugandan newspapers. These are; human interest" that had an overall percentage of
16%, followed by "unambiguity" with 14%. Whereas "humor", "frequency" and
"meaningfulness" had a similar percentage of 11%. More so, "reference to elite
persons" had 10% "Negativity" had 6%, while "Unexpectedness" and "Consonance"
had 4% respectively.

xiii
Remarkably the prevailing news values in the Ugandan newspapers coincides with
what Galtung and Ruge (1965) came out with in a pioneering list of interrelated
factors that help to identify values in the news. They argued that events are likely to
meet the criteria of newsworthiness if they satisfied conditions of frequency, intensity,
unambiguity, elite persons, and composition among others.

The findings in this study confirmed that 75% of the news analyzed in this study was
domestic news of which 53.7% focused at national issues. The overall representation
of international news was 25% only. Still, much of the international news focused on
Europe, thus represented by 36.8%. This study found out seven leading news values
in the domestic news. These are; unexpectedness represented by 84%, consonance
78%, scandal 77%, statistics 76%, while human interest, negativity, and
meaningfulness had 75% correspondingly. Whereas the five dominant news values in
international news were; continuity, controversy, frequency, reference to elite persons
and unambiguity.

The overall findings showed that the most frequented news values in both the New
Vision and the Daily Monitor included; Human interest, Unambiguity,
Meaningfulness, Humor, Reference to Elite Persons, Frequency, Negativity,
Unexpectedness and Consonance. Findings of the study didn’t show any significant
statistical difference between the New Vision a government owned newspaper and the
Daily Monitor a privately owned newspaper in the commonness of news values.

xiv
 CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

One central point in International Mass Communication research is a deceptively

simple question: what makes "news"? An extension in relation to this question is the

debates about the kind of "news values" that journalists should up hold and the nature

of the proper role that mass media should assume in the building of national identity

and in the economic, political, and social operations in the armory of the nation.

Dominating the various approaches to defining news in different societies and cultures

are the western conception of news as a commodity and the third world philosophy of

news as a social source for national development and the communist model of news

as an ideological mass mobilization and propaganda tool. (Tai 2005:2).

In the group of western industrialized nations led by the United States, news is

provided as "a merchandise rather than a service," treated as a commodity to satisfy

an audience demand and market as its driving force. More so, textbook definitions of

news in this model stress with little variation the following values: timeliness, impact,

prominence, proximity, conflict, and unexpectedness. One pioneering study in this

tradition is the exploration by Galtung and Ruge (1965) of what Norwegian editor

thought was newsworthy for four newspapers in Norway. The set of criteria identified

by their study are; news should be recent, intense, unambiguous, directly related to

national interests, unexpected, involving elite persons, or countries, and conflictual.

Media in the United States and other industrialized nations later followed similar

news values. (Tai 2005:2).

Meyer and Stevenson (1988) noted that while the Western conception of news as a

commodity took shape in the age of the 19th century colonialism, the development

doctrine of news as a social good was developed in a host of the third world countries

during the 20th century a midst their campaign for decolonization. Therefore, news

becomes part of national asset and used as a tool for the state to educate the public

about national and international situations and to build a national identity free from

the damaging influence of the imperialist power. (Mayer & Stevenson 1988:30)

Shoemaker and Reese (1996:63) observed that editors manage the flow of information

in the newsroom by classifying news stories into various categories. The predictable,

the unexpected, the hard and soft news, crime, political and the court and so on and so

forth. This classification helps editors understand the significance and newsworthiness

of certain events and there by helps them to choose one story over another.

Nevertheless, in a classical study of Galtung and Ruge (1965) they proposed a list of

news values to assess the newsworthiness of news items. Though these scholars

developed the news values focusing on the international politics, the list is applied to

other types of news and theoretically valid and important. Other studies on news

values include those done by O'Neil & Harcup (2001) and Perterson (1979) in the

United Kingdom. However, in Uganda few studies of the same nature assessing news

values. (Cited in Maryian 2010:1).

Uganda is a landlocked country in East Africa and a former British protectorate. It

gained its independence in 1962. Uganda has a population of 34 million people with

the literacy level of 66.8% and English as the official national language (CIA World-

Fact Book: 2012). In Uganda, both daily and weekly newspapers availed to the

readership audience, but the New Vision dominates the market for the English dailies
and the Daily Monitor considered as the two major dailies. According to the

independent Uganda All Media Products and Services Survey (UAMPS) carried out

by Synovate between October and December 2011 , showed that, the overall newspaper

readership across the country was at 5,800,983 readers within a seven-day period. Of

these, 64% of the respondents read New Vision at the time of the survey. Whereas the

Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) a global organization that tracks circulation

figures of major registered newspapers revealed in its November (2011) survey that

the New Vision circulation were 33,312 copies while Daily Monitor circulation

totaled to 22,531 copies. Retrieved on 4/2/2012 from: http://www.newvision.co.ug/.

Therefore, it greatly matters to assess the content given to the majority of the

newspaper readers in Uganda who include elites who influence the decision making

process which is in one way or another influenced by the media content. The aim of

this study is to ascertain the most common news values presented in the selected

Ugandan newspapers.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION OF UGANDA
1.1 Research Problem

In 1897, the US daily New York Times took had its slogan as “All the news that’s fit

to print.” This referred to the influence of journalists in determining the criteria of

relevance which applied to newsworthiness of being brought to the reader’s attention.

Those who dealt with news greatly prized ‘news judgment’, which Tuchman (in

Traquina, 2113( defines as “the sacred knowledge,” a kind of “secret ability belonging

to the journalist that sets him apart from other people.” )Jorge 2118:54(.

Nevertheless, Tai (2005) observed that from the start of the new millennium we are

experiencing tremendous transformations in the communication infrastructure

worldwide. Never before has the over flood of information been able to travel to so

many in such vast proportions at such a great speed. As part of the tradition of mass

communication research, what news and its presentation to the local and global

audience is of special significance in understanding the dynamics of the reality-

construction process by the mass media. (Tai 2005:1).

Remarkably, both Scheufele (2000) and Shoemaker and Reese (1991) noted that more

studies have focused on the audience effects of mass media content than on “what sets

the media agenda.” However, since the 1651s, when Lewin )1651( and White (1950)

identified the news media as gatekeepers, there has been a growing interest in how

journalists and news organizations “decide what news is.” Journalists-cum-academics

have conducted research on this question using variety of methods, including

interviews, surveys of journalists, case studies, newsroom ethnographies, content

analyses, and simple introspection. While these approaches have yielded many

responses, a surprisingly common feature of the various treatments has been the

delineation of lists of news values issues that purportedly make them more likely

covered in the news media. (Cited in Braun 2009: 1).

However, Suriani & Tiung (2009:198) observed that news values have attracted most

scholars' attention since 1950s and considered very much important in this modern age

news selection. Additionally, a review of studies demonstrates that a news value,

which is the most prominent approach in news selection, is a valid theory used in

media and mass communication research. However, as observed from studies

conducted by a couple of Ugandan scholars like example Kalyango (2009) focused on

political news use and democratic support, emphasizing Uganda's radio impact,

Maryian focused on news in the Ugandan press. Whereas Acayo and Mnjama (2004)

focused on the Print Media and Conflict Resolution in Northern Uganda. Thus

availing various empirical data on different journalism aspects while leaving a gap in

the journalism literature on news values in the Ugandan press.

Within this context therefore, the researcher sums up the research problem for this

study by examining the news values, believed to influence the selection and

production of news items in the Ugandan newspapers.

1.2 Significance of the Study

The justification for this study is to fill the gap in Ugandan journalism literature

through research on the news values in the Ugandan daily newspapers. Studies

reviewed indicated that Ugandan journalism scholars devoted their scholarly efforts

on other aspects like politics, environment, than news values. For example Kalyango

(2009) focused on political news use and democratic support, emphasizing Uganda's

radio impact, whereas Maryian (2010) focused on news in the Ugandan press, but no

study was done on the news values in the Ugandan newspapers.

Likewise, this study is essential because it reveals the news values in the news

published in the Ugandan newspapers, accessed by the majority of Ugandan

newspaper readers. It is worth noting that the public depends on newspapers for

information concerning political, economic, and social happenings that may affect

their individual welfare as well as the prosperity of their country. The press carries the

responsibility of alerting the public on power abuse by government officials and

exposing corruption in the private sector. Observations of O'Neill & Harcup (2001)

stressed it that a society's citizens can benefit from the increase in media literacy. This

may potentially result from the efforts of journalism studies to scrutinize and explain

ways of selecting and scrutinizing news by journalists. (2001:172)

Furthermore, understanding of news values is clearly of importance for practitioners

in addition to scholars of journalism. Therefore, this study will provide meaningful

information to scholars, journalists and communication experts interested in knowing

more about the news values in the Ugandan newspapers in particular.

1.3 Objectives of the Study

In general, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the noticeable news values

that predominate news published in the Ugandan newspapers. The study also aims at

discovering and comparing news values in both the domestic and foreign news

published in the selected Ugandan newspapers.

Furthermore, the study intends to discover the similarities and differences between the

New Vision where the government is a majority shareholder and the Daily Monitor a

private newspaper in their news values.

The study also compares news values amongst various categories of news published

in the newspapers under the current study.

1.4 Research Questions

Theoretically, scholars developed news values in term of lists or set of attributes.

These attributes used in variety of studies aimed at establishing journalistic decisions

and what makes certain news items newsworthy. For instance, Galtung and Ruge

(1965) used news values to describe events presented in the Norwegian media. In the

same way, Peterson (1979) used news values to study what events in countries other

than Great Britain, preferred by The Times reporters as being newsworthy, while

Schwarz (2006) studied their influence on the coverage of foreign news in three

Mexican newspapers.

Worth nothing is that this theory is built on the assumption that the more news values

a given news item embodies, the more likely it gets into the newspaper because the

big number of these attributes translate into its newsworthiness and likelihood to be

presented prominently in the media ( Mariyian 2010:5). Based on the observations

above, the researcher suggests the following research questions, which guides him

while examining the news values in the Ugandan newspapers:

RQ1– Which noticeable news values predominates the news published in the

selected Ugandan newspapers.

RQ2 - Which news values are prevalent in both the domestic and foreign news

published in the selected Ugandan newspapers? Is there any significant

statistical difference between them?

RQ 3 - Is there any significant statistical difference between the New Vision where
 the government is a majority shareholder and The Daily Monitor a privately

owned newspaper in their news values?

RQ4 – What are the news values in the various categories of news carried by selected

newspapers?
 CHAPTER TWO

THEORETICAL FRAME WORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW

In this chapter, the researcher presents the theory of news values and reviews

literature and previous studies to set a theoretical framework that enlightens the study

of news values in the Ugandan newspapers. This chapter has two parts. The first part

explores the theory of news values. The second part highlights some literature and

previous studies on news values studies.

2.1 Theoretical Frame Work

A number of theories identifies and explains the choices made by news people but the

news values theoretical framework guides this study. The rationale for selecting such

a theory is its relevance in explaining why only a handful of news items published in a

newspaper despite the fact that over thousands of news items are usually available

every day. The news value theory affirms that given news stories have certain

attributes that makes them worth publication. Nevertheless, before exploring the list

of contemporary news values it is important to define news, high light the concept of

news value, its historical background, the theory over view, and its assumptions.

2.1.1 The Concept of News

Various attempts made to answer the question "what is news?' Lynette Sheridan

(2000: 50), for instance, in Understanding journalism defines news as something that

binds 'people together in a sense of community'. Papa and Featherstone (2005) said

that although most journalists would reach some sort of consensus on what constitutes

the key ingredients of news, it is unlikely that they would agree on a precise

1
definition. Some says that it is something new that has just happened or is about to

happen; something that is immediate, exciting, unusual, unexpected, amazing, vital,

important, and interesting. Others describe it as newly received, fresh information not

published or broadcast before. Adam Wolstenholme, a reporter on the Dewsbury

Reporter, adds a further qualification: ' News should be something surprising,

something we didn’t already know, that will either affect the readers directly or, as in

the case of a "human interest" story. (Papa and Featherstone, 2005: 15).

While Lovell (1980) observed that news is very different from ordinary, everyday

events. An event affects the lives of more than one person and be interested to others

to read about or view. Elements like proximity, impact, accidents, crime, natural

disasters, uniqueness, nostalgia, humor, sadness, prominence, government, war, and

timeliness help reporters and editors decide what news is. In the selection process,

they act as gatekeepers, making the decision that affect the flow of information as it

reaches the public. Front-page placement signifies newsworthiness. (Lovell Ronald,

1980:40)

2.1.2 Background of the News Value Theory

Credit goes to Galtung and Ruge for originating the concept of news values that they

developed in a study in 1965. They examined the structure of foreign news in

newspapers to analyse the flow of information between center and periphery. Despite

the fact that Galtung and Ruge developed their theory a long time ago, it has not been

“critically challenged” )McGregor 2111:2(.

Conversely, others such as Kepplinger and Ehmig (2006:25) and Schwarz (2006:45)

credit Walter Lippmann as the person who first introduced the concept of news values

in 1922 when he attempted to explain why journalists cover some events while
neglect others. Furthermore, there was a much earlier study pertaining news and news

reporting which Tobias Peucer conducted for his doctoral thesis in 1690. The thesis

outlined what Peucer considered events that were substantive news namely natural

occurrences and various issues to do with social order (Atwood &De Beer 2001:489).

More so, since Breed (1956) described several types and characteristics of news, three

conceptual types of news values clarified over the last half – century. First of all,

Shoemaker and her colleagues have proposed model of news worthiness, classifying

the traditional news values such as sensationalism, human interest, exceptionalness,

and conflict into the various types of deviance: statistical, normative, pathological,

and potential for social change deviance. From this model, Shoemaker developed the

theory of deviance and social significance that suggests how journalists select the

news when they cover various news events and issues; the more the news item is

deviant and socially significant, the likeliness of its coverage as a news story. (Breed,

1956:326).

Secondly, they considered objectivity as a criterion for evaluating the journalistic

performance of news coverage. Merrill (1933) argues that news reporting must be

TUFF. In the newsroom, TUFF stands for Truthful, Unbiased, Full, and Fair

coverage, to indicate news making principles. (Cited in Shim, 2011:107).

Thirdly, Ettema and Glasser (1987) proposed a new type of news values, related to

the concept of investigative reporting. According to them, news stories must have

certain characteristics of investigation and they conceptualize these characteristics

into news values of publicity, accountability, and solidarity. They argued that the first

dimension of investigation as a news value is publicity, which refers to the degree of

revelation in the public sphere against the villains' willingness to keep it secret. By
revealing the secret information of higher education, newspaper readers would pay

attention to those stories that would certainly arouse public alertness. If this important

information not published or buried within the inside pages, its publicity as a news

value amounts to zero or at the very least, is not considered highly enough. (Ettema

and Glasser, 1987:3).

However, Voakes (1996) noted, "The news value "diversity" is important when

evaluating the journalistic performance of newspapers in a democratic society. Our

position is that free and responsible newspapers need to report various perspectives of

ideas from different angles. If reporters meet various sources, quote accurately what

they say, and deliver their perspectives fairly, they could overcome their cultural or

political bias. Reporters should not reveal only one side of the story." (Voakes,

1996:583)

2.1.3 Underlying Assumptions of the News Value Theory

News values developed theoretically in terms of a list of attributes, which help to

identify them both for analysis and definitions of what news is. Galtung and Ruge

(1965) came out with a pioneering list of interrelated factors that help to identify

values in the news. They argued that events are likely to meet the criteria of

newsworthiness if they satisfied the condition of frequency, intensity, unambiguity,

proximity, relevance, consonance, predictability, continuity, composition, elite

persons and elite nations, negativity and ethnocentricity. (Galtung and Ruge, 1965:53)

This list analyzed further with a resultant additional factor advanced by Shultz (1976)

such as valence, dynamic, identification, status, political and geographical proximity,

and prominence. Others have included recency, brevity, extraordinariness,

immediacy, novelty, sentimentality and fit in terms of technical manageability. This

formalization of news values is important for identification in journalistic practice and

for the purposes of analysis. It serves as a basis for identifying the formal elements

that constitute news. (Cited in Kisuke, 2004:16).

News values, occasionally referred to as “news criteria” or “news factors,” are a

conceptual framework used within journalism studies to describe the gate keeping

practices of the mainstream news media. Specifically, news values defined as qualities

of events that increase the likelihood of coverage in the news. Numerous lists of news

values exist and have been generated using a wide variety of methods, including

interviews and surveys of journalists, case studies of news coverage, newsroom

ethnographies, content analyses of finished news items, and simple introspection by

journalists-cum-academics. (Braun, 2009:40).

However, Galtung and Ruge (1973) believed that our perception of what constitutes

an event is culturally determined and not a natural occurrence. They also believed in

its relation to ‘human culture’ and therefore should not vary too much globally. Their

theory further argues that the more an event accessed these criteria the more likely

reported on in a newspaper, although the individual factors are inter-related. (Cited in

Braun, 2009:44).

Nevertheless, in the process of news making, these events are qualified for inclusion

in the newspaper by journalists in terms of the characteristics of new values that they

exhibit. In line with Cohen and Young's (1973) argument, it is clear that, "far from

being random reaction to random events, the selection of news is a logical outcome of

particular ways of working and of a shared set of criteria that makes material

newsworthy"(Cohen and Young, 1973:183). This material is therefore, made

newsworthy by the news values it embodies.

Galtung & Ruge (1965), Harcup & O'Neill (2001) noted that news values, sometimes

called "news criteria," commonly held to be active at several stages in the gate

keeping process. Firstly, they supposedly make a story or event more likely chosen as

news the "selection" assumption. Secondly, they are underscored or even exaggerated

when a news story written the "distortion" assumption. The emphasis occurs as a

news item passes through each stage of the production process the "replication"

assumption. Moreover, it is commonly suggested that the more news values a given

event possess, the more likely is to become news the "additivity" assumption, and that

an event that lacks one news value must make up for this absence by being

particularly strong in one or more others the "complementary" assumption (Cited in

Braun, 2009:4).

Hall (1978) asserted that while the professional ideology of news helps in easily

identifying those qualities that constitute what is newsworthy, the process of news

selection is located within the range of known social and cultural identification.

Therefore, news happens in social contexts and these contexts influence their nature

and how they are gathered and in this way, the social factors in different contexts

influence the sort of news values in the news. (Hall, 1978:54)

According to Gans (1979), society and nation have become the reference point to how

news values have developed. Thus, "news values can be inferred from preference

statements about society and nation, and majority of national issues." He distinguishes

two types of values – topical and enduring values. He says that "topical values are

opinions expressed about specific actors or activities of the moment which manifest

themselves in the explicit and in the implicit judgments that enter into those stories",

while enduring values can be found in different types of news stories over a long

period of time. (Gans, 1979:41). In conclusion, therefore all the above arguments
show a consensus that news values are part and partial of the social contexts in which

the newspaper operates.

Furthermore, the theory of news value revolves around the fact that there are certain

factors that influence the publication or reporting of both foreign and domestic news.

These factors include negativity, cultural proximity, how elite a nation is and wealth.

(Oeffner 2002; Zuckerman 2004:52). In other words, news values are aspects of an

event that make that event news worthy from the point of view of a journalist

(McQuail 2002:341).

The visibility of a country in international news is determined in the final analysis by

the criteria; journalists or editors use to determine the newsworthiness of an event.

The practice of journalism generally shaped by a philosophy of news whose origins

are in the West. There is a dependence on the West on the conceptualization of news

values. Thus, the prevailing model of journalism is a certain type of news reporting

and writing modelled in Europe and North America. This explain why there is no

much difference in the way international news covered across media systems

(Sreberny, 1984:120). National media systems focusing on events taking place in their

regions could be applying the news value of proximity. Even though most news is

about the developed world, countries influenced also by regional affinities in their

foreign news coverage.

The media considered as a window through which people observe the world, the

picture they see depends on the position of the window visa à vise what is being seen

(Park 2003:1). The implication is that the picture of the world that emerges depends

on who is reporting from what country and for what purpose. Similarly, while a

newspaper can access content from news agencies, the ultimate choice of what to

publish is entirely the paper’s )Horvit 2113:33(.

The structure of international news flow is influenced, among other factors, by

“traditional news worthiness, socio-cultural structure, organizational constraints”

experienced by journalists and other media workers and the “agenda-setting” effect of

international news organizations The net result is that the media does not present the

world, as it really is (Wu, 1998:507).

2.1.4 A contemporary List of News Values

Practically any media analyst's discussion of news values will always refer to Galtung

and Ruge (1965) list, one of the best-known list of news values initially intended for

the coverage of international news. Nevertheless, to examine Galtung and Ruge's list

of news values would be to ignore over 40 years' worth additional literature. O'

Sullivan (1983:154) stressed that numerous attempts have been made over the years to

pin down news values more specifically. However, it is hard to assemble these into a

hard and fast list of values, because different studies have approached the idea from

different standpoints using different assumptions and terminology.

Despite the lack of agreement thus far among scholars and journalists on single set of

news values, sorting through their respective lists it becomes clear that many of the

same concerns crop up repeatedly. For the purpose of this study, the researcher will

attempt to group similar news values from a number of many existing sets into a

single list with supporting references as below:-

Novelty and Unexpectedness:-

Unexpectedness (Galtung & Ruge, 1965) ; The Unusual (Herbert, 2000) ; Surprise

(Hetherington, 1985) ; Novelty (Herbert, 2000) ; Oddity (Ruehlmann, 1979) ;

Participants in Unusual Activities (Gans, 1979) ; Innovation and Tradition (Gans,

1979); Role Reversals (Gans, 1979); Strange or Amusing Adventures (Hetherington,

1985).

This news criterion describes the news media's tendency to focus on events and

people that are out of the ordinary. Events may be unexpected because they happen

suddenly, because they violate predictions or conventional wisdom, or because they

are rare or otherwise unusual occurrences. Role reversals – "Man bites dog" are

frequently mentioned examples of the unusual and newsworthy. New inventions,

events and other breaks with traditions often considered newsworthy for their novelty.

Proximity:-

Proximity (Ryan, 1991; Herbert, 2000); Closeness (O'Sullivan, 1983; McQuail,

2000); Domestic Affairs (O'Sullivant, 1983); Location of events (McQuail, 2000);

Proximity to the audience of People and Events in the News (McQuail, 2000).

Proximity refers to "Local angle." This implies that this criterion exists only for local

news media. As Ryan (1991) suggests that news organizations focus on events and

issues that impact their regional audience. However, Gans (1979) points out that the

news media often focus on those events abroad that impact their domestic audience.

In short, the further the field an event is, the harder it is to cover. A news outlet's

resources anchored in time and space, such that events closer to its newsroom or news

bureau receive privileged treatment.

Relevance and Meaningfulness to the Audience:-

Relevance (O'Sullivan, 1983 ; Bell, 1991 ; McQuail, 2000) ; Meaningfulness

(Galtung & Ruge, 1965) ; Significance for the Past and Future (Gans, 1979) ;

Trendiness (Ryan, 1991) ; Cultural Resonance (Ryan, 1991) ; Public Interest

(Herbaert, 2000); Importance to the Domestic Public (Warner, 1970) ; Audience

Interest (Warner, 1970).

To grasp the full nature of the "Meaningfulness" value, it is better to refer back to

the manner in which Galtung & Ruge (1965) used it initially. They were originally

concerned with how the news media in a given country decided which foreign events

were newsworthy. Galtung and Ruge's news values have applied across a broader

variety of news environments; the concept of meaningfulness often reduced to

relevance or perceived importance to the audience. These concepts are closely

related to, but obviously distinct from Galtung and Ruge's original definition of

meaningfulness.

Scale, Impact, and Consequences:-

Impact ; Power (Ryan, 1991); Impact (Ruehlmann, 1979); Impact and consequences

(Herbert, 2000); Significance; Tragedies and Accidents (Hetherington, 1985);

Magnitude ; Bad News (Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Disasters (O'Sullivan, 1983);

Good or Bad Social Effects (Herbert, 2000); Threshold; Negativity (Galtung &Ruge

1965); Disasters, Actual and Averted (Gans, 1979); Scale of Events; Significance

(McQuail, 2000); Significance for the Past and the Future (Gans, 1979) .

Galtung and Ruge proposed Threshold as a news value. In other words, they

suggested that a story considered newsworthy must affect a large number of people.

Many lists of news values similarly suggest that the Size, Scale, or Impact of an issue

or event is a dominant criterion for news worthiness. Gans (1979) identifies several

variations on the Impact value: Impact on large numbers of people, Impact on the

nation and national interest and significance for the past and future. Among the events

often selected by the Impact news, he points to social unrest and disasters, actual and

averted, which make both domestic and foreign news. Many other authors focus on

disasters and tragedies as impact news.

Timeliness:

Timeliness (Palmer, 1998); Currency; Trendiness (Ryan, 1991); Frequency (Galtung

& Ruge, 1965); Recency; Suddenness (O' Sullivan, 1983); Immediacy (Watson,

1989); Timing in Relation to the News cycle; Short time Scale (McQuail, 2000).

Nearly all scholars cited above acknowledge that news as a deplorable good. A story

on an event reported soon after it occurs, or it is not worth reporting at all. There are

numerous reasons for this. News audiences certainly expect the most current news and

may be disappointed at "stale" stories. Moreover, if space is limited and a story does

not run one day, there is no shortage of newer stories in the pipeline, which must run

immediately in its place or risk becoming stale. Another value related to timeliness is

Galtung & Ruge's (1965) concept of frequency, which suggests that news media are

more likely to pick up stories that match their production cycle. A daily newspaper or

a nightly news program may ignore an event that takes a month to unfold or occurs

when the newsroom is unstaffed.

Clarity: Unambiguity (Galtung & Ruge, 1965); Clarity & Brevity (Bell, 1991).

Most events are subject to multiple framings and interpretations. According to

Galtung and Ruge (1965), however, some stories are more difficult to interpret

multiple ways than others are. The more monolithic the potential interpretations of a

story, the more clearly the - who, what, when, where and why of an event seem to

present themselves, the more likely a story is to be covered. Additionally the more

accessible the information necessary to a particular story is, the more likely that story

is to be covered.

1
Conflict:-

Conflict and Controversy (Herbert, 2000); Government Conflicts and

Disagreements; Protests, Violent, and Nonviolent; Protesters, Rioters and Strikers;

Political Conflict and Protests Abroad (Gans, 1979); Negativity (Galtung &Ruge,

1965); Bad News (Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Violence (Hall, 1973); political

Balance (Warner, 1970).

The news media likes to cover conflicts and to emphasize conflict in stories where it

exists. Gamson and Modoglian (1989), and more recently, Chris Mooney (2004)

suggested that the media's desire for "both sides of a story" is so strong that reporters

and editors covering a consensus issue will sometimes allege an opposing viewpoint

where one does not exist, or elevate a fringe opposition group in status for the sake of

providing balance. They argue that news media focus on conflict because conflict and

confrontation are essentials of drama, and that the press believes that drama is

necessary to incite audience interest.

Compositional Balance:-

Political Balance (Warner, 1970); Composition (Galtung and Ruge 1965).

Importantly, this is not necessary balance in the sense of "Presenting both sides of the

story" though that is certainly one aspect of "compositional balance." In a broader

sense, Galtung and Ruge (1965) suggest that news editors attempt to present a

balanced mix of news topics and types of news. Thus, if a newspaper edition has an

overabundance of one type of news – election news, foreign news, hard news and so

on; other types of stories may restore this balance.

Consonance:-

Cultural Resonance (Ryan, 1991); Consonance (Galtung & Ruge 1965); National

Ceremonies; Excess of Dictatorship; Disasters Abroad; Elections and Peaceful

changes in Government Personnel Abroad (Gans, 1991); Predictability; Common –

Sensual; Compatible with Institutional Routines; Consensus; Naturalization;

Racism; Patriarchy; Metropolitanism (O'Sullivan et al., 1983).

According to Galtung and Ruge (1965), the news media like to cover events that

accord with the pre-existing prejudices and expectations of journalists and audiences.

They add that this is because stories are predictable in this manner allowed for a more

efficient allocation of newsroom resources. Ryan (1991), on the other hand says that

these stories attract interest from reporters and audiences because they have cultural

resonance – they confirm our views of the world. O' Sullivan also asserts that

prejudices served by the media's tendency to report the consonance among the cultural

forces include racism and patriarchy.

Humor:-

Humor (Herbert, 2000); Memorable Emotions (Ryan, 1991); Color (Bell, 1991);

Entertainment (Harcup &O'Neill, 2001); Entertaining (O'Sullivan et al., 1983).

Ryan (1991) says an important news criterion is that a story must "transmit feelings,

not just ideas." She suggests that the news media look for stories with good emotional

hooks that will interest an audience. Herbert (2000) is more specific in proposing that

humor, specifically, is a news value unto itself. Humor often based on

Unexpectedness and Sexuality and related to these other new values. (Cited in Braun,

2009:28).
Facts, Statistics and Aggregates:-

Facticity (Bell, 1991; Gregory & Miller, 1998); Numbers (Hetrerington, 1985);

Voters, Survey Respondents and other Aggregates (Gans, 1979).

News stories in their traditional form cannot exist without facts like who, what, when,

where, why and how. These individual facts reinforce and sustain one another, and

when woven together, give journalists and readers confidence in the accuracy of a

story – a notion Tuchman (1978) referred to as the "web of facticity." Looming large

among "facts" are statistics – election results, survey numbers, figures from studies,

the scandalous, the elite, statistical aggregates and so on.

Action:-

Visuals Attractiveness (Hetherington, 1985); Violence (Hall, 1973); Action (Herbert,

2000); Visuals; Suddenness (O'Sullivan et al., 1983)

This value suggests that the news media tend to prefer action to discussion and

abstract concepts. According to numerous authors, great deals of news media content

selected based on the availability of compelling visuals. This is especially true for

visual media, like television, though some authors point out that photographs compete

for print space in newspaper and magazines, just as any textual document would. This

aspect of story selection tends to favor action, as it relies heavily on stories told with a

camera.

Drama:-Drama (Hetherington, 1985); Good Story; Memorable Emotions (Ryan,

1991); Entertainment (Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Pathos & Dramatic Quality

(Herbert, 2000). Often

Drama is an independent news value. Ryan (1991) in explaining this notion quotes a

portion of famous memo from NBC executive Reuven Frank, originally addressed to
the staff of the news documentary saying, "Every news story should, without sacrifice

of probity or responsibility, display the attributes of fiction, of drama. It should have

structure and conflict, problem and denouement, raising a falling action, a beginning,

middle and an end. These are not the only essentials of drama… ". Ryan suggests that

dramatic structure, which includes other news values like cultural resonance and

conflict, is important to news organizations because it generates audience interest.

(Ryan, 1991:34)

Scandals and Crime:-

Sensationalism (Herbert, 2000); Negativity (Galtung & Ruge, 1965); Bad News

(Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Victims; Alleged and Actual Violators of Laws and More

(Gans, 1979); Scandals and Crime (Hetherington, 1985), Violence (Hall, 1973).

Scandals, Crime, and violation of social customs are newsworthy, and make most lists

of news values. Gans (1979) points out that while scandals and crimes featuring both

known and unknown individuals are newsworthy, prominent individuals generally

discussed in relation to white-collar crimes and transgression, while the unknowns,

media associates them with violent crime. (Cited in Braun, 2009:35).

Personification:-

Persons (Galtung & Ruge, 1965); Human Interest ; People Stories; Role Reversal;

Hero Stories (Gans, 1979); Personalization (Gregory & Miller, 1998);

Entertainment (Harcup & O'Neill,); News about People (Hetherington, 1985)

Gans (1979) points out that the news media seldom refer to social forces behind issues

and events, but predominantly to people. Galtung and Ruge (1965) observed the same

in coining the news value reference to persons. The news media avoid stories about

ideas and focus on actors. Even if an event that involves abstract concepts is important
for other reasons, one way of covering it is to transform it into a story about a person.

For example reporters focus on the scientist as an actor rather than the science as an

idea this is because focus on people may make a story possible to tell in a dramatic or

narrative terms. (Cited in Braun 2009:30).

Reference to sex:-

Sex (Hetherington, 1985; Herbert, 2000); Entertainment (Harcup & O' Neill, 2001).

Numerous lists of news values mention sex, and several, like Herbert's and

Hetherington does include it as its own predictor or whether the news media are likely

to cover a story. There does not seem to be any major scholarly underpinning here,

beyond the fact that "sex sells." This value relates to others, such as humor, scandal,

personification, drama, and novelty.

Reference to government:-

Power (Ryan, 1979); Incumbent president; Presidential candidates; State and local

officials in reference to national stories; Government decisions, proposals and

ceremonies; Government personnel changes; Government conflicts and

disagreements (Gans, 1979); Power elite (Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Government

politics; Foreign affairs of state; Public affairs; Attribution (O'Sullivan et al., 1983).

As mentioned above, both Gan (1979) and Ryan (1991) point out the preoccupation of

the news media with government. While Ryan suggests that the focus, if not the

scrutiny, of the news media is aimed at institutions with power, but Gans points out

that the subset of the powerful on which the media focuses is rather narrow. Gans

adds that, state and local government officials generally appear in the news only when

they become part of an existing national story, or when they are elected as
nontraditional candidates, or when they meet other news criteria such as novelty and

unexpectedness.

Reference to Elite People:-

Elite people (Galtung & Ruge, 1965); Celebrity (Ruehlmann, 1979); Personalities

(Hetherington, 1985); Elitism; Importance; Prominence; Famous faces (Ryan,

1991); Power and fame of individuals involved in events (McQuail, 2000). Nearly

every list of news values takes note of the fact that famous people and their activities

are one of the major subjects of the news. Some lists of news values, such as those put

forward by Gans (1979) and Ryan (1991), note that the actions of famous politicians

particularly well covered, while other list-makers note that the media have been, or

equally fascinated by other sorts of celebrities.

Continuity and Co- option:-

Continuity (Galtung & Ruge, 1965); Follow-up (Harcup & O'Neill, 2001); Co-option

(Bell, 1991); State and local officials in reference to national stories (Gans, 1979).

Galtung and Ruge (1965) suggest that past coverage of a topic is likely to inspire its

continued coverage. They suggest that once a news organization carries a story to

begin with, it must continue its coverage in order to justify its initial judgment of the

story's newsworthiness. Whereas Bell (1991) noted that, it is often easier and more

economical for news events and issues covered into ongoing stories, than covering

them independently and that the news media often select stories that can be co –opted.

Similarly, Gans (1979) notes that, while national news media focus on many elite

politicians and their activities because of their activities and the offices they hold, the

same media seldom focus on state or local politicians unless their activities become

part of the ongoing or bigger story.

Reference to an organized public:-

Issue recognition (Ryan, 1991); Interest (Herbert, 2000); Public affairs and

attribution (Hetherington, 1985 and Bell, 1991). According to Ryan (1991), for a

variety of reasons, issues fetch coverage if there are some public organizations

dedicated to them. The existence of such an organization is evidence to a news outlet

that at least some portion of the public cares about the problem.

2.1.5 Critiques of News Values

The diversity of perspectives surrounding news values and their utility is partly the

source and result of a range of critiques surrounding news values as a way of

understanding the news and newsworthiness. The theory of news values as proposed

by Galtung and other researchers have modified Ruge over the years. This could be an

indication that though widely accepted, the theory had some shortfalls. This theory

developed a long time before the advent of modern day technologies and economic

demands that have revolutionized news reporting (McGregor 2000:2).

In the age of globalization, reporters have to contend with many complex issues when

deciding on news worthiness. It is probably much easier and less risky to cover the

war in Iraq where there might be protection from American soldiers than in the Congo

where no such protection exists (Zuckerman 2004:52).

Nevertheless, the theory laid down a framework that is still relevant today. Studies

have shown that, among many other factors for example, the media’s attention in

correlation to a country’s wealth )Zuckerman 2114:52(. Below are the appraisals.

An Overabundance of Lists. Galtung and Ruge’s 1665 list of news values has been

added to by over 41 years’ worth of additional literature. Landmark or not, the

popularity of their original paper has not stopped scholars and journalists from

generating list upon list of alternative and additional criteria. Some of these additional

lists, such as Herbert Gans’ )1656( have been informed by and incorporated into

substantial bodies of research, theory, and scholarship. Others are far more ordinary,

brief, and off-the-cuff—a few even stand-alone without explanation. One source or

another informs all, whether that is fieldwork, survey research, content analysis,

professional expertise, or some combination of these. As such, there is often little to

recommend one list over another, or to suggest whether a given list is “complete”— a

difficulty chronicled. Unsurprisingly, problems with coherence among and between

these multitudes of lists have arisen and become points of contention among both

researchers and educators. (Cited in Braun, 2009:6)

Gatekeeping vs. News Gathering. Another criticism of news values as a way of

understanding news decisions is that they are sharply limited in their explanatory

value. A number of authors have commented that news values, as a construct, ignore

the news gathering process, portraying events as though they invariably presented

themselves in reportable fashion to journalists, who in turn gave each a simple up or

down vote based on how well they fit a predetermined list of criteria

(Tunstall, 1971; McQuail, 2111; O’Neill & Harcup, 2116(.

Reliance on Simple, Discreet Events. McQuail (2000) points out that real-world

events are generally complex and are likely to score high or low, not simply on one or

two news values, but a whole host of them. As such, it becomes particularly difficult

to isolate any given news value well enough to determine its validity or predictive

value, especially when one considers that such stories are competing with, and often

eclipsed by, a constantly changing flow of equally complicated news items (McQuail,
2111:341(. Moreover, Harcup and O’Neill )2111, 2116( further critique Galtung and

Ruge’s list of news criteria for focusing strictly on events in the news, when many

news items are not, in fact, about discreet events but about trends, speculation, issues,

and so forth. Hartley (1982) notes that events and issues often become news without

scoring highly on any news value (Hartley, 1982:79).

Values vs. Value Judgments. However, )Harcup & O’Neill, 2111, 2116( claim that

news values in fact disguise important aspects of journalism as an enterprise—

namely, the ideological assumptions under which news workers labor. According to

Hall )1653(, “News values appear as a set of neutral, routine practices, but we need,

also to see formal news values as an ideological structure—to examine these rules as

the formalization and operationalization of an ideology of news” (Hall, 1973:182).

The lists often assume that the event-qualities journalists favor or exaggerate in their

stories exist independently of the judgment of the reporter or news organization. In a

review of the German news values tradition, Eilders (2006) asserts that a consensus

has arisen among researchers to treat news values as qualities of the news, not the

events behind it. Nevertheless, this important distinction, while recognized in some

circles, has nonetheless often proven difficult to operationalize from a research

standpoint.

2.1.6 How Do Journalists Use News Values:

McQuail (1992) points out content analysis are incapable of determining “what

journalists and editors really think about relevance.” This complicates attempts to

examine the decisions of news workers from the perspective of finished texts, and as

such, researchers have attempted to triangulate using other methods. Unfortunately,

while a number of non-content analysis studies, such as those conducted by Peterson

provide at least mixed support for Galtung and Ruge’s list of factors, these results fall
amid a larger disagreement among newsroom ethnographers as to whether news

values are used by journalists at all, and if so, consciously or unconsciously.

(McQuail, 1992:216).

Hetherington )1685( says “most journalists, in my experience, will resist formalized

‘news values,’ lest these cramp their freedom of decision. … Obviously journalists

working at speed against edition times or program ‘on-air’ times do not go through

any mental checklist of factors such as Galtung and Ruge have listed.” He said,

journalists leave open the possibility that news values may describe in broad terms the

trends in journalists’ output, if not their decision-making process. (Hetherington

1985:7)

Other authors have suggested, somewhat awkwardly, that news values still operate in

journalists’ decision-making, but on a subconscious level. According to Bell (1991),

news values “approximate to the—often unconscious—criteria by which news

workers make their professional judgments as they process stories.” Warner )1651(

also suggests that news values are a largely unconscious phenomenon, saying that

they are indeed present, but that “personnel in…newsrooms have difficulty

articulating them” )Bell, 1661:163(. Similarly, Hall )1658( writes, “Although they are

nowhere written down, formally transmitted, or codified, news values seem to be

widely shared as between the different news media,…and form a core element in the

professional socialization, practice and ideology” )Hall, 1658:54(.

Tunstall (1971), on the other hand, suggests that journalists readily cop to using a set

of news values, and may even be able to articulate them. However, these criteria are

contextual, specific to a given journalist’s work environment, and further are open to

discretion on many organizational levels from that of the individual reporter all the

1
way up to the corporate owners of news outlets (Tunstall, 1971:263-264). Still other

authors, like Golding and Elliott (1999) view news values as well-defined, and readily

available to journalists on a conscious basis, but suggest that they have little to do

with “deciding what’s news” and far more to do with rationalizing news decisions,

often after-the-fact, that are made for far more mundane reasons (Golding and Elliott,

1999:118-119).

2.1.7 Conclusion

Related to the above, news values are not universal, they vary from one society to

another. They can change over time and between different sectors of news media. For

example Galtung & Ruge, (1965) put great emphasis on the "frequency" with which

events occur, yet as technology changes many of the ways in which news is produced

and received , so criteria such as "frequency" may become increasingly irrelevant in

the world of continuous deadline required by production of online and 24 – hour

news. For these news media however, recency and competition may become more

dominant selection criteria as well as the type of the audience.

Nevertheless, the theory laid down a framework that is still relevant today. Studies

have shown that among many other factors for example, the media's attention

correlated with a country's wealth. (Zuckerman 2004: 54)

Therefore, all the different views brought out about news values in this section are

important for this study of news values in the Ugandan newspapers, since a number of

news values highlighted out seem to be prevalent in the Ugandan newspaper. This is

an assumption pending findings approval. More so, these perceived changes in news

values suggest that the topic will remain fruitful one for journalism scholars for many

years to come.
2.2 Literature Review

In this section, the researcher reviews a number of previous studies related to news

values carried out in various parts of the world reflecting news values in different

mass media. The literature reviewed was Western studies, Middle East /Asian studies

and African Studies.

2.2.1 Western Studies

Jorge T. (2005) in his study titled "News Values in News Website" intended to

demonstrate how the criteria of newsworthiness work in the two most important news

sites in Latin America: Clarin.com and Uol.com.br. Another aim was to discover

which topics the two sites judge to be most important in their news service and to

create a map of news values found in the electronic pages during a given period.

Discovering also if the electronic news in the World Wide Web are subject to the

same criteria of news worthiness as the print products where they originate.

An analysis was made of 675 units of information both texts and multimedia material.

The method adopted to gather the empirical corpus for the purposes of this study was

the 'constructed week', during the period March – April 2006.

The study discovered that the variety of topics in Clarin were a little broader and

more balanced in the selection of topics with more items dedicated to news-

consuming public than UOL which seemed to be keener on entertainment than news.

The cultural map drawn by ULO's news values indicated that its public belongs to a

competitive society, values money and, in its spare time seeks leisure activities in the

form of sport.
The study also revealed that news values in the Web, guided by the same criteria of

newsworthiness as in the printed product. Thus, topics covered are the same

(Conflict/Power, Leisure, Proximity, Currency, Celebrity, etc.) According to this

study, Clarin gave more importance to Ecology (5.3%) and Religion (3%) than to that

of Arts (0.9%, as opposed to 6.1% on UOL) and Education (0.9% as opposed to 1.3%

on UOL). On the other hand, more topics involving the news values of Crime (17.3%)

and Death (16.7%) found on the Clarin site than UOL. The Exoticism value was

greater on UOL (almost 5%) than the Clarin Site (1.5%) was. As for the Human

interest element, the study revealed that this is no longer a very important news value

today, judging from the relative lack of emotional reports in the news pages of both

sites.

Schultz (2007) in his study "journalistic doxa, news habitus and orthodox news

values," presented an analysis of everyday news work. Using the field approach, the

researcher aimed at drawing a distinction between two types of news values in

journalistic practice: doxic news values and orthodox/heterodox news values which

are explicit and belong to sphere of journalistic judgment. The researcher combined

reflexive sociology and newsroom ethnography in a methodological design; he

included studies of everyday journalistic practice, a historical analysis of changing

journalistic ideals using journalistic prize awards as empirical material, as well as an

analysis of the recruitment to the Danish journalistic field. The researcher also took

three months of observations of editorial practices at the two Danish national

broadcasters DR 1 and TV 2; he conducted interviews with editors and reporters too.

This study revealed that what journalists experience as their "journalistic gut feeling"

entails both explicit news values- dominant (orthodox) and dominated (heterodox) as

well as silent, taken – for – granted (doxic) news values. The ethnographic analysis of
journalistic practices in Danish newsrooms identified five explicit news values:

Timeliness, Relevance, Identification, Conflict and Sensation, but also a sixth doxic

news value: Exclusivity.

Siti and Lee (2009) aimed at identifying the values that emphasis news reporting,

creating an understanding on how newspaper format influence the news published.

This research also compared the different newspaper format that is the quality and

tabloid newspapers used in Britain and Malaysia plus their news values. The

researchers used Quantitative content analysis in this research with front-page news

from 109 newspapers for the month of March 2008 from selected newspapers.

Findings showed that different newspaper format influences the news values in

determining news. The study also indicated that British and Malaysian newspapers

use similar level of average news values for both quality newspapers and popular

newspapers. This indicated universalities of news values in general in both countries.

News that contained news values such as; newspaper agenda, relevant, magnitude, the

power elite surprise, and bad news, were determined as main news for all four

newspapers that were studies. Nevertheless, quality newspapers were more prone to

news values such as; magnitude and power elite, while popular newspapers were more

to news values such as; surprise and bad news. The findings indicated that quality

newspaper from both countries were prone to report news regarding on politics,

economics and internal issues involved in the country itself.

Whereas, Weber (2010) based his study on the newsworthiness theory to investigate

the coverage of Eastern European nations in 2006 in German newspapers. The study

aimed at showing how the theory used to derive determinants of news flow and

predict the amount of coverage of foreign nations. In this study, the researcher
analyzed the content of four German newspapers. Two West German and two East

German newspapers selected; the sampling period was the whole year of 2006.

The study showed that for the coverage of Eastern Europe, status and the combination

of affinity and closeness were major determinants. Results showed that few countries

especially; Russia, Poland and Serbia accounted for already 62% of overall coverage,

with Russia being the 'news – superpower' receiving more than one – third of total

coverage. By contrast, seven countries were nearly 'invisible', each receiving less than

1% of overall coverage. Nonetheless, Serbia, at least received a considerable amount

of coverage. The reason was that issues concerning Serbia like the war in former

Yugoslavia, war crimes of that time and their international prosecution today, and

subsequent problems for international law were continuing public interest in

Germany.

Shim, Jung and Kim (2011) carried out a comparative analysis on news values of

education coverage in the United State and South Korea. Their study focused on how

two countries' newspapers, covered the sensitive issue of education in terms of their

news values. This study analyzed the content of three American papers that are New

York Times, Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Time. The South Korean

included Dong Ilbo, Chosun, and Joonang and Hankyoreh newspapers.

Findings from the study showed that 52% of the Korean news samples dealt with

stories of university reform. Fifteen percent (15%) dealt with campus struggle,

injustice, or illegal activities in the university. Whereas 51% of American news stories

related to the subject of education reform and the figure was quite similar to the

Korean. The New York Times was more highly evaluated than Korean newspapers

overall in covering university stories. 15 news values measured in the New York
Times articles were higher than the Korean newspapers in their fairness of coverage,

professionalism, and investigation. However, Korean newspapers' coverage did not

differ much from that of American newspapers in the following areas: Sensationalism,

exaggeration, Timeliness, Relevance to parents, intensity of conflict, and structural

conflict. Overall, Korean newspapers covered education beats more negatively than

American newspapers, Korean papers dealt with the philosophical side of the

university reform issues less than their American counterparts did.

2.2.2 Middle East / Asian Studies

Yehia. A. (1980) focused on news values as criteria for selection of national and

international news and news circulation inside the Arab region and between countries

of the region and the rest of the world. The study also aimed at exploring the

relationship between the national characteristics of Arab culture and the possibilities

of effective and fruitful exchange within the region. This survey study examined the

pattern of news circulation in the region during the week from 26 November to 2

December 1977. The sample represented a cross section of the press of Arab countries

plus news items carried by major TV networks.

While examining news stories published by five major dailies in the Arab region: AL

– Nahar, AL-Ahram, AL-Baath, Oqaz and AL-Siyasa in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi

Arabia and Kuwait respectively, the study revealed that each paper carried a daily

average of thirty non – domestic items. The highest figure for one day was sixty –

three, and the lowest was nine. Out of a daily average of thirty non – domestic news

items, three dealt with domestic politics in another Arab country. Ten items per paper

per day concerned world news touching upon political problems of the region, while

the highest figure of fourteen was the average of political news with a regional nature.
The socio-economic and socio-cultural categories got an average of three items daily,

uneven distributed among economic news, science, art, education, crime, disasters and

human interest.

More so, the daily average of news stories presented by TV networks, which focused

on domestic affairs, was political in nature revolving around the situation in the

Middle East. The next category in order of priority and frequency was economic

news, cultural news, and human interest. However, sports and crime news were

unrepresented well.

The study also discovered that the domestic and alien influences that determine the

criteria for the selection of news in the Arab countries included; Continued fight

against neo colonialist forces and conflict with Israel. Additionally, Arab nationalism

with related concepts of unity, progress, democracy, socialism, freedom of choice and

revolution. The new economic world order; Religion as a dominant factor in an

Islamic way of life; Oil or oil prices and oil as a political and economic leverage;

Development; Science and technology; Domestic and international food problems;

Rights of women; Social and administrative reforms including the fight against

corruption among others well all observed.

Al Mohana (1999) intended to find out the news values that makes news worthy and

hence published in the Arab press. This study also examined the social, economic, and

political values found in the news published in the Arab press. The researcher

surveyed three Arab newspapers whose content analyzed for the year 1997. The

newspapers in this study were Al Ahraam an Egyptian daily plus Ar riyadh and

Asharqul Awsat both Saudi dailies.

Results of the study proved that all the newspapers studied stressed two news values;

relevance and valence. However, other news values like magnitude, proximity, and

immediacy found in Asharqul Awsat newspaper. The research attributed this to its

continuous follow up of the Arab cultural news and focus on soft news, it also carried

other news values like; celebrity, human interest, entertainment and security related

issues. Whereas Ar riyadh newspaper emphasized much on social responsibility, elite

nations, Islamic law "sharia," conflict and power elite. The researcher attributed this

to the newspaper's greater focus on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and its Islamic and

Arabic orientation. Nevertheless, Al Ahraam stressed on the partisan interest, which

were prevalent in Egypt, compared to other papers under the study.

Additionally, among the economic values found in these papers included

developmental actions, self-reliance, accomplishments, inputs, increased level of

investment and Arab economic integration. Whereas political values found in Ar-

riyadhi newspaper were; freedom and democracy. Al Ahraam enclosed political

participation, loyalty to home land, political tolerance, and power separation. In

contrast, Ar riyadhi newspaper highlighted much on social justice, interdependence,

and cooperation other than the other papers in the study.

Furthermore, the study indicated that hard news were much placed in the top and

center of the newspapers and contained news values such as relevance, magnitude,

national interest, social responsibility, compliance to sharia and psychological

security. Finally, the researcher did not find any significant relationship in those three

newspapers in their design and the news value of relevance.

Meanwhile, Tai. Z (2005), his study "News Events, News Values and Editors'

Judgment," aimed at comparing the rankings of the top ten world and domestic events
by three prominent Asian news agencies, the Central News Agency from Taiwan, the

Kyodo News Service from Japan, and the Xinhua News Service from China, from

1992 to 2001. In analyzing, the pool of events collected for the study each item was

content analyzed for inter-agency comparison. This content analysis was performed

both quantitatively by counting the number of certain types of stories and qualitatively

by looking at the news frame of each particular event within a broader socio-political

context.

Findings of the study revealed that the three wire services displayed a remarkable

similarity in their attention to the various regions of the world in their rankings of the

world events. They all emphasized on news originating from Asian –Pacific countries,

with U.S related stories trailing closely behind. Events with a global impact, and

Europe- related stories had a fair share of attention. Geographical proximity was the

most important determinant in the selection of top news events among all the three

news agencies. All three news agencies displayed a varying degree of self-

centeredness. Thus, 11% of the world stories ranked by Kyodo involved a direct role

played by Japan and China explicitly mentioned in 24% of the world news items

listed by Xinhua. For Taiwan, it was a little. Additionally, domestic politics topped

the lists of both Central News and Xinhua, and came up second on Kyodo's list.

Diplomacy was also a hot topic for Central News and Xinhua, but not for Kyodo.

Natural disasters and elections also frequented the top ten lists of Central News, while

Kyodo's distinctive obsession with scandals and official corruption was evident. All

the three news agencies showed a difference between their evaluations of domestic

and world events. Hot international topics for all three agencies were diplomacy,

war/conflicts, financial and economic affairs. Internal politics equally considered.

Tor S. (2007) aimed at discovering and comparing the news topics broadcasted by

CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera, and Al Arabia satellite television channels. The study also

aimed at finding out the news values, the types, geographical focus, and the news

sources for those television channels. In achieving the study objectives, the researcher

selected a sample from the evening news bulletins of the selected channels and

analyzed their content.

Results showed that the dominant topics covered in the news of the selected channels

included politics with 30% followed by economic news with 11.5%, then terrorism

activities with 9.4%, sports 8.8% and disasters with 5.3%. Nevertheless, science and

discoveries, environmental issues, international crises, education and childcare all

scored less than 1%. The study also revealed that these channels dedicated much time

on news with 54.5% compared to commercial adverts and news promotions that had

16.2% each, while weather forecast had the least consideration. Findings further

revealed that Al Jazeera channel broadcasted more news compared to other channels

due to its strategic location in the Middle East.

With the geographic focus, the two Arabic channels, which are Al Jazeera and Al

Arabia, concentrated much on the Middle East region unlike CNN and BBC. The key

personalities in the news included kings, ministers, opinion leaders whom all made up

37%. Whereas organizations and groups composed of 34%. Concerning the sources of

news relied on by some four-satellite channels the researcher found out that 97.7% of

the sources owned by the channels like reporters, correspondents and their beaurues.

However, 86.6% of the news graded as neutral, 9.9 % was bad news, and 3.5%

categorized as good news.

1
Meanwhile, the researcher found a significant difference in the news values of the

Arab television channels compared to the western channels. Major differences were

observed in seven-news values perceived differently by the Arab and the Western

channels. These news values were; the power elite, Entertainment, Surprise,

Magnitude, Relevance, Follow up and Immediacy. The researcher explained that what

considered as relevant in news by the Arab channels, was unconsidered by the

western channels. This also applied to the other news values like entertainment,

magnitude, surprise perceived differently.

Elliott and Greer (2010) investigated on newsworthiness and Islam, thus by analyzing

values in the Muslim online press. The study further examined how the values of

Islamic faith may have an impact on news reporting in several Middle Eastern nations

where Islamic religion is dominant. Researchers used content analysis to examine

local stories found in the sampled newspapers. These were; The Gulf Daily News

(Bahrain), Iran Daily, Jordan Times, Kuwait Times, The Daily Star (Lebanon), Times

of Oman, Gulf Times (Qatar), Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Gulf News (United Arab

Emirates) and Yemen Times.

The overall findings indicated Islam as an ideology influence on the concept of

newsworthiness. The major findings indicate that Islam may have on topics, actors in

the news, orientation of the news and use of sources. The results also indicated that

political news was indeed the most prominent in the online press examined in this

study. Diplomacy stories accounted for 17% of all reports, whereas news dealing with

domestic politics and government operations accounted for an additional 13%. The

actors frequently reported in the online press from the Middle East were

organizations like health, educational, social, media, and business contexts. Only

13.3% of all the news accounts had individuals as the dominant character. The results
of this study indicated that there were more positive news items than negative stories

reported in the online press. Nevertheless, stories dealing with crime, courts, and fires,

accidents, and disasters were usually negative in orientation. The newspapers in these

Middle Eastern countries embedded Islamic values within their news items, but this

varied just as the application of Islam varies across the countries from which those

newspapers came.

Meanwhile, the study of Alkarni (2011) examined the editorial features of the Saudi

press in which six newspapers' content analyzed for the period of 2007. This study

aimed at discovering whether the Saudi press still gives greater consideration to

political and security news. Finding out the extent to which these newspapers focused

on local and developmental issues. The study also explored the major news values in

the Saudi newspapers under investigation. The Saudi dailies analyzed in this study

were Al Jazeera, Ar riyadhi, Okaz, Al Watan, Al Yaum and Al Madina.

Findings of the study showed that news had greater space compared to other content

in the newspapers followed by adverts, onions, and then cartoons. Meanwhile,

economic news scored higher which indicated that those newspapers emphasized

much on economic and society. However, political and security news were considered

during political crises and security predicaments. Results also revealed that social

issues which were covered by the Saudi press in 2007, included education, health,

child affairs, environment, poverty and unemployment as opposed to crises and

terrorism, this implied that Saudi press focused much on society and developmental

issues.

The noticeable news values news analyzed in this study included "Good News" which

was found in about 25% of the news published in the selected papers. Then followed
by Human interest; Bad News; the power elites; Celebrities; Magnitude; lastly was

Follow- up news. Findings showed that citizens had priority as key personalities in the

newspaper content with 19% compared to 25% of personalities like political leaders,

cultural and community leaders. This implied that these newspapers prioritized

citizens over different leaders.

Furthermore, Papacharissi & Oliveira (2011) in their study they studied the news

values that were prevalent in the Twitter news streams capturing the events of the

2011 Egyptian uprising. They also aimed at finding out the form of news story telling

on Twitter taken during the 2011 Egyptian uprising. Content and discourse analysis

used to filter out tweets containing Arabic characters. They collected approximately

1.5 million tweets from the #Egypt tag, and measured frequency of tweets shared

during the period. A random sample of 9,000 tweets drawn from the #Egypt corpus of

tweets. This sample was analyzed using centering resonance analysis (CRA), a mode

of computer assisted network based text analysis that represents the content of large

sets of texts by identifying the most important words that link other words in the

network.

The content and discourse analysis both indicated that the stream of news reflected a

mix of traditional news values and values specific to the platform of Twitter. The

discourse analysis suggested that the types of events covered and the tone of the

coverage mimicked the tendency of traditional media to emphasize all of the

following news values - large scale of events, closeness to home, and clarity of

meaning, short time scale, relevance, consonance, personification, significance,

drama, and action.

The researchers noticed some variation in what these values mean for the context of

Twitter. They noted that while the stream focused on larger scale protests, there was a

pronounced tendency to ensure that smaller scale protests, occurring in cities

peripheral or remote to Cairo not neglected. Proximal locations were covered, but

attention also called to connecting with remote areas of Egypt under turmoil.

References also made to uprisings in neighboring states like Libya and reaction to the

uprising from potential strategic partners like the US.

There were however, specific news values that emerged, that were specific to the

platform of Twitter and the context of the uprising. These were; Instantaneity, Crowd

sourced elites: Solidarity and finally Ambience.

Similarly, Guo (2012) carried out a comparative study on the perception of news

values between China and the United States. This research aimed at exploring the

convergences and divergences of Chines and Western news value perceptions. The

study further stressed on the factors determining news worthiness in China and the

United States.

He selected the Top – Ten News International News Reports of Chines Online Media

and New York Times to carry out the content analysis in this qualitative semantic

research. The analysis covered a period of five years, ranging from 2006 to 2010.

Findings showed considerable convergences in Chinese and Western theories of news

value, whilst significant divergences in their practices. Both Chinese and Western

perspectives emphasized the audience – oriented approach in articulating determinant

factors of news value. The convergence of conceptual approach contributed to the

similarity of the elements of news value of the Chinese and the Western perspective.

Timeliness, audience interest, significance and proximity, were commonly recognized

frame analysis of the news value element by Chinese and Western media. However,

Top-ten international news reports found disparities of coverage between Chinese

Online Media and New York Times, which covered eight frames: accident/disaster,

conflict, crime, human interest, military, politics, terrorism plus trade and economy.

However, the three additional frames found in Chinese Online Media top ten

international news, which did not appear as separate frames in the New York Times

were environment and resource, science and technology plus sports and culture.

2.2.3 African Studies

Emenyeonu (1995) conducted a study on Africa's Image in the Local Press, with a

sample of Nigerian newspapers. This study specifically addressed the aspects of news

about Africa in the selected papers. It also examined the discernible news values in

reports carried in the papers plus portrayal of African image in the reports. To achieve

these goals, four leading Nigerian newspapers analyzed, for the period of May 1991

through May 1992. Newspapers considered were; The Guardian, The Daily Times,

The Vanguard and The National Concord.

Findings of the study concluded with a considerable measure of confidence that

African press pays a great deal of attention to negative events or developments, which

are not favorable to the African image. Analysis of story direction showed that

45.55% of stories were unfavorable. With news subjects opposition leaders especially

rebels attracted the highest coverage of 27.2% while civil unrest attracted 8.0%. Apart

from sports which attracted 14.2% the rest of subject matters much as crime, disasters,

and military also had some flavor of negativism. Subject matters such as health, aid

packages and education, featured in not more than three reports. While food and

agriculture, science and technology and finally human interest had no mention at all.

For news subjects whose actions were controversial and contributory to conflicts, the
local press betrayed a preference for oddity and conflicts as the overriding values in

news judgment. About the image of Africa, the study found that Africa as a continent

characterized by political violence, civil unrest, tribal conflicts, rebel insurrection,

human rights violation, coups, fluctuations of political systems and rising crime rates.

Meanwhile, Kisuke (2004) investigated on the role of news values in the selection of

news sources in a contemporary third world newspaper. This study had two main

goals. One of them was to examine the selection process regarding news sources and

specifically the importance of news values in this process. The other was to assess

these sources in order to tease out their characteristics in relation to media-democracy

assumption. To achieve these goals, the researcher employed both qualitative and

quantitative data collection methods: semi-structured interviews, observation, and

content analysis of the Daily Nation, a Kenyan newspaper.

The study shows that the relationship between the sources of page one stories and

news values are inextricably related. The study revealed that editors and reporters are

conscious of this relationship. This awareness obligates them to assess news sources

within the framework of newsworthiness in terms of both the story and the source.

The newsworthiness accomplished by judging sources based on name recognition,

narrowed the views in the news to those of elites. Male elites emphasized as sources

to the exclusion of other potential sources in society. The study also shown that news

topics on the front pages narrowed to politics, and this influenced the kind of sources

selected.

Whereas, Teng'o (2008) examined the flow and framing of African news on the

Websites of major news organizations in three Western countries – the United States,

The United Kingdom and France. The study also examined the framing of African
news on the Web site of an African news aggregator. It also examined the dominant

tone, African countries, and news topics covered by the Web sites. To execute the

purpose, the researcher used quantitative and qualitative content analysis to examine

the volume of African news on five Western news sites and the framing of African

news on the sites. The study also involved e-mail and telephone interviews with

editors of African news on the selected Websites.

This study showed that African news items comprise a small percentage (10.7%) of

the total news prominently featured on the home pages and world news pages of the

Western news sites. The study also showed that the conflict frame, the classic news

frame, emerged as the commonest, occurring in 81.2% of the news items analyzed in

this study. The responsibility frame (71.0%) followed it, disaster frame (48.1%),

economic consequences frame (27.2%), and progress frame (21.3%), human-interest

frame (20.1%), and morality frame (6.2%). According to this study, most news items

had a neutral tone, which featured in 59.3% of the stories, while negative tone was

present in 18.3% and positive in 11.6% and the rest was difficult to tell.

Whereas, Maryian (2010) in her study news in the Ugandan press, aimed at exploring

the content of the front page of the New Vision and the news attributes which

influence its selection and prominence. The focus was on the news values, topics,

focus and type of the most prominently presented news stories. The researcher used

content analysis of the front-page news published between January 1, 2009 and March

31 2009. The survey method used to get answers to other research questions through

questionnaires that were distributed to journalists.

The findings of this study indicate that: Hard news published on the front page only.

On the front page, three news articles were published. Each news article had an
average of five news values but the lead had about six. News about crime/law and

order was the most frequent on the front-page news followed by internal politics.

Positive news appeared most on the front page but the lead news had a negative focus.

The five most common news values in the news were action, follow – up/continuity,

range, surprise, and prominence. Both news gatherers and processors used news

values as a yardstick to determine which news item becomes the lead.

2.2.4 Comments on the Previous Studies

As observed from the reviewed literature, it is vital to mention that news values are

not universal, they vary from one society to another because some of them are bound

by the culture of a given society while others are a culture free. This is evident in the

study conducted by Tor (2007) who found a significant difference in the news values

in the Arab television channels compared to the western channels. Seven news values

were perceived differently by the Arab and the Western channels. These were the

power elite, Entertainment, Surprise, Magnitude, Relevance, Follow up and

Immediacy. The researcher explained that what Arab channels considered as relevant

in news could not be considered the same by the western channels.

Similarly, Elliott and Greer (2010) who investigated on newsworthiness and Islam

with focus on news values in the Muslim online press found the same results. While

in the African studies done by Maryian (2010), Teng'o (2008) and Emenyeonu (1995)

they found the most common news values in the news as; action, follow –

up/continuity, range, surprise, crime, prominence, disaster, conflict, human interest,

and consequences, which could be considered as bad news.

Notably, news values can change over time and between different sectors of news

media. For example Papacharissi and Oliveira (2011) in their study on news values
that were prevalent in the Twitter news streams capturing the events of the 2011

Egyptian uprising. Their analysis suggested that, the types of events covered and the

tone of the coverage mimicked the tendency of traditional media to emphasize all of

the following news values large scale of events, closeness to home, and clarity of

meaning, short time scale, relevance, consonance, personification, significance,

drama, and action. Nevertheless, they found specific news values that emerged, that

were specific to the platform of Twitter and the context of the uprising. These were;

Instantaneity, Crowd sourced elites: Solidarity and finally Ambience.

Therefore, the researcher finds the above reviewed studied on news values being

relevant to the current study, in that a number of mentioned news values and the

research methodology used in those studies are benchmarks in guiding the study.
 CHAPTER THREE

THE PRESS IN UGANDA

This chapter focuses at the press in Uganda from the historical perspective tracing it

from the early colonial days, its development, and its status to date.

3.1 Development of the Press in Uganda

Kitchen (1956) held that attempts in Uganda to disseminate information through the

newspaper can be traced back to 1907, when Ebifa Mu Uganda (News from Uganda),

appeared as a fortnightly missionary newspaper. Other publications included Muno

(The friend), a weekly publication founded in 1911, and The Uganda Herald, founded

in 1912. Matalisi (The messenger) followed in 1923, Gambuze (What is News) in

1927, Dobozi Lya Buganda (Voice of Buganda) in 1927, Mugobansonga (Followers

of Reasons) in 1948, Ndimugezi (The Wise Seek Advice) in 1951, Amut (News) in

1953, Mwebingwa in 1953, Uganda Empya (New Uganda) in 1953, Saben's

Commercial Digest in 1954, Uganda Mail in 1954, and Uganda Post in 1954.

Uganda Argus, founded in 1955, originated from The East African Standard which

started publication in 1902, but with its circulation restricted mainly to Kenya, and

Uganda Eyogera (Uganda Speaks).(Cited in Acayo & Mnjama 2004:28)

They stresses that the Ugandan Herald represented the European element, was firs,

published in 1912. The Europeans claimed with some pride that this was the first

newspaper of any kind published in Uganda. Remarkably, the colonial power strongly

influenced the development of press in Africa, Uganda included, by introducing rather

authoritarian press concept and restricting the growth of the indigenous press. They

did this because they believed that the other papers did not carry information of their

interest.

1
The Roman Catholic Church and the Church Missionary Society did publish and

circulate some newspapers such as Ebifa Mu Uganda and Muno, first published in

1907 and 1911, respectively. These papers had a good deal of influence through their

relatively large circulation of religious issues and matters of political and general

public interest and there was high standard set in the production of these newspapers.

According to Kitchen (1956), there were however, no government newspaper or those

under the direct supervision of the government as was in Kenya and Tanzania, this left

provision for the free expression of information. (Acayo and Mnjama 2004:29)

3.2 The Status of Newspaper Industry in Uganda Today

Despite the rapid growth and development of electronic media in Uganda, today the

print media in Uganda holds its national importance. The major newspapers in

Uganda published in English. Apart from the major Ugandan newspapers, there are a

number of regional newspapers published in various regional languages of Uganda.

There are over 30 newspapers in the country but only four are dailies. The

government owns two of these – The New Vision published in English and Bukedde,

a Luganda vernacular daily newspaper. Both The Daily Monitor and the Red Pepper

published in English and privately owned Ugandan dailies (Maryian 2010: 10). The

leading newspapers by circulation are the New Vision (60% state – owned, 40%

public shareholders, 40,000 circulations). The Daily Monitor privately owned 35,000

circulations. (Media Sustainability Index 2008). The some newspapers in Uganda are:

3.2.1 The New Vision

The New Vision is the leading English daily newspaper published from Monday to

Friday, aims at the discerning balanced and accurate information. Since inception
1986, New Vision has been the leading daily in Uganda, enjoying a 65% market share

of the total daily English newspaper sales. The New Vision editorial philosophy is to

provide “information of record” and in a balanced way, covering all the facts and

leaving the opinion of the matter to the reader. The newspaper has various sections

making up the whole paper, with a strong emphasis on enhanced reader value. The

benefit features include - Mwalimu and Jobs, Woman’s Vision, Health and Beauty,

Farming, Business Vision ToTo and Blitz. The New Vision newspaper supports

education in Uganda, publishes advanced career/study guides, and conducts direct

school education through the “Newspapers in Education” program.

Furthermore, the New Vision published by the New Vision Printing and Publishing

Company Limited, which is also known as the Vision Group runs weekend editions

known as Saturday Vision and Sunday Vision. The Saturday Vision an English

weekend newspaper aims at leisure, entertainment, & relaxation for all Ugandans. It

offers a variety of news features, sports, commentary, and entertainment. Whereas,

The Sunday Vision caters for the vast religious category in Uganda, sports, leisure and

entertainment. Its entertainment package includes Its Kawa, Tech Buzz, Personal

Finance, and a Children’s section. The New Vision is 15 by 11 inches in size and

average 36 pages per issue, but can also reach as many as 60 pages in an issue.

Approximately 70 percent of the paper is news copy, with 30 percent of the space

dedicated to advertising. (http://newvisionuganda.info/visioncorporate/: 29/1/2012)

3.2.2 The Daily Monitor

The Daily Monitor is another major daily newspaper in Uganda published by the

Monitor Publications Limited created in 1992 and that operates as a part of the Nation

Media Group. The company also publishes a Saturday and Sunday version of
the Daily Monitor, titled the Saturday Monitor and the Sunday Monitor respectively.

(Press Reference, 2006). This newspaper is an independent newspaper of Uganda

circulated countrywide and outside Uganda. The publication of the newspaper is in

English for the convenience of the people in the country and for the outsiders who

visit Uganda. The Daily Monitor provides a wide range of news that cover politics,

international and national news, national issues, economic news, sports, culture,

entertainment, business and finance, gender articles, health, kids section, and so on.

The different sections of Monitor newspaper are News Headlines, Opinions,

Editorials, Business Power, Features, and Inside Politics, Health & Living and Sports.

This newspaper has a wide range of content, catering for all segments of society. For

example, they have special inserts for women, young people, education, and health.

Daily Monitor averages 30 pages per issue, but can reach up to 50 pages. On average

80% of the newspaper space is committed to news copy, leaving only 20% for

advertisement. The Daily Monitor in Uganda therefore, is a mixture of news,

entertainment, and information on various subjects. The newspaper thus blends

different aspects of life. It provides news and information and at the same time

reflects the culture, society and the entertainment of Uganda. It is one of the most

important and sophisticated newspapers of Uganda and upholds the spirit of

development of the country. Accessed from-

http://www.mapsofworld.com/uganda/media/monitor-uganda.html : (28/1/2012).

3.2.3 Bukedde

Bukedde is the only daily newspaper published in "Luganda" a local language. The

New Vision Printing and Publishing Company Limited publish it. It is the most brand

loyal newspaper in Uganda, and it is an integral part of the average working

Ugandan’s day. Focusing on the community and the human side of life, the newspaper

attracts up to 15 readers per copy. Bukedde is also the only daily newspaper with a

dedicated section on the KABAKA, the Buganda cultural king, and is highly regarded

as the formal authority on the KABAKA and his people. It has a variety of features,

which include farming, relationship advice, leisure, traditional remedies, shocking

revelations, women and health, entertainment, art, people, what is on, and sports. It

runs a Sunday version title as "Bukedde Ku Ssande" which is an entertaining family

paper published in Uganda every Sunday. It has a variety of entertaining features

about places, events and people, which include news and commentary, leisure,

children and health, lifestyle and sports. Retrieved from-

(http://newvisionuganda.info/visioncorporate/:29/1/2012)

3.2.4 Other Ugandan Newspapers

The Red Pepper: It is a tabloid published daily established in 2002. It tries to publish

news that is not easily taken by mainstream journalism. They can be said to provide

people with news behind news. This tabloid has created a wave of sensation in the

whole nation. It has published many news that were otherwise claimed to be secret

and so has created much reaction among the people of east African country. Accessed

from- http://www.w3newspapers.com/uganda/ :13/2/2012)

The Weekly Observer: This is Uganda's weekly newspaper published twice a week

(Monday and Thursday) and established in 2004.

Regional newspapers: These are published weekly and focusing on the everyday life

and human-interest side of the communities in western, northern, and eastern Uganda.

The Vision Group is the only publishing house in Uganda producing local language

newspapers for the different areas in Uganda these include:

Orumuri - published weekly in Runyakore and Rukiga, Orumuri focuses on the life

and interests of this region. The newspaper circulates the western region of Uganda,

including Masaka, Kabale, Toro, Bunyoro and Kasese. Circulation = 19,500 copies

weekly. (New Vision, 2011)

Rupiny - published weekly in Luo and focuses on the interests and lifestyle of the

people within this region. Rupiny circulates in the northern part of Uganda, including

Gulu and Lira. Circulation = 6,500 copies weekly. (New Vision, 2011)

Etop - published weekly in Ateso, Etop focuses on the interests of the population of

the North Eastern region of Uganda. The newspaper circulates Soroti, Katakwa and

Kumi. Circulation = 7,600 copies weekly. Retrieved from

http://newvisionuganda.info/visioncorporate/ :22/12/2011)
 CHAPTER FOUR

METHODOLOGY

Researchers use wide varieties of methods to study media content and journalistic

decisions, but this study used content analysis method. This method was used in many

previous studies; for instance, Al-Mohana (1999) used content analysis while studying

news values in the Arab Press. Therefore, this chapter presented the methods used; the

population of the study, sample, and the sampling technique, validity, and reliability

measures, variables measured and briefly discusses how each of the variables was

operationalized.

4.1 Content Analysis:-

Content Analysis is a research technique for the objective, systematic and quantitative

description of the manifest content of communication. (Berelson 1952, cited in

Stempel III 1989:125). This definition points out the quantifying focus of quantitative

research methods and the objectiveness of the findings because the procedures

followed in the study must be clearly spelt out. However, critics who argued that

media texts are open to varied interpretations have questioned the objectivity of this

method and the identification of particular variables to be measured involves

subjectivity. (Mcnamara and Deacon, cited in Maryian 2010:23).

In the current study, the researcher used content analysis techniques to code all

sampled news from the selected newspapers. The study involved quantitative content

analysis. As Berge and Kerlinger noted that quantitative content analysis is defined as

the systematic collection and objective interpretation of communication with the goal

of determining the manifest content. (Cited in Teng'o 2008:31).

Remarkably, wide varieties of methods have been used to study media content like

semiology, discourse analysis, but this study used Content Analysis as the research

technique. This technique was used in previous studies; for instance, Al-Mohana

(1999) used a content analysis while studying news values in the Arab Press.

Likewise, Lynch and Peer (2002) of Readership Institute, they also used content

analysis in their National Comparisons for the U.S Daily newspapers. Similarly,

Maryian (2010) employed the same technique while investigating on news in the

Ugandan press. While researching on the Editorial Features of the Saudi Press,

Alkarni (2011) used similar technique. Upon this background therefore, the researcher

found it relevant to use content analysis while carrying out a study on news values in

the Ugandan newspapers, because this technique seemed to be suitable in achieving

the study objectives.

4.2 Study Population:-

The target population for the study was all the issues of the two English leading

national daily newspapers in Uganda. These are; The New Vision a government

owned newspaper established in 1986 and the Daily Monitor a privately owned

newspaper established in 1992, owned by the Nation Media Group.

Newspapers chosen out of the available media for this study on news values because

of their high frequency of publication and permanence, which makes them excellent

documentary sources for content analysis research. Whereas the two newspapers

purposively chosen because they are national newspapers, they circulate within and

outside Uganda and they are considered to be among the oldest national newspaper in

Uganda.
The selected newspapers represent the print news media of Uganda in terms of both

circulation and geographical distribution. These newspapers have a reputation for

professional and impartial journalism that gives them tremendous influence within the

Ugandan news industry. They enjoy substantial readership in and beyond Uganda and

they devote considerable space to news (current affairs).

Retrieved on 4/2/2012 from: http://www.newvision.co.ug

Time Frame: The researcher analyzed the content of all news items published by the

two selected Ugandan dailies in the year 2011 ranging from January 1, 2011 to

December 31, 2011. The year 2011 selected because a number of issues, which had

affected on the public, occurred in Uganda and in other parts of the world, hence

published in the Ugandan newspapers. Some of the major news includes; in

February 2011, president Museveni won his fourth presidential election and the main

challenger Kizza Beigye alleged vote rigging and dismissed the result as a sham, May

2011; Yoweri Museveni denounced press as "enemies" for reporting on anti-

government protests. In July, NATO jets bombed three Libyan state TV satellite

transmitters in Tripoli, targeting a propaganda tool in Gadhafi's fight against rebels. In

Aug, Afghan insurgents down a U.S. military helicopter, killing 30 Americans and 8

Afghan commandos, the deadliest single loss for U.S. forces in the decade-old war.

While in Aug, Violence flared across London and beyond as shops looted. It was the

worst rioting in London in decades. Sept. Abbas took the quest for independence to

the Security Council, seeking U.N. recognition of Palestine.

4.3 Sample & Sampling Technique:-

Stempel (1952) drew 10 sample issues; 6,12,18,24 and 48 editions with a random

starting point and every nth edition. Nevertheless, Stempel's sampling techniques

resulted into constructed weeks. Stempel (1952) concluded that 12 days (two

constructed weeks) were sufficient for representing a year's content. Research by

Davis and Turner (1951), Jones and Carter (1959) found results similar to Stempel's

(1952) (Cited in Riffe, Lacy, & Fic 2005:13)

Basing on the above observation a sample of twelve (12) issues were chosen from

each newspaper representing a year's content as sample for the study. Vital to mention

is that Ugandan dailies selected newspapers in this study are The New Vision and The

Daily Monitor. Outstandingly, Riffe, Lacy & Drager (1996) noted that newspaper

sampling studies suggest daily variation of content, affects representativeness of

simple random samples (e.g. larger news hole in ad – heavy Wednesday editions or a

smaller Saturdays, can by chance be over- sampled). As an alternative, Stempel,

Jones, Carter and Riffe et al, made sure all weekdays were represented with a

constructed week. (Riffe, Lacy & Drager, 1996:636)

Therefore, adopting Stempel's sampling strategy this study used a constructed –week

sample of newspapers issues starting with Monday through Saturday, excluding

Sunday editions because Sunday editions of the New Vision and Daily Monitor have a

different focus from the daily editions.

Furthermore, Systematic Random Sampling technique was used in picking study

sample for each newspaper. In order to get twelve issues, a month was divided into

four weeks, and then a week was randomly selected from the four (That is to say week

1, 2, 3 or 4). Then a day was randomly selected from the selected week (A day of the
week from Monday to Saturday) and this was for the first month of January 2011.

Systematically, the following week and the following day in the second month of

February was selected, and so on up to the twelfth issue. However, this is detailed in

the table (1) below:

Table (1) Showing the Constructed Weeks

No. Month Week Day Date

1 January 2 Monday 10/1/2011
2 February 3 Tuesday 15/2/2011
3 March 4 Wednesday 30/3/2011
4 April 1 Thursday 7/4/2011
5 May 2 Friday 13/5/2011
6 June 3 Saturday 18/6/2011
7 July 4 Monday 25/7/2011
8 August 1 Tuesday 2/8/2011
9 September 2 Wednesday 14/9/2011
10 October 3 Thursday 20/10/2011
11 November 4 Friday 25/11/2011
12 December 1 Saturday 3/12/2011

4.4 Data Collection

Due to the nature of this study, content analysis was used to collect data for the study.

"Content analysis is used to determine the contents of print media, web pages,

broadcast media, and other recordings, by counting certain aspects." (Kondowe,

2008:46). Therefore, content analysis was the appropriate technique for the

quantitative description of the Ugandan newspaper content and for discovering news

values in the Ugandan newspapers.

1
4.5 Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis was a single news item excluding advertisements, editorials,

commentaries, letters to the editor and other forms of opinions published in the

selected newspapers. In this study, the news values investigated were Novelty and

Unexpectedness; Relevance and Meaningfulness to the Audience; Impact and

Consequences; Timeliness and frequency; Conflict and Controversy; Consonance;

Humor and Entertaining; Facts and Statistics; Drama; Scandals and Crime;

Human Interest/ Personification; Elite People; Reference to organized public;

Continuity and Co-option; Action; Unambiguity and Clarity.

4.6 Recording and Measuring instruments

Three instruments used in the collection of data, were namely the coding sheet, ruler

for measuring amount of space and a calculator for working out inter-coder reliability.

The coding sheet developed by the researcher was taken to thesis supervisor and other

journalism professor to assess the suitability of the tool, later corrections implemented

after their observations. The coders referred to a coding sheet in recording details of a

news item on the pro forma sheet.

4.7 Validity and Reliability

4.7.1 Validity: This refers to the degree to which a study accurately reflects or

assesses the specific concept that the researcher is attempting to measure. (Fink,

1995:20). While ensuring face validity in this study, the researcher discussed with

fellow coder on the research instruments to ascertain that they all understood

categories analyzed in the document the same way. The coders spent hours coding

some of the news items, comparing notes and making adjustments where necessary.

Additionally, the coders repeated the exercise a week later before proceeding with the
exercise of collecting data, thus ensuring that items in the coding sheets collect

information on categories of news items.

Pilot Study: This was conducted prior to the actual study to test the instruments and

to refine the variables of the study. A pilot study was conducted on editions of issues

not selected for the sample from months of 2011.

4.7.2 Reliability

Reliability refers to the extent to which an experiment, test, or any measuring

procedure yields the same result on repeated trials. (Fink 1995:28). Reliability is

important in content analysis as Riffe, Lacy and Fico (1998) notes that without the

establishment of reliability, content analysis is useless.

Nevertheless, the researcher and fellow coder ensured inter-coder reliability by

exchanging the issues of the papers they had coded. Each then coded what the other

had coded and the results compared. The researchers calculated inter – coder

reliability for the study following the Holsti method. Holsti et al, (1963) suggested a

formula to arrive at inter coder reliabilities as; R=2(C1,2)÷C1+C2

Where C1, 2 was the number of category assignments and agreed on by both coders. In

addition, C1+ C2 were the total of category assignments arrived at by both coders. The

inter coder reliability performed after the study showed .94, implying a high level of

agreement between coders.

Likewise, during the pilot study the researcher and his fellow coder randomly selected

a sample of news items from the issues of the New Vision newspapers they had

coded. Each then coded what the other had coded and the compared the results.

However, the pilot study used the Holsti method to establish inter-coder reliability

suggested by (Wimmer & Dominick 1997:128). The researcher used a calculator to

compute the results. The Manual calculation of Holsti’s reliability co-efficient for

categories was:

2M ÷ N1 + N2 = The inter-coder reliability for the study was = .92

M represented the total number of coding events about whose categories the two

coders agree. N1 represented the total number of coding decisions by the first coder

whereas N2 represented the total number of coding decisions by the second coder

(Wimmer & Dominick 1997:128; Ding & Hu 1999:102). The results of the pilot

study showed an agreement of .92 for the inter-coder reliability, representing a very

high agreement on categories of events using Holsti’s index.

4.8 Data Analysis and Presentation

The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) program was used for data entry

and analysis. Afterwards the researcher conducted quantitative content analysis by

calculating frequencies and percentages of news values and other variables during the

study period. This gave an indication of news values in the selected newspapers.

Tables were used to present the data because they made it easy to communicate

summarized data. Finally, the research provided descriptive statistics of the gathered

data.
4.9 Limitations of the study

A number of practical and methodological limitations were encountered in this study.

The small sizes for the sample of only twelve issues from 2011 were analyzed.

Additionally, a single news item was used as a unit of analysis to explore news values

in the Ugandan newspapers. Cartoons, adverts, announcements, editorial, readers'

opinions and letters to the editor were not analyzed and this posed a challenge.

Content analysis, whether qualitative or quantitative, is an extremely directive method

which provides answers to only questions posed by the researcher (Deacon et al

2007:117); thus offering no room to explore text in more detail so as to develop ideas

or insights into a given subject. Worth noting here is that a researcher has the

opportunity of critically analyze the results and also use them to substantiate findings

from the survey.

It should also be noted that ―content analysis usually suffers its drawbacks like being

time consuming and not enabling a researcher understand how exactly the respondents

think of certain issues. Frequencies and descriptive statistics do not provide good

explanations of why certain news items are given more prominence than the others.

Therefore applying another qualitative technique like observational method on how

journalists understand news values, how they collect news, write, select and design

the news pages could have been useful.

Then lack of research done on news values in the Ugandan media, posed a limitation

to this study. The theoretical approach used in this study is largely based on news

value theory which is purely based on Western perspectives. But since the news

values consideration tend to be similar irrespective of their location; these concepts

are applied in a similar context.

 CHAPTER FIVE

FINDINGS OF THE STUDY

The major aim of this study was to explore news values in the Ugandan newspapers.

The researcher analyzed each news item independently to find out the number of news

values embedded in it with emphasis on common news values in the sample of the

study. In order to achieve the study objectives, the researcher analyzed the content of

1500 news items from the selected sample for the study.

Therefore, in this chapter the researcher presented the data analyzed and hence

explained. Tables showed frequencies and percentages of the analyzed data. Data in

this chapter, divided into three sub sections. The first section focuses at all variables

considered while analyzing the news and this gives an insight on the nature of the

Ugandan newspapers analyzed during the study. More so, the second section presents

the comparison between the two newspapers with other variables studied. Finally, the

third section lays a comparative emphasis on news values with other variables.

5.1 General Data Analysis

5.1.1 Months of Issue

As mention earlier, this study analyzed 1500 news items from the sample of the study.

However, the overall findings of the study shows that much news was published in the

month of September as shown below in table two as opposed to other months. It

dominated with 10.7% with the frequency of 160, followed by March with 9.5%, then

February with 9.2%. Whereas, the months of April and November had equal news in

that they both had frequencies of 134, which was equivalent to 8.9%. Meanwhile,

May and June had lowest news published in them as they had 6.4 and 6.1
respectively. This could be because of the decline in the advertising revenue and

publics' reliance on other media than the New Vision and the Daily Monitor.

Table (2) Shows News distribution by months

Month Frequency Percentage (%)

January 120 8.0
February 138 9.2
March 142 9.5
April 134 8.9
May 96 6.4
June 92 6.1
July 131 8.7
August 107 7.1
September 160 10.7
October 135 9.0
November 134 8.9
December 111 7.4
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.2 Day of Issue

Findings exposed that Wednesday issues carried more news than any other issue in

the course of the week. Thus, Wednesday had a frequency of 302 the same as 20.1%.

This was followed by Thursdays and Mondays with frequencies of 269 (17.9%) and

251 (16.7%) respectively. Whereas, Saturday issues had the least number of news

which counted for only 13.5% and shown the table below. This therefore, gives a

distinction between issues published weekdays as they had a bigger news hole

compared to the weekend issues, which dedicated much space to leisure, lifestyle

among others hence having a small news hall.

 Table (3) Showing News distribution by Day

Day Frequency Percentage (%)

Monday 251 16.7
Tuesday 245 16.3
Wednesday 302 20.1
Thursday 269 17.9
Friday 230 15.3
Saturday 203 13.5
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.3 Newspaper studied and Space covered

As discussed in the methodology, this study concentrated at two newspapers. That is

the New Vision, which is a government, owned newspaper and the Daily Monitor a

privately owned newspaper. Nevertheless, as reflected in table (4) below, it confirms

that the overall news stories analyzed were 1500 from both newspapers of which 762

(50.8%) were from the New Vision. Whereas, 738 (49.2) items were published by the

Daily Monitor. However, there was a slight difference between the two newspapers,

but the New Vision had more news analyzed in the sample for the study.

Additionally, findings revealed that the minimum space dedicated to a single story

was two columns by inch, with the maximum was 216 and a mean of 21.7 column

inches. As shown in table (5).

Table (4) Showing the Distribution of News by Newspaper

Newspaper Frequency Percentage (%)

Name
New Vision 762 50.8
Daily Monitor 738 49.2
Total 1500 100.0
 Table (5) shows the Space covered by news (Measured in column inches)

Std.
No.
Area Minimum Maximum Mean Deviation
Valid No.
1500 2.00 216.00 21.7067 22.58830
(list wise)

5.1.4 News placement

Results from the study showed that much of the news analyzed in the study were on

pages inside the issue, this represented by 92.4%. This however, followed by 4.4% for

the news placed on the front pages of the newspapers, as shown in table (6) below.

Lastly was the back page, which tallied to 3.2% only, of which all news placed on the

last page were sports news in study sample.

Table (6) Shows the Placement of News

News Placement Frequency Percentage (%)

Insider Pages 1386 92.4
Front page 66 4.4
Last page 48 3.2
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.5 Visual Presentation

Table (7) shows that findings of the study revealed that 53.7% of the news analyzed

were not accompanied by any photo. Meanwhile, events photos accompanied 23.7%

of the stories. Furthermore, stories which had personal photos thus not related to the

events reached up to 19.9%. In addition, stories accompanied by other drawings like

charts, graphs, maps among others summed up to 2.7% only.

 Table (7) Shows the Distribution of Visual Presentation

Visual Presentation Frequency Percentage (%)

No Photo 806 53.7

Events Photo 356 23.7
Personal photo 298 19.9
Other drawings 40 2.7
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.6 News treatment

News categorized in this study was hard news and soft news. As reflected in table (8)
results showed that hard news which included stories that emphasized facts of recent
events, were 83.2%. Whereas, Soft news which included longer stories, with more
reflective tone; humorous or entertaining and human-interest stories, made up only
16.8%. This therefore implies that the sample newspapers in the study emphasized
more on the general issues concerning the public than concentrating on soft news that
could be for a specific category of people.

Table (8) Showing the News Treatment

News Treatment Frequency Percentage (%)

Hard News 1248 83.2

Soft News 252 16.8
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.7 News Focus

Results from the study revealed that good news that reported harmony within the
country and between nations plus national cooperation, development, economic
growth, and easing of tensions, scored high with 63.7%. Whereas, bad news that
depicted conflicts, misunderstanding, crisis, and border disputes, human or natural
disasters, poverty, disease, smuggling, frauds, scandals among others, represented by
only 31.1%. However, stories that did not fall into any of the two categories were
neutral news, and counted 5.2%, as shown in table (9).
 Table (9) Showing the Distribution of the News Focus

News Focus Frequency Percentages

Good News 955 63.7
Bad News 467 31.1
Neutral 78 5.2
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.8 News Context

Table (10) shows that the contextualized and thematic frame news analyzed were

82.6%. The thematic frame included news item that highlighted causes or

consequences related to the public and emphasized issues concerning the public.

Alternatively, 17.4% was for the decontextualized and episodic news item with a

narrow framing in terms of topic or individual reference, and not related to the public

issues. Typical examples for this were personified stories.

Table (10) Shows the Distribution of News Context

News Context Frequency Percentage

(%)
Thematic frame 1239 82.6
Episodic frame 261 17.4
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.9 News Topics

Unlike other news topics covered by the sample of the study, sports and business

news have specific pages dedicated to them especially the last pages. Therefore, this

can explain more why sports news dominated with 23.3% followed by business news

with 18.7 %. News related to police, crime and courts appeared in the third position

with 15.3%. News that emphasized on political issues came in the fourth position with

10.7%. Meanwhile, human-interest stories and social news did not appear so much

since they had an aggregate of 9.3% and 5.6% respectively.

1
However, findings showed that the least frequented news topics in the study that

appeared in the last five positions were health news with 5.1%, war/international

conflicts with 5.0%, disaster and accidents had 4.4%. Though human and civil rights

had 1.7%, news related to Science and technology appeared in the last position with

only 0.9%, as elaborated in table (11) below;

Table (11) Shows the Distribution of News Topics

News Topics Frequency Percentage (%)

Sports 349 23.3
Business 280 18.7
Police/Crime/Courts 229 15.3
Politics 161 10.7
Human Interest 140 9.3
Social news 84 5.6
Health 77 5.1
War/International conflicts 75 5.0
Disaster / Accidents 66 4.4
Human/Civil rights 26 1.7
Science and technology 13 0.9
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.10 Sources of News

Results from the study indicated that the kind of source that was mush relied on by the

studied newspapers for the news was their own reporters and correspondents, whose

percentage reached up to 67.3%. Meanwhile, other news sources like Agency France-

Press (AFP), had 10.9%, Reuters had 2.7% and the Associated Press (AP) was least

relied on source of news with only 0.2%. However, unspecified sources reached up to

13.7% and other sources, not categorized in the list, were 5.1%, as exposed in table

(12) below.
 Table (12) showing the distribution of News Sources

Sources Frequency Percentage (%)

Own reporter/Correspondents 1010 67.3

Unspecified 206 13.7
Agency France-Press (AFP) 163 10.9
Other Sources 77 5.1
Reuters 41 2.7
Associated Press (AP) 3 0.2
Total 1500 100.0

5.1.11 Geographic Focus

The study also showed the Ugandan newspapers dedicated much of their space to the

domestic news than the international news. This supported by the figures shown in pie

chart (1) that the domestic news were 75% unlike the international news, which were

only 25%. Furthermore, this coincides with the news sources relied on by those

newspapers in that their own reporters had the biggest percentage indicating that they

reported domestic news. This was different from the international news could have

been got from other news agencies, which also had fewer percentages.

Chart (1)
5.1.12 Domestic News focus

This study further analyzed the focus of particular domestic news. The results

illustrated that much of the domestic news focused on national issues and this led to

its higher percentage of 53.6%. This therefore, indicates that the Ugandan newspapers

focused much on national issues concerning the public that a narrow focus.

Chronologically, domestic news focusing at a particular region like eastern, northern,

southern, central, or western region appeared in the second position with 22.0%. This

followed with news that not be classified and these were categorized as inapplicable,

this appeared with 13.8%. News categorized as inapplicable were those that did not

focus at national, regional or local issues. For instance, feature stories like "enjoy the

natural ambience outdoor" published by the Daily Monitor Wednesday, September

14, 2011 could fit in this category. Lastly was the category of news with local focus

that was 10.7%. These were news focusing on a particular locality, like a town,

county, parish, and a village.

Table (13) Showing the Distribution of Domestic News focus

Domestic News Frequency Percentage (%)

National 603 53.6

Regional 247 22.0
Local 120 10.7
Inapplicable 155 13.8
Total 1125 100.0

5.1.13 International News Focus

In this variable, the researcher considered the region or continent on which particular

international news item focus, thus by establishing where the main action of the news

item is located. Surprisingly, the study showed that in the International news focus,
Europe came in the first position with 36.8%. Despite the fact that the newspapers

analyzed were of African origin, international news that focused on Africa appeared

in the second position with 29.6%. Additionally, Asia & Australia had 13.6%,

followed by North & South America with 11.2%. However, the Arab World

(Excluding North Africa) appeared to have minimal focus as only 8.8% of the

international news focused at the Arab region.

Table (14) Shows the International News Focus

International News Focus Frequency Percentage (%)

Europe 138 36.8
Africa 111 29.6
Asia & Australia 51 13.6
North & South America 42 11.2
Arab World (excluding North Africa) 33 8.8
Total 375 100.0

5.1.14 Featured Countries in the International news

Subsequently, the study also aimed at finding out news values in international news,

some countries selected for the identification of countries in the international news

analyzed. Findings of the study showed that the United Kingdom appeared with 17.9

in the second position. UK's high position in the international news published in the

Ugandan newspaper, it is attributed to its political and economic influence, more

especially Uganda being a former British colony. The United States of America with

8.8% followed by Saudi Arabia 5.1%, South Africa 2.9%, China 1.3%, and France

with 0.8% respectively. However, the biggest percentage of 63.2% was for other

countries that were not list above from the rest of the world.
 Table (15) Showing Featured Countries in the International News

Countries in the International news Frequency Percentage (%)

United Kingdom 67 17.9
United States of America 33 8.8
France 3 0.8
Saudi Arabia 19 5.1
China 5 1.3
South Africa 11 2.9
Others 237 63.2
Total 375 100.0

5.1.15 News Values:

This study had an assumption that the more the news value a story has, the more its

likeliness of reportage and placement in the newspaper. Therefore, to measure the

newsworthiness of news published in the Ugandan newspaper, the research recorded

all news values present in a single news item analyzed during the study. Findings

revealed that all news items analyzed had more than one news value. For positive

news had good news values while negative news had bad news values.

Results from the study showed that the most common news value in the sample of the

study was "human interest" which was ranked in the first position with the

frequency of 1395 out of 1500 news items analyzed, same as 16%. The "human

interest" news values was ranked highly because a bigger number of stories analyzed

transmitted feelings, not just ideas especially those with good emotional hooks that

interested the audience. These stories had other features like unexpectedness,

sexuality, humor, memorable emotions, drama, and entertainment.

The second most frequented news value was "unambiguity" which frequented 1219

times with a percentage of fourteen (14%). More so, "humor" appeared in the third
position with a frequency of 1038, an equivalence of 12%. Undoubtedly, two news

values appeared in the fourth position with and equal percentage of eleven each

(11%), these were "meaningfulness" and "frequency." "Reference to elite persons"

frequented 848 times with a 10%. Though "negativity" observed to have frequency

of 510 as (6%), "unexpectedness" had a frequency of 372 same as 4%.

However, news values with least percentages included "controversy" and "action"

which both appeared the third last position with an equal percentage of three (3%)

respectively. Meanwhile, "scandals" appeared in second last position with a

frequency of 204, which was equivalent to 2%. Lastly was "continuity," the most

non-frequented news value which was found only 71 times during the exercise, thus

with only one percent (1%).

Table (16) Showing the Distribution of News Values

News Value Frequency Percentage (%)

Human Interest 1395 16
Unambiguity 1219 14
Humor 1038 12
Frequency 1005 11
Meaningfulness 954 11
Reference to Elite Persons 848 10
Negativity 510 6
Unexpectedness 372 4
Consonance 358 4
Statistics 286 3
Controversy 272 3
Action 225 3
Scandals 204 2
Continuity 71 1
TOTAL 8757 100
5.2 COMPARATIVE DATA PRESENTATION

In this subsection, the researcher presented a comparative analysis of data for the two

Ugandan newspapers focused on in this study. Since the study focused at news values

in the Ugandan newspapers, sought to be unfair not to present a detailed comparison

between the two newspapers.

5.2.1 Months of issue

As elaborated in table (17), the New Vision published more news in September,

which reached up to 11.9%. This was not the case with the Daily Monitor because it

had only 9.7% as the maximum news published in each of the three consecutive

months of February, March, and April respectively. More so, the Daily Monitor had

fewer stories in June reaching up to 6.0%, unlike the New Vision whose least news

were slightly greater than that at the percentage of 6.3% in each of the three months of

May, June and August. Remarkably, the Chi – Square test showed the significance

level of .07, implying that there was no significant statistical difference observed

between the two newspapers as per their news published in different months.
Table (17) Showing the News Distribution by Months in both Newspapers

Month New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
January 56 7.3 64 8.7
February 66 8.7 72 9.7
March 70 9.2 72 9.7
April 62 8.1 72 9.7
May 48 6.3 48 6.6
June 48 6.3 44 6
July 72 9.4 59 8
August 48 6.3 59 8
September 91 11.9 69 9.3
October 72 10 63 8.5
November 66 8.6 68 9.2
December 62 8.1 49 6.6
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .07

5.2.2 Days by Newspaper

Similarly, the study discovered that the New Vision had more news published on

Wednesdays, which was 21.1%, compared to the Daily Monitor, which had only

19.1%, published on the same day. However, the Daily Monitor ran more stories on

Thursdays represented by 18.3%, unlike the news vision with 17.6% only. As

reflected in table (18), the New Vision had least news on Tuesdays and Fridays of

15% respectively. Whereas the Daily Monitor had 12.6% on Saturdays as its worst

day. The Chi – square test seen at .58 confirming that there was no any significant

statistical difference between the two newspapers in the news published throughout

the week.
 Table (18) Showing the distribution of Days by Newspaper

Day New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Monday 128 16.8 123 16.6
Tuesday 114 15 131 17.7
Wednesday 161 21.1 141 19.1
Thursday 134 17.6 135 18.3
Friday 114 15 116 15.7
Saturday 110 14.5 93 12.6
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .58

5.2.3 News Placement by Newspaper

As highlighted in table (19) findings showed that much of the news analyzed were in

the sample newspapers were place on pages inside the issue. The Daily Monitor had

93.3% of its news placed on insider pages while the New Vision had 91.5% for the

same. However, the New Vision had much news placed on its front page reaching

4.7%, unlike the Daily Monitor with 4.1% only. Nevertheless, few stories found on

their last pages since the New Vision had 3.8% and the Daily Monitor with 2.6%

only.

Conclusively, the Chi- square significance level was .31 implying that there was no

significant statistical different between the two newspapers in their placement of

news.
 Table (19) Showing the distribution of News Placement by Newspaper

News Placement New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Front page 36 4.7 30 4.1
Last page 29 3.8 19 2.6
Insider Pages 696 91.5 690 93.3
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .31

5.2.4 Visual Presentation by Newspaper

Additionally, photographs did not accompany many stories analyzed in the Daily

Monitor; this signified by 56.3% whereas the New Vision only photos did not

accompany 51.2% of its stories. Moreover, the New Vision had more stories

accompanied by photos related to the event in the story and personal photos. These

composed of 25.1% and 21.4% respectively. Unlike the Daily Monitor, this had only

22.3% and 18.3% for the same categories.

As further detailed in table (20), both newspapers had fewer drawings like maps,

graphs, and chats accompanying the stories. Correspondingly, the Daily Monitor had

3.1% while the New Vision had 2.3% only. Besides that, no significant statistical

difference observed since the Chi – Square Sig. level was .11 as shown below.

Table (20) showing the distribution of Visual Presentation by Newspaper

Visual Presentation New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
No Photo 390 51.2 416 56.3
Personal photo 163 21.4 135 18.3
Events Photo 191 25.1 165 22.3
Other drawings 17 2.3 23 3.1
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .11

1
5.2.5 News Treatment by Newspaper

The study discovered that much of the news published in the Daily Monitor were hard

news, as it had 85.8% of this nature compared to the New Vision with 80.7% only.

Consistently, the New Vision had more soft news was 19.3% dissimilar to the Daily

Monitor which had 14.2% only. The Chi-Square tests showed that there was a

significant statistical difference between the two newspapers as per their publication

of hard and soft news.

Table (21) showing the Distribution of News Treatment by Newspaper

News Treatment New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Hard News 614 80.7 634 85.8
Soft News 147 19.3 105 14.2
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .00

5.2.6 News Focus by Newspaper

As far as news focus was concerned, the New Vision had more good news of up to

67.4% compare to the Daily Monitor with 59.8%. Nevertheless, the Daily Monitor

had more bad news represented by 35.7% unlike the New Vision, which had 26.7%

only of the bad news. Subsequently, the New Vision had 4.5% of neutral news

whereas the monitor had 4.5% only. The Chi – square test showed .00 denoting that

there was a significant statistical difference between the two newspapers in their news

focus, as demonstrated in the table (22) below.

 Table (22) Showing the Distribution of News Focus by Newspaper

News Focus New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Good News 513 67.4 442 59.8
Bad News 203 26.7 264 35.7
Neutral 45 5.9 33 4.5
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Sig. .00

5.2.7 News Context by Newspaper

As depicted in table (23) results showed that much news with thematic frame found in

the Daily Monitor represented by 84.2% compared to the New Vision, which had

81.1% only. This implies that the New Vision's news item highlighted consequences

concerning public issues in general unlike the Daily Monitor. Likewise, the New

Vision had 18.9% of its news with episodic frame unlike the Daily Monitor which

15.8% of its news with similar news context. However, the Chi – Square test showed

.06 indicating that there was no significant statistical different between the two

newspapers in their news context.

Table (23) Showing the Distribution of News Context by Newspaper

News Context New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Thematic frame 617 81.1 622 84.2

Episodic frame 144 18.9 117 15.8

Total 761 100 739 100

Chi-Square Sig. .06

5.2.8 News Topics in the Newspaper

Absolutely, the study discovered that the predominant news topic in the Ugandan

newspaper was sports news. This accredited to the fact that the New Vision for

example in its Monday issues it dedicated its last five pages to sports news. Likewise,

the Daily Monitor did the same for its last four pages in similar issues. In this

situation therefore, the New Vision had 23.4% of sports news and the Daily Monitor

followed in this category with 23.1% only.

Similarly, business news had some pages allocated for it. This made it appear in the

second position after the sports news as a widely covered news topic in the study

sample. In this category, the Daily Monitor had 18.7% of business news, marginally

higher than the New Vision with 18.6% only. More so, news related to police, crime

and courts appeared in the third position in both newspapers. In this category, the

Daily Monitor had 17.5% ahead of the New Vision with 13.1%, implying that the

Daily Monitor covered more news on police, criminal cases, and court rulings

compared to the New Vision.

Though the New Vision had more news on human interest, which reached up to

12.0% and the Daily Monitor with 6.6% only, the Daily Monitor however headed the

coverage on political issues with a percentage of 11.6%, unlike the New Vision with

9.9% only. All these statistics presented in table (24).

Nevertheless, among the news topics with negligible coverage in this study was news

on science and technology. For this category, the Daily Monitor had 1.4% while the

New Vision had 0.4% only. Moreover, news on human and civil rights had an equal

coverage in both newspapers with a 1.7% in each. Nevertheless, news on health issues

represented by 6.7% in the New Vision and with a 3.4% in the Daily Monitor.
Reportage on war and international conflicts had an identical coverage of 5.0% in

both newspapers. On the other hand, the Daily Monitor published more news on

social issues with a 6.4% and disaster/accidents with 4.6%, not like the New Vision,

which had 4.9% and 4.2% for the same news topics respectively. The level of

significance was .00 illustrating that there was a significant statistical difference

between the samples of study in their reportage of different news topics.

Table (24) Showing the Distribution of Topics covered by Newspaper

Sources New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Sports 178 23.4 171 23.1
Business 142 18.6 138 18.7
Police/Crime/Courts 100 13.1 129 17.5
Human Interest 91 12.0 49 6.6
Politics 75 9.9 86 11.6
Health 52 6.8 25 3.4
War/International conflicts 38 5.0 37 5.0
Social news 37 4.9 47 6.4
Disaster / Accidents 32 4.2 34 4.6
Human/Civil rights 13 1.7 13 1.7
Science and technology 3 .4 10 1.4
Total 761 100 739 100
Pearson Chi-Square Sig. .00

5.2.9 News Sources for the Newspaper

Results further showed that primary source of news published by both newspapers,

was their own reporter and correspondents. For the news vision, it had 70.1% of news

from its reporters which the Daily Monitor had 64.1%, lower than that of the New

Vision. Notably, the Daily Monitor relied on its correspondences in other neighboring

countries like Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda unlike the New Vision.
Meanwhile, the Daily Monitor had more news got from news agencies like Agency

France Press (AFP), which was 19.4% unlike the New Vision that had only 2.9%,

from that news agency. Moreover, the Daily Monitor had 15.6% of its news from

unspecified sources dissimilar to the 12.0% of the New Vision.

On the other hand, the New Vision had more news from other sources, which not

listed in the coding sheet represented by 9.3% differently from the Daily Monitor that

had 0.8% only. As exposed in table (25), news agencies not much relied on included

the Associated Press (AP) and the Reuters. For the New Vision, it had 0.4% from AP

and 5.3% from the Reuters. Whereas the Daily Monitor it had 0.0% from AP and

0.1% from the Reuters respectively.

Nevertheless, the Chi – square test showed the significance level of .00 which implied

that there was a Significant statistical difference between the New Vision and the

Daily Monitor in their reliance on the various source of news.

Table (25) Showing the Distribution of News Sources by Newspaper

Sources New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Own reporter/ Staff 534 70.1 474 64.1
Agency France-Press (AFP) 22 2.9 143 19.4
Associated Press (AP) 3 .4 0 .0
Reuters 40 5.3 1 .1
Other Sources 71 9.3 6 .8
Unspecified 91 12.0 115 15.6
Total 761 100 739 100
Chi-Square Test Sig. .00

5.2.10 Newspapers' Geographic Focus

The study discovered that the New Vision had 88% of domestic news not like the

Daily Monitor, which had 67.8%. This result however, supports the above findings
where the New Vision had its primary source of news as its own reporters represented

by 70.1%, than the Daily Monitor that had 64.1% only. Therefore, the domestic news

was from the newspaper reporters and its correspondents.

Nonetheless, both newspapers had little international news. The Daily Monitor had

32.2% of international news more than that of New Vision, which had 18.0% only.

The Chi- Square test supported the above results as it showed the significance level of

.00 which implied that there was a significant statistical difference between the New

Vision and the Daily Monitor in their reportage of domestic and international news.

Table (26) Showing the Distribution of the Geographic Focus by Newspaper

Geographic Focus New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %

Domestic 624 82 501 67.8

International 137 18 238 32.2

Total 761 100 739 100

Chi-Square Tests Sig. .00

5.2.11 Domestic News Focus in the Newspaper

Outstandingly, much of the domestic news in both newspapers focuses at national

issues. In this point of view, the Daily Monitor had 54.6% of national news more than

that in the New Vision that had 52.8% only. Yet the New Vision had more regional

news represented by 25.5% than the Daily Monitor that had 17.4% only.

Nonetheless, the study discovered that both newspapers had less domestic news that

focused at localities like villages, local and town councils among others. In this

standpoint, the Daily Monitor had 13.7% while the New Vision had lesser than that,

tallying up to 8.3% for the local focus.

More so, domestic news which were not recorded as national, regional or local news

where classified as inapplicable. In this nature, the Daily Monitor had 14.3% slightly

greater than the New Vision with 13.4%. The Chi –Square test further supported the

above findings as the level of significance observed at .00 that meant that there was a

significant statistical difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in

their domestic news focus, as shown in table (27) below.

Table (27) Showing the Distribution of the Domestic News Focus by Newspaper

Domestic News New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
National 331 52.8 272 54.6
Regional 160 25.5 87 17.4
Inapplicable 84 13.4 71 14.3
Local 52 8.3 68 13.7
Total 627 100 498 100
Chi-Square Tests Sig
.00

5.2.12 International News Focus in the Newspaper

Conspicuously, much of the international news focuses on Europe. This was evident

in the Daily Monitor, represented by 33.2% higher than 26.3% in the New Vision. In

addition, the international news that focused on Africa appeared in the second

position, where the Daily Monitor led with 31.5% alongside the New Vision with

26.3%. The international news on Asia and Australia were more in the Daily Monitor,

observed as 14.7% against 11.7% of the New Vision. The continents of North and

South America in international news represented by 12.2% in the Daily Monitor and

by 9.5% in the New Vision.

However, the Arab world excluding North Africa fetched negligible reportage in the

international news. In the Daily Monitor, it had 9.5% and the New Vision had 8.4% of

their international news focused at the Arab world. Further, the Chi-Square test

showed the significance level of .35 which meant that there was no significant

statistical difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in their

international news focus although the Daily Monitor scored higher in all regions of

the world compared to the New Vision, as shown in the table (28) below.

Table (28) Showing the Distribution of International News Focus by Newspaper

International News Focus New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %

Europe 59 26.3 79 33.2

Africa 36 26.3 75 31.5

Asia & Australia 16 11.7 35 14.7

North & South America 13 9.5 29 12.2

Arab World (excluding 9.5 8.4

13 20
North Africa)
Total 137 100 238 100

Chi-Square Tests Sig. .35

5.2.13 Countries in the International News

Worth noting, the coding guide did not contain most countries observed in the

international news, hence found in the category of others. Under this category, the

Daily Monitor led with 63.3% against the New Vision with 56.9% only. However,

among the most repeated countries in the international news, was the United

Kingdom, represented by 23.4% in the New Vision and by 17.9% in the Daily

Monitor. This is however, consistent with the earlier findings in the international news

focus, where international news that focused on Europe were more than any other part
of the world, hence giving the UK a chance to lead in the featured countries. The

United States of America followed the UK, as represented by 9.5% in the New Vision

and with 8.8% in the Daily Monitor. Saudi Arabia had reportage of 5.3% in the Daily

Monitor and 5.1% in the New Vision.

On the contrary, the least represented countries in the international news were France,

China, and South Africa. The New Vision had 0.0% of its international news focusing

on France, while the Daily Monitor had 0.8%, slightly more than that in the New

Vision. China represented by 2.2% in the New Vision and by 1.3% in the Daily

Monitor. However, South Africa had an equal focus of international news of 2.9% in

both the New Vision and the Daily Monitor.

As reflected in table (29) no significant statistical difference was found between the

New Vision and the Daily Monitor in their reportage on the featured countries in

international news, as the Chi –Square test showed .23 as the significance level.

Table (29) Showing the Featured Countries in the International News

Countries in the International news New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %

United Kingdom 32 23.4 35 17.9

United States of America 13 9.5 20 8.8

France 0 .0 3 .8

Saudi Arabia 7 5.1 12 5.3

China 3 2.2 2 1.3

South Africa 4 2.9 7 2.9

Others 78 56.9 159 63.3

Total 137 100 238 100.0

Chi-Square Tests Sig. .23

5.2.14 News Values in the New Vision and Daily Monitor

The overall findings showed that the most frequented news values in both the New

Vision and the Daily Monitor included; Human interest, Unambiguity,

Meaningfulness, Humor, Reference to Elite Persons, Frequency, Negativity,

Unexpectedness and Consonance. The Daily Monitor had an additional common

news value of called Statistics. However, the least news values observed in both

newspapers included; Controversy, Scandals, Action, Continuity, and the New

Vision had another least frequented news value called Statistics.

As mentioned above, the most common news value in both newspapers was "Human

Interest." This news value appeared in the first position in the New Vision with 17%

and in the Daily Monitor with 14.6%, signifying that it was widely spread in the New

Vision than in the Daily Monitor. In the second place was "Unambiguity" represented

by 14% in the New Vision, slightly bigger than 13.5% in the Daily Monitor.

Thirdly was "Meaningfulness" in the New Vision and "Frequency" for the case of the

Daily Monitor. The former represented by 13% in the New Vision while the latter had

13.2% in the Daily Monitor. These followed by "Humor" of which this news value

repeatedly was symbolized by 12% in the New Vision and by 11.8% in the Daily

Monitor. Reference to elite persons noticed in the New Vision with 10% precisely

bigger than 9.6% of the Daily Monitor.

Remarkably, three-news values found in the New Vision with identical proportion of

5%. These news values were "negativity," "unexpectedness" and "consonance." Yet in

the Daily Monitor, those news values had varying percentages of 6.2% for the

negativity higher than 5% in the New Vision. "Unexpectedness" had 3.8% and

"consonance" represented by 3.7%, all lesser than 5% of the New Vision.

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However, the less noticeable new values in both newspapers were mainly four; these

are Continuity, Action, Scandals, and Controversy. The least discovered news value in

both newspapers was continuity, represented by 1% in each of the two newspapers.

Whereas the news value "Action," had 3% in the Daily Monitor and 2% in the New

Vision. News with the value of scandals was 2.3% in the Daily Monitor and 2% in the

New Vision. Finally, the news value "Controversy" appeared with 3.1% in the Daily

Monitor and with 3% in the New Vision.

Statistically, the Chi-Square test showed the significance level of .19 which meant

that there was no significant statistical difference between the New Vision a

government owned newspaper and the Daily Monitor a privately owned newspaper in

the pervasiveness of news values. The researcher supports the above statistical

indication because many news values that found in both newspapers had a minimal

difference between them for example; "Controversy" appeared with 3.1% in the Daily

Monitor and with 3% in the New Vision. While other news values had equal

percentages, for example continuity represented by 1% in each of the two newspapers.

Table (30) Showing the News Values in the New Vision and the Daily Monitor

News Values New Vision Daily Monitor

F % F %
Human Interest 709 17 686 14.6
Unambiguity 584 14 635 13.5
Meaningfulness 511 13 443 9.4
Humor 483 12 555 11.8
Reference to Elite Persons 396 10 452 9.6
Frequency 382 9 623 13.2
Negativity 223 5 287 6.2
Unexpectedness 194 5 178 3.8
Consonance 185 5 173 3.7
Controversy 126 3 146 3.1
Scandals 95 2 109 2.3
Action 83 2 142 3
Statistics 63 2 223 4.8
Continuity 31 1 40 1
TOTAL 4065 100 4692 100
Chi-Square Tests Sig. .19

5.3 News values Discovered

In line with the study objectives of discovering news values in the news topics and the

news values in the domestic and international news, the researcher presented in this

sub section the predominant news values found in those various variables analyzed.

5.3.1 News Values' Placement in the Newspaper

As earlier explained in 5.1.4 that much of the news analyzed in the study were on

pages inside the issue represented by 92.4% as opposed to front and last pages, this

further reflected in the news values distributed across the sample of the study. The

dominant news values on front pages were continuity represented by 21%, action

11%, unexpectedness 10%, negativity 8%, while controversy and scandal had similar

percentages of 7%. Nevertheless, the uncommon news values on the front pages
included humor and meaningfulness equally represented by 3%, human interest 2%,

yet frequency, unambiguity and consonance equivalently had 5%.

More so, prevailing news values observed on the last pages included reference to elite

persons, statistics, humor, and meaningfulness equally represented by 5%. Followed

by frequency and unambiguity represented by 4%. Yet the uncommon news values

included negativity, scandal, and continuity with equal percentage of 0%.

Unexpectedness and controversy were also unpopular on last pages with 1%.

Inquisitively, news values noticed on insider pages of the newspapers had higher

percentages. The dominant news value was scandal represented by 93%. Followed by

meaningfulness, negativity, controversy, consonance, and humor and human interest

equally represented by 92%, while frequency and unambiguity had 91%. Conversely,

the uncommon news values noticed in news placed inside the issues included

continuity with 79%, while unexpectedness, statistics, reference to elite persons and

action had 89% correspondingly. See the table below for the detailed distribution.
 Table (31) Showing the Distribution of News Values' Placement in the Newspaper

News Placement Front Page Last Page Insider Pages

NEWS VALUES F % F % F %

Unexpectedness 36 10 5 1 331 89

Meaningfulness 30 3 45 5 879 92
Negativity 40 8 2 0 468 92
Controversy 19 7 2 1 251 92
Consonance 19 5 10 3 329 92
Humor 34 3 48 5 956 92
Statistics 18 6 13 5 255 89
Scandals 14 7 1 0 189 93
Haman Interest 62 4 47 3 1286 92
Reference to Elite Persons 51 6 41 5 756 89
Continuity 15 21 0 0 56 79
Frequency 53 5 36 4 916 91
Unambiguity 62 5 46 4 1111 91
Action 24 11 0 0 201 89

5.3.2 News Values by News Treatment

As explained earlier in 5.1.6, the study discovered more stories that emphasized facts

of recent events (83.2%) "Hard news" than "soft news" (16.8%) of longer stories, with

more reflective tone; humorous or entertaining and human-interest stories.

This however, affected on the frequencies of news values where hard news had more

than in soft news. The leading news values in hard news were frequency represented

by 100%, followed by scandal with 98%, then unambiguity had 97%, action 96% and

negativity had 94%. The rare news values in hard news were consonance represented

by 77%, meaningfulness and humor equally had 80% where as human interest had 82.
Conclusively, predominant news values in soft news included consonance with a sum

of 23%, meaningfulness and humor similarly had 20%, human interest had 18%, and

unexpectedness had 15%. Whereas the uncommon news values in soft news

comprised of frequency, which had 0%, scandals 2%, unambiguity 3% plus

controversy and action with a related percentage of 4%.

Table (32) Showing the Distribution of News Values by News Treatment

News Treatment Hard News Soft News

NEWS VALUES F % F %

Unexpectedness 317 85 55 15

Meaningfulness 763 80 191 20

Negativity 477 94 33 6
Controversy 260 96 12 4
Consonance 275 77 83 23
Humor 826 80 212 20
Statistics 245 86 41 14
Scandals 199 98 5 2
Haman Interest 1146 82 249 18
Reference to Elite Persons 763 90 85 10
Continuity 62 87 9 13
Frequency 1000 100 5 0
Unambiguity 1179 97 40 3
Action 216 96 9 4
5.3.3 News Values by News Focus

The study revealed that the dominant news values in news analyzed with good focus

were meaningfulness that had 89%, followed by consonance with 76%, humor 73%,

statistics 69% and reference to elite persons represented by 68%. On the side of

infrequent news values in good news included negativity, which had a least

representation of 17%, scandal 18%, controversy 21%, action 29% and

unexpectedness with 34%.

More so, scandal represented by 81% was the utmost news value in bad news.

Followed by negativity that had 80%, controversy 77%, action 66%, and

unexpectedness 62%. However, rare news values in bad news included

meaningfulness represented by 7%, consonance 14%, humor 21% and human interest

28% only.

Neutral news was the last category of news focus. These were news not classified as

good or bad. Neutral news had overall least frequencies in the news analyzed unlike

good and bad news with minimal differences between them. The main news values in

neutral news were consonance represented by 9%, humor 7%, whereas

meaningfulness, human interest, and action had similar percentages of 5%.

Nonetheless the uncommon news values in neutral news included statistics and

scandal equally represented by 1%, controversy and frequency each had 2%, while

negativity, human interest, continuity, unambiguity and reference to elite persons each

appeared with 3%. Details are in table (33) below:

 Table (33) Showing the Distribution of News Values by News Focus

News Focus Good News Bad News Neutral

NEWS VALUES F % F % F %

Unexpectedness 125 34 231 62 16 4

Meaningfulness 845 89 66 7 43 5
Negativity 88 17 409 80 13 3
Controversy 57 21 209 77 6 2
Consonance 273 76 51 14 34 9
Humor 755 73 214 21 69 7
Statistics 196 69 86 30 4 1
Scandals 37 18 165 81 2 1
Haman Interest 927 66 392 28 76 5
Reference to Elite Persons 574 68 248 29 26 3
Continuity 41 58 28 39 2 3
Frequency 621 62 366 36 18 2
Unambiguity 754 62 433 36 32 3
Action 66 29 148 66 11 5

5.3.4 News Values in various Types of News

Newspapers as any other medium of communication carry various types of news to

meet the audiences' interests and expectations. For instance, some audience may be

interested in sports news while others in science and technology. Nonetheless, another

goal for this study was to explore news values in the various types of news published

in the Ugandan newspapers.

The study discovered that the predominant news values various types of news differed

from topic to another. For instance, the dominant news value in disaster and accidents

news was "negativity." Human-interest news had "consonance" as its prime news
value. Whereas two types of news i.e. business news, plus science and technology

news had "statistics" as a dominant news value. More so, the frequent news values in

news on human and civil rights was "controversy." Likewise, news related to police,

crime and court had "scandal" as its common news value. The major news value

found in news about war and international conflicts was "continuity," and it was the

same persistent news value observed in political news and social news. Outstandingly,

health news had "unexpectedness" as its key news value. Further, major news values

observed in Sports news were "meaningfulness" and "humor," which had similar

percentages.

However, as detailed in table (34), it shows that the dominant news values in disaster

and accidents news were negativity which had 11%, then unexpectedness represented

by 10% and scandals resented by 8% only. More so, this type of news had four news

values with equal scores of 5%. These were statistics, frequency, unambiguity, and

action. Furthermore, statistics represented by 33% was the widespread news value

found in business news and this followed by meaningfulness that had 26%. Whereas

two news values appeared in the third position with equal percentages of 19%, these

were humor and human interest, followed by consonance and unambiguity that had

similar prevalence of 16%.

Nevertheless, repeated news values found in news on human and civil rights were

controversy, which had 4%; unexpectedness and negativity each had 3%. More so, six

news values found in this type of news had equal representation of 2%. These news

values were; consonance, scandal, human interest, reference to elite persons,

frequency, unambiguity, and action. Moreover, news related to police, crime and

court had scandal as its common news value represented by 61%, followed by action
with 46%. Negativity represented by 38% in the third position, followed by

controversy with 30% and unexpectedness with 28% correspondingly.

Remarkably, the major news values found in news about war and international

conflicts included continuity in the first place which had 23%, followed by

controversy with 18%, negativity 10%, action had 4% , while meaningfulness and

Unambiguity they appeared in a fifth position with 6% in each value.

Outstandingly, health news had unexpectedness, as its key news value with a 7%

followed by meaningfulness with 6%. Unpredictably, five news values were in the

third position of predominance in health news all with equal percentages of 5%, these

were; negativity, humor, statistics, human interest and reference to elite persons.

Additionally, continuity represented by 27% was a persistent news value observed in

political news. This followed by consonance that had 17%, then reference to elite

persons with 16%, action 15% and controversy percent.

Results further showed that science and technology had negligible reportage in the

study sample. This however affected even on the number of news values glimpsed in

this news category. Indubitably, news values ranked higher in this type of news

included statistics, which had 3% and unexpectedness with 2%. Other news values

scored 1% and 0%. Those with 1% were meaningfulness, consonance, humor, human

interest, reference to elite persons, frequency, and unambiguity. While those with 0%

were negativity, controversy, scandal, continuity, and action. Likewise, social news

had continuity as its foremost news value that tallied to 9%. This followed by

unexpectedness, meaningfulness, humor, statistics, and human interest, the five news

values with equal scores of 6%. The least represented news values in this type of news

were controversy that had 4%, negativity 3%, scandal 2% and lastly was continuity

with 1%.
Further, major news values observed in Sports news were meaningfulness and humor,

which had similar percentages of 33%. These were followed by reference to elite

persons, which had 29%, then frequency 26% and human interest 25%. Whereas

human-interest news had consonance as its prime news value, represented by 16%.

This followed by unexpectedness and humor, which had an equal representation of

12% in each. Then human interest had 10%, while meaningfulness, negativity and

controversy all appeared equivalently with 8%.

Table (34) shows the distribution of News Values in News Topic

Human Interest Stories

Science & Technology
NEWS TOPICS

Human/ Civil Rights

Police/Crime/Court
Disaster/Accident

War/International

Health News

Sports news
Social news
Business

conflicts

Politics

NEWS VALUES % % % % % % % % % % %
Unexpectedness 10 12 3 28 5 7 10 2 6 6 12

Meaningfulness 1 26 1 4 2 6 11 1 6 33 8
Negativity 11 6 3 38 10 5 10 0 3 6 8
Controversy 2 7 4 30 18 4 14 0 4 8 8
Consonance 2 16 2 6 4 6 17 1 9 22 16
Humor 2 19 1 8 3 5 10 1 6 33 12
Statistics 5 33 1 13 3 5 12 3 6 18 2
Scandals 8 4 2 61 5 1 10 0 2 2 2
Haman Interest 4 19 2 13 4 5 11 1 6 25 10

Reference to 2 12 2 17 6 2 16 1 5 29 6
Persons
Continuity 3 11 0 24 23 1 27 0 1 6 4
Frequency 5 15 2 19 6 4 12 1 5 26 5
Unambiguity 5 16 2 18 6 5 12 1 5 24 6
Action 5 5 2 46 7 1 15 0 4 9 6

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5.3.5 News Values in Domestic and International News

This study discovered that the two newspapers published more news focusing at local,

regional, and national issues in Uganda "domestic news" than international. However,

observed in the news values too, as domestic news had many news values with bigger

percentages unlike the international news. The dominant news values in domestic

news included; unexpectedness represented by 84%, consonance 78%, scandal 77%,

statistics 74%. While three news values had a similar regularity of 75%, these were

meaningfulness, negativity, and human interest. Among the uncommon news values

in domestic news were; action and unambiguity each represented by 72%, reference to

elite persons had 71%; controversy and frequency each had 69% and lastly was

continuity which had 66%. Humor had 74% that was a neutral position of its

prevalence in the domestic news as well as 24% in the international news where it had

the same.

However, the dominant news values in international news included; continuity

represented by 34%, controversy and frequency had 31% each; reference to elite

persons had 29%. While unambiguity and action had an equal representation of 28%.

The study further discovered the infrequent news values in international news as

meaningfulness, negativity, human interest uniformly represented by 25%. Statistics

had 24%, scandal 23%, consonance 22% and lastly was unexpectedness represented

by 16%.

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Table (35) Showing the Distribution of News Values by Geographic Focus

GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS DOMESTIC NEWS INTERNATIONAL NEWS

NEWS VALUES F % F %

Unexpectedness 312 84 60 16

Meaningfulness 711 75 243 25

Negativity 380 75 130 25
Controversy 188 69 84 31
Consonance 278 78 80 22
Humor 770 74 268 26
Statistics 218 76 68 24
Scandals 157 77 47 23
Haman Interest 1052 75 343 25
Reference to Elite Persons 601 71 247 29
Continuity 47 66 24 34
Frequency 696 69 309 31
Unambiguity 876 72 343 28
Action 161 72 64 28

5.3.6 News Values in Domestic News

The study revealed that continuity represented by 77%, as the dominant new value in

the national news. This followed by statistics that had 68%, then reference to elite

persons 66%, frequency 61%, and unambiguity 60%. However, the lopsided news

values in national news included unexpectedness that had 50%, action 49%, scandal

47%, and negativity 46%.

More so, regional news had action as its dominant news value with 33%. Whereas

scandal, controversy and negativity appeared in the second position with an equal

percentage of 29%. These followed by unambiguity, which had 26%, frequency 25%

and unexpectedness 23%. Yet the infrequent news values in regional news included

1
humor and reference to elite person, which had similar representation of 18%,

statistics 16% and continuity, appeared last with 11% only.

Further, scandal appeared with 22% was the dominant news value in domestic news

with local focus. This followed by negativity, which had 21%, unexpectedness 20%,

action 17%, controversy 15%, and frequency 14%. While the infrequent news values

in local news were; human interest which had 10%, humor and reference to elite

persons had uniform representation of 9%, consonance 7%, continuity 6% and

meaningfulness had 5% only.

Finally, domestic news classified as inapplicable had consonance as its chief news

values with a score of 21%. Followed by humor, which had 185, meaningfulness

17%, and human interest with 15% only. On the side of uncommon news values,

controversy and unambiguity had similar percentage of 2%, while scandal and action

also had an equal score of 1%. Lastly, frequency was minimal too, hence represented

by 0%.

1
Table (36) Shows the Distribution of News Values in Domestic News Focus

Domestic News National Regional Local In applicable

NEWS VALUES F % F % F % F %

Unexpectedness 156 50 73 23 62 20 22 7

Meaningfulness 419 59 134 19 37 5 120 17

Negativity 177 46 111 29 80 21 13 3
Controversy 103 54 54 29 29 15 3 2
Consonance 139 50 62 22 20 7 58 21
Humor 415 54 141 18 72 9 140 18
Statistics 149 68 35 16 12 5 23 11
Scandals 74 47 46 29 35 22 2 1
Haman Interest 573 55 221 21 102 10 155 15
Reference to Elite Persons 394 66 110 18 52 9 43 7
Continuity 36 77 5 11 3 6 3 6
Frequency 423 61 172 25 97 14 3 0
Unambiguity 522 60 225 26 112 13 17 2
Action 80 49 54 33 27 17 1 1

5.3.7 News Values in International News

Outstandingly, international news that focused on Africa had continuity as its

dominant news value, represented by 50%. Followed by controversy, which had 46%,

negativity, 44%, scandal 40% and action 39%. Whereas infrequent news values

included frequency and unambiguity, which had equal representation of 31%,

reference to elite persons had 29%, human interest 28%, yet meaningfulness and

humor had uniform score of 21%.

However, international news that focused on the Arab world dominated by scandal

represented by 17%, statistics 13%, controversy had 12%, and negativity 11%. While

seven news values were rare in news on Arab world which had a comparable

1
proportion of 8%. These were; unexpectedness, meaningfulness, consonance, human

interest, reference to elite persons, continuity, and frequency. While humor had 7%

only.

Nonetheless, international news that focused on Europe, had humor as a dominant

news value with 47%. This followed by meaningfulness that had 46%, human interest

40%, reference to elite persons 38% and consonance 37%. While rare news values in

European news included unexpectedness, which had 25%, statistics 21%. Yet

negativity and controversy had related representation of 18%. Likewise, scandal and

continuity had 17% equivalently.

Furthermore, International news that focused on Asia and Australia dominated by

unexpectedness, which had 27%, then scandal; 23% and negativity 19%. However,

statistics, frequency, and unambiguity had similar percentages of 15%. The

insignificant news values in international news included consonance, human interest,

and continuity equally represented by 13%. While meaningfulness, controversy and

humor had similar score of 12%. Reference to elite persons appeared last with 10%.

Notably, statics, which had a percentage of 15%, was a dominant news values in

international news that focused on North and South America. Reference to elite

persons, had 14%. Whereas humor, continuity and meaningfulness had 13% and

controversy 12%. More so, four news values; consonance, human interest, frequency

and unambiguity were correspondingly represented by 11%. Yet rare news values in

this category comprised of negativity and unexpectedness equally had 8%, action 6%

and lastly scandal 4%.

1
Table (37) Showing the distribution of News Values by International News Focus

International News Africa Arab World Europe Asia & North & South
Australia America

NEWS VALUES F % F % F % F % F %

Unexpectedness 19 32 5 8 15 25 16 27 5 8

Meaningfulness 52 21 19 8 111 46 28 12 32 13

Negativity 57 14 15 11 24 18 25 19 10 8

Controversy 39 46 10 12 15 18 10 12 10 12

Consonance 25 32 6 8 29 37 10 13 9 11

Humor 57 21 19 7 127 47 31 12 34 13

Statistics 24 34 9 13 14 21 10 15 10 15

Scandals 19 40 8 17 8 17 11 23 2 4

Haman Interest 98 28 27 8 137 40 43 13 39 11

Reference to Elite 72 29 21 8 95 38 26 10 34 14
Persons

Continuity 12 50 2 8 4 17 3 13 3 13

Frequency 96 31 26 8 109 35 45 15 34 11

Unambiguity 106 31 31 9 117 34 51 15 39 11

Action 25 39 8 13 18 28 9 14 4 6

1
 CHAPTER SIX

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

6.1 Discussion of the Findings

Here the researcher discusses the major finding of the study while relating them to the

study goals. The major objective of the study was to explore the noticeable news

values in the Ugandan newspapers. Other objectives included discovering news values

in both domestic and international news, comparing the New Vision and the Daily

Monitor in their news values, topics and focus, plus identifying news values in various

categories of news.

6.1.1 News Values in the Ugandan Newspapers

The major goal of the study was to discover the noticeable news values that

predominate in the news published in the Ugandan newspapers. This goal was

achieved because the study discovered a number of news values that frequented in the

sample of 1500 news items analyzed. The nine dominant news values explored were;

human interest that had an overall frequency of 1395 (16%), followed by

unambiguity with a frequency of 1219 (14%), then humor had 1038 (11%),

frequency h ad 1005 (11%) meaningfulness had 954 (11%), reference to elite

persons had a frequency of 848 (10%) Negativity had a frequency of 510 (6%),

Unexpectedness 372 (4%) and Consonance had a frequency of 358 (4%). Markedly,

such news value dominating in the Ugandan newspapers was expected because both

the New Vision and the Daily Monitor analyzed during the study are regarded as elite

newspapers in Uganda. Additionally, 82.6% of the news in those newspapers had

thematic frame, in that their news highlighted consequences related to the public and

1
emphasized public affairs in their reportage. More so, 83.2% of the stories

emphasized facts of recent events "Hard news." Further, 63.7% of the news where

those news values found was good news that reported harmony within the country and

between nations plus national cooperation, development and economic growth among

others.

The above findings are supported by the theoretical framework and some previous

studies. For example, Shoemaker proposed a model of newsworthiness, classifying

the traditional news values such as sensationalism, human interest, and

exceptionalness into various types of deviance. From this model, Shoemaker (1991)

developed the theory of deviance and social significance that suggests how journalists

select the news when they cover various news events and issues; the more the news

item is deviant and socially significant, the more it is likely covered as a news story,

Breed (1956:326). Therefore, the current study explored that the news published in

the Ugandan newspapers are more deviant and socially significant as reflected in the

dominant news values discovered in this study; human interest, humor,

meaningfulness, frequency, reference to elite persons and unambiguity similar to

the model developed by shoemaker.

More so, the prevailing news values in the Ugandan newspapers coincides with what

Galtung and Ruge (1965) came out with in a pioneering list of interrelated factors that

help to identify values in the news. They argued that events are likely to meet the

criteria of newsworthiness if they satisfied conditions of frequency, intensity,

unambiguity, elite persons, and composition among others. Much of what they

proposed in their list seen in the Ugandan newspapers analyzed in this study, this

therefore gave credence to Gultang and Ruge’s model.

1
Nonetheless, the news values found in the Ugandan newspapers differs from what

Jorge (2005) in the news website. This attributed to the difference in the medium of

communication. As for human-interest element, his study revealed that this is no

longer a very important news value today. This judged from the relative lack of

emotional reports in the news pages of both site investigated in his study, the websites

were Clarin.com and Uol.com.br.

As earlier observed in chapter of this study, news values are not universal they vary

from medium to another and from one society to another. For example, Tor (2007)

found seven news values in the Arab Satellite television channels Al Arabia and Al

Jazeera. The news values were; the power elite, Entertainment, Surprise, Magnitude,

Relevance, Follow-up, and Immediacy. These news values were not prevalent in the

Ugandan newspapers due to the difference in the news medium of analyzed and the

society where such news are broadcasted.

Summing up the above discussion, we may infer from various arguments that news

values are the most important factor in journalistic choices of news. Nevertheless,

with the same breath, we need to scrutinize the journalistic choices by enlisting the

argument brought forth by Croteau and Hoynes (2000) who observed that the news

value do not exist of and by themselves. They contend, "Newsworthiness is socially

constructed. It is not a property inherent in events but is instead something that is

attached to happenings of journalists" (2000:132). News values according to the views

of the above scholars can be shaped by the editors and journalists' focus on a

particular interest in a society. The researcher in this study observes that by giving

priority to certain issues in society, news values could be influenced to suit politics,

crime, economics, sports, health, or any other societal issue.

1
6.1.2 News Values in the Domestic and International News

The empirical findings in this study demonstrate that the Ugandan newspapers

conceive the enhanced diversity of views in their news. Reader's interest was clearly

emphasized because news in these newspapers are based on social context in which

its readers are found and this meant highlighting issues in the news that touch in

national importance. This was proved with the finding that 75% of the news analyzed

were domestic news of which 53.7% focused at national issues. Nevertheless, the

overall representation of international news was 25% only. However, much of the

international news focused on Europe, thus represented by 36.8%. The dominance of

Europe in the Ugandan newspapers was expected due to its strong economic, social,

and political relations with Uganda and more specifically that Uganda being a former

British colony.

This study discovered seven leading news values in the domestic news. The

overriding news values in domestic news were; unexpectedness represented by 84%,

consonance 78%, scandal 77%, statistics 76%, while human interest, negativity, and

meaningfulness had 75% correspondingly. Domestic news was further classified as

national, regional, and local news. The five dominant news values in national news

included continuity represented by 77%, statistics had 68%, reference to elite persons

had 66%, frequency had 61%, and unambiguity had 60% only. Whereas regional and

local news had similar foremost news values, these were action, scandal, controversy,

negativity, frequency, and unexpectedness.

1
Table (38) Showing the Five Dominant News Values at four levels: International,

National, Regional, and Local

International National Regional Local

NEWS % NEWS % NEWS % NEWS %

VALUES VALUES VALUES VALUES
1 Continuity 34 Continuity 77 Action 33 Scandal 22

2 Controversy 31 Statistics 68 Scandal 29 Negativity 21

3 Frequency 31 Reference to 66 Controversy 29 Unexpectedness 20
elite persons
4 Reference to 29 Frequency 61 Negativity 29 Action 17
elite persons
5 Unambiguity 28 Unambiguity 60 Unambiguity 26 Controversy 15

Basing on the study findings, it’s observed that domestic news that focused on

national issues had positive news hence news values with good intimation. Such news

focused on harmony with in the country, economic development, leisure, and

entertainment among others. This is similar to what Elliot and Greer (2010) revealed

in their study on news values in the Muslim Online press, that there were more

positive news than negative news reported in the Muslim online Press. On the other

hand, domestic news that focused on regional and local issues had bad overtone,

hence negative news values like scandal, controversy, unexpectedness dominated.

Conversely, the six main news values in the international news included continuity

represented with 34%, controversy and frequency had 31%, reference to elite persons

had 29%, unambiguity, and action had 28% respectively. However, the international

news was categorized per the focus of particular news. Key regions considered in
international news were Africa, Arab world excluding Africa, Asia and Australia,

Europe then North and South America.

The principal news values in African news were; continuity, controversy, negativity,

scandal and action. This an indications that much of the international news that

focused on Africa were bad news which included war/conflicts, criminal acts,

corruption, human rights abuse, political coercion among others , as reflected in its

dominant news values with a negative inference. Likewise, news values found in the

international news with a focus on the Arab world excluding North Africa were

similar to those found in African news. These were scandal, statistics, controversy,

and negativity. The similarity in new values between the two regions could be

attributed to the conflicts, crimes, corruption, and political instability in the regions.

Whereas the dominant news values in the international news that focused on Europe

included humor, meaningfulness, human interest, reference to elite persons and

consonance. Further, the core news values in international news with a focus on North

and South America included statistics, reference to elite persons, humor, continuity,

and meaningfulness. These news values looked alike to those found on Europe. They

too depicted the prevalence on good news reportage on those regions. These news

values however, differed from those observed international news that focused on

Africa and the Arab world. This could be attributed to the differences in those regions

like the political environment and economic status differs totally. Finally, the leading

news values in the international news that focused on Asia and Australia were

unexpectedness, scandal, negativity, statistics, frequency, and unambiguity.

Therefore, these news values combined both good and bad news, so they were neutral

between the above regions.

6.1.3 Comparisons between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor

This study also intended to discover similarities and differences between the New

Vision a government newspaper and the Daily Monitor newspaper a private

newspaper in their news. Firstly, since both papers had almost equal news published

throughout the year, the Chi – Square test revealed that there was no significant

statistical difference between the two newspapers as per the news published in

different months of the year 2011. Correspondingly, the study discovered that the

New Vision had more news published on Wednesdays, which was 21.1%, compared

to the Daily Monitor, which had only 19.1%, published on the same day. However,

the Daily Monitor ran more stories on Thursdays represented by 18.3%, unlike the

news vision with 17.6% only.

Remarkably, the Daily Monitor had 93.3% of its news placed on insider pages while

the New Vision had 91.5% for the same. However, the New Vision had much news

placed on its front page reaching 4.7%, unlike the Daily Monitor with 4.1% only.

Conclusively, the Chi- square tests showed that there was no significant statistical

difference between the two newspapers in their placement of news. Moreover,

photographs did not accompany many stories analyzed in the Daily Monitor; this

signified by 56.3% whereas the New Vision only photos did not accompany 51.2% of

its stories. Moreover, the New Vision had more stories accompanied by photos related

to the event in the story and personal photos. These composed of 25.1% and 21.4%

respectively. Unlike the Daily Monitor, this had only 22.3% and 18.3% for the same

categories.

The study discovered that much of the news published in the Daily Monitor were hard

news, as it had 85.8% of this nature compared to the New Vision with 80.7% only.

Consistently, the New Vision had more soft news was 19.3% dissimilar to the Daily
Monitor which had 14.2 only. The Chi-Square tests showed that there was a

significant statistical difference between the two newspapers as per their publication

of hard and soft news. As far as news focus was concerned, the New Vision had more

good news of up to 67.4% compare to the Daily Monitor with 59.8%. Nevertheless,

the Daily Monitor had more bad news represented by 35.7% unlike the New Vision,

which had 26.7% only of the bad news. The Chi – square test showed that there was a

significant statistical difference between the two newspapers in their news focus.

Absolutely, the study discovered that the predominant news topic in the Ugandan

newspaper was sports news. This accredited to the fact that the New Vision for

example in its Monday issues dedicated its last five pages to sports news. Likewise,

the Daily Monitor did the same for its last four pages in similar issues. In this

situation therefore, the New Vision had 23.4% of sports news and the Daily Monitor

followed in this category with 23.1% only. Correspondingly, business news had some

pages allocated for it. This made it appear in the second position after the sports news

as a widely covered news topic in the study sample. In this category, the Daily

Monitor had 18.7% of business news, marginally higher than the New Vision with

18.6% only. More so, news related to police, crime and courts appeared in the third

position in both newspapers. In this category, the Daily Monitor had 17.5% ahead of

the New Vision with 13.1%, implying that the Daily Monitor covered more news on

police, criminal cases, and court rulings compared to the New Vision.
Table (39) Showing the Main News Topics in the New Vision and the Daily Monitor

The New Vision The Daily Monitor

News Topics % News Topics %

1 Sports 23.4 1 Sports 23.1
2 Business 18.6 2 Business 18.7
3 Police/Crime/Courts 13.1 3 Police/Crime/Courts 17.5
4 Human Interest 12.0 4 Politics 11.6
5 Politics 9.9 5 Human Interest 6.6
6 Health 6.8 6 Social news 6.4
7 War/International 5.0 7 War/International 5.0
conflicts conflicts
8 Social news 4.9 8 Disaster / Accidents 4.6
9 Disaster / Accidents 4.2 9 Health 3.4
10 Human/Civil rights 1.7 10 Human/Civil rights 1.7

Nevertheless, among the news topics with negligible coverage in this study was news

on science and technology. For this category, the Daily Monitor had 1.4% while the

New Vision had 0.4% only. The Chi-Square tests illustrated that there was a

Significant Statistical difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in

their coverage of different news topics.

Results further showed that primary source of news published by both newspapers,

was their own reporter and correspondents. For the news vision, it had 70.1% of news

from its reporters which the Daily Monitor had 64.1%, lower than that of the New

Vision. Meanwhile, the Daily Monitor had more news got from news agencies like

Agency France Press (AFP), which was 19.4% unlike the New Vision that had only

2.9%, from that news agency. As exposed in table (26), news agencies not much

relied on included the Associated Press (AP) and the Reuters

Nevertheless, the Chi – square test showed that there was a significant statistical
difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in their reliance on the

various source of news.

The study discovered that the New Vision had 88% of domestic news unlike the Daily

Monitor, which had 67.8%. This result however, supports the above findings that the

New Vision had its primary source of news as its own reporters represented by 70.1%,

than the Daily Monitor that had 64.1% only.

Nonetheless, both newspapers had little international news. The Daily Monitor had

32.2% of international news more than that of New Vision, which had 18.0% only.

The Chi- Square test supported the above results as it that there was a significant

statistical difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in their reportage

of domestic and international news.

Exceptionally, much of the domestic news in both newspapers focuses at national

issues. In this point of view, the Daily Monitor had 54.6% of national news more than

that in the New Vision that had 52.8% only. Yet the New Vision had more regional

news represented by 25.5% than the Daily Monitor that had 17.4% only. Nonetheless,

the study discovered that both newspapers had little domestic news that focused on

localities like villages, local and town councils among others. In this perspective, the

Daily Monitor had 13.7% while the New Vision had lesser than that, totaling up to

8.3% for the local focus. The Chi –Square test showed that there was a significant

statistical difference between the New Vision and the Daily Monitor in their domestic

news focus. Evidently, much of the international news focuses on Europe. This was

evident in the Daily Monitor, represented by 33.2% higher than 26.3% in the New

Vision. In addition, the international news that focused on Africa appeared in the

second position, where the Daily Monitor led with 31.5% alongside the New Vision
with 26.3%. The international news on Asia and Australia were more in the Daily

Monitor, observed as 14.7% against 11.7% of the New Vision. North and South

America in international news were represented by 12.2% in the Daily Monitor and

by 9.5% in the New Vision. However, the Arab world excluding North Africa had a

negligible coverage in the international news.

Similarly, the Daily Monitor had 9.5% and the New Vision had 8.4% of their

international news focusing on the Arab world. Meanwhile, the Chi-Square test

showed that there was no significant statistical difference between the New Vision

and the Daily Monitor in their focus on international news although the Daily Monitor

had higher scores in all regions of the world compared to the New Vision.

The overall findings showed that the most frequented news values in both the New

Vision and the Daily Monitor included; Human interest, Unambiguity,

Meaningfulness, Humor, Reference to Elite Persons, Frequency, Negativity,

Unexpectedness and Consonance. The Daily Monitor had an additional common news

value of called Statistics. As mentioned above, the most common news value in both

newspapers was "Human Interest." This news value appeared in the first position in

the New Vision with 17% and in the Daily Monitor with 14.6%, signifying that it was

widely spread in the New Vision than in the Daily Monitor. In the second place was

"Unambiguity" represented by 14% in the New Vision, slightly greater than 13.5% in

the Daily Monitor. Thirdly was "Meaningfulness" in the New Vision and "Frequency"

for the case of the Daily Monitor. The former represented by 13% in the New Vision

while the latter had 13.2% in the Daily Monitor. These followed by "Humor" of

which this news value repeatedly was symbolized by 12% in the New Vision and by
11.8% in the Daily Monitor. Reference to elite persons noticed in the New Vision

with 10% precisely greater than 9.6% of the Daily Monitor.

Remarkably, three-news values found in the New Vision with identical proportion of

5%. These news values were "negativity," "unexpectedness" and "consonance." Yet in

the Daily Monitor, those news values had varying percentages of 6.2% for the

negativity higher than 5% in the New Vision. "Unexpectedness" had 3.8% and

"consonance" represented by 3.7%, all lesser than 5% of the New Vision.

Table (40) Showing the Foremost News Values in the New Vision and the Daily Monitor

The New Vision The Daily Monitor

Prominent News Values % Prominent News Values %

1 Human Interest 17 1 Human Interest 14.6
2 Un ambiguity 14 2 Un ambiguity 13.5
3 Meaningfulness 13 3 Frequency 13.2
4 Humor 12 4 Humor 11.8
5 Reference to Elite Persons 10 5 Reference to Elite Persons 9.6
6 Frequency 9 6 Meaningfulness 9.4
7 Negativity 5 7 Negativity 6.2
8 Unexpectedness 5 8 Statistics 4.8
9 Consonance 5 9 Unexpectedness 3.8
10 Controversy 3 10 Consonance 3.7

Statistically, the Chi-Square test showed that there was no significant statistical

difference between the New Vision a government owned newspaper and the Daily

Monitor a privately owned newspaper in the commonness of news values. The

researcher supports the above statistical indication because many news values that

found in both newspapers had a minimal difference between them for example;

"Controversy" appeared with 3.1% in the Daily Monitor and with 3% in the New
Vision. While other news values had equal percentages, for example continuity

represented by 1% in each of the two newspapers.

6.1.4 News Values in the News Categories

The study discovered the predominant news values in news about disaster and

accident as negativity which had 11%, then unexpectedness represented by 10% and

scandals resented by 8% only. More so, this type of news had four news values with

equal scores of 5%. These were statistics, frequency, unambiguity, and action.

Furthermore, statistics represented by 33% was the widespread news value found in

business news and this followed by meaningfulness that had 26%. Whereas two news

values appeared in the third position with equal percentages of 19%, these were

humor and human interest. Followed by consonance and unambiguity that had similar

prevalence of 16%.

Nevertheless, repeated news values found in news on human and civil rights were

controversy, which had 4%; unexpectedness and negativity each had 3%. More so, six

news values found in this type of news had equal representation of 2%. These news

values were; consonance, scandal, human interest, reference to elite persons,

frequency, unambiguity, and action. Moreover, news related to police, crime and

court had scandal as its common news value represented by 61%, followed by action

with 46%. Negativity represented by 38% in the third position, followed by

controversy with 30% and unexpectedness with 28% correspondingly. Remarkably,

the major news values found in news about war and international conflicts included

continuity in the first place which had 23%, followed by controversy with 18%,

negativity 10%, action had 4% , while meaningfulness and Unambiguity they

appeared in a fifth position with 6% in each value. Outstandingly, health news had
unexpectedness, which had 7% as its key news value followed by meaningfulness

with 6%. Unpredictably, five news values were in the third position of predominance

in health news all with equal percentages of 5%, these were; negativity, humor,

statistics, human interest and reference to elite persons. Additionally, continuity

represented by 27% was a persistent news value observed in political news. This

followed by consonance that had 17%, then reference to elite persons with 16%,

action 15% and controversy percent.

Results showed that science and technology had negligible reportage in the sampled

newspapers. This however affected even on the number of news values glimpsed in

this news category. Indubitably, news values ranked higher included statistics, which

had 3% and unexpectedness with 2%. Other news values scored 1% and 0%. Those

with 1% were meaningfulness, consonance, humor, human interest, reference to elite

persons, frequency, and unambiguity. While those with 0% were negativity,

controversy, scandal, continuity, and action.

Likewise, social news had continuity as its foremost news value that tallied to 9%.

This followed by unexpectedness, meaningfulness, humor, statistics, and human

interest, the five news values with equal scores of 6%. Further, major news values

observed in Sports news were meaningfulness and humor, which had similar

percentages of 33%. These followed by reference to elite person, which had 29%,

then frequency 26% and human interest 25%. Human-interest news had consonance

as its prime news value, represented by 16%. This followed by unexpectedness and

humor, which had an equal representation of 12% in each. Then human interest had

10%, while meaningfulness, negativity and controversy all appeared equivalently with

8%. Conclusively, most types of news, which had a positive implication, like health,

development, sports, human interest, had good news values. This was contrarily to

1
other types of news like reportage on police and crime, disaster and accidents, war

and international conflicts, human and civil rights; dominated with bad news values

like negativity, controversy, scandal, action among others.

6.2 Conclusion

The major aim of this study was to investigate the common news value in the

Ugandan newspapers; and the findings revealed the following news values; Human

interest, Unambiguity, Meaningfulness, Humor, Reference to Elite Persons,

Frequency, Negativity, Unexpectedness and Consonance, were the dominant news

values in the Ugandan newspapers. The results showed that there was similar

coverage of events in both newspapers. National news had good connotation unlike

regional and local news with negative focus. International news that focused on Africa

and the Arab world had a negative tone while news that focuses on Europe, North,

and South America had a positive undertone. No difference observed between the two

newspapers in their news values.

As much as news values are important, they do not entirely guarantee given news item

a place in the newspaper because several factors and pressures influence the process.

Such factors include the interests of the news organization and the type of its

ownership among others. This study proved the significance of the news values theory

in the third world countries. It began by an assumption that news values are an

important in guiding the selection of news for publication. Theory’s proposal have

emerged from studies about the news making process, and the emphasis given to the

importance of news values criteria in this process. Key among these theorists are Gans

(1979), Hall (1978), Cohen and Young (1979), Golding and Elliot (1979), Galtung
and Ruge (1965), Tuchman (1979). It occurred from the findings that many attributes

of news that qualify a story for publication were resonance, human interest, impact,

consequence, elite personality, controversy, proximity and so forth.

Lastly, despite its limitations, this study largely succeeded in accomplishing its major

goals, determining the most common news values prominently presented in the

Ugandan newspapers. Regarding the news values theory, this study shows that its

validity goes beyond the frontiers of its geographical origin in Europe and USA where

it was frequently used in media and communication research, as for news values it is a

cross cutting occurrence among media.

6.3 Recommendations

Recommendations for the newspapers: The New Vision and the Daily Monitor

newspapers may not have to necessarily amend their primary news values, although

the weighting given to some news values like elitism "reference to elite persons"

could be reduced. They can accordingly, adjust the pattern of representation of the

views to reflect the social diversity found on the ground. These newspapers seems to

be in a position to appraise their performance in terms of the issues that confront the

society such as poverty, health, problems of globalization and commercialization, and

political entrenchment of the powerful elite in society and their perceptual impact on

the less powerful. This may entail a shift in prioritizing issues in the news and the

angles they take. One way of doing this is by approaching these issues with greater

weighting on the news values of human interest which involves not only engaging the

political elite in the national debate but others across the board. Additionally, there is

a need for extensive reportage on local and regional issues to reflect grass root and

marginalized societies in the country.

Areas of further research: This study delimited the investigation on news values in

the Ugandan newspapers. It used the theory of news values and comprehended the

relevance of these factors in news selection. Therefore, there is a need to gain new

understanding of the newspaper's news actors and sources of the Ugandan

newspapers. Another study could focus on the audience of the newspaper to find out

under what circumstances the public reflects the frames in the news and how they

perceive the news they receive.

Finally, a comparative study sampling a number of media outlets like television,

radio, and newspapers may bring interesting insight into the general outlook of the

media practice and point to possible areas of transformation.

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 ‫ال راجع العربية‪-:‬‬

‫ل مع إسامي نح ق ء‬ ‫ا‬ ‫لح ي ( ‪ ) 2111‬ت ه‬ ‫ع ي ‪,‬ع‬ ‫‪ -‬أس ل‪ ,‬مح‬

‫" ل مع إسامي بغ ‪.‬‬ ‫"غي م‬ ‫صحي ف س ين لي مي ‪ :‬س ل ل ل ي‬

‫عي‬ ‫س مسحي ع‬ ‫ح ف لسع ي ‪:‬‬ ‫لح ي ي ل‬ ‫‪ -‬لق ني‪ ,‬ع ي ش يل (‪ ) 2111‬لس‬

‫ح ف ل لي – ل ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ك سي صحي‬ ‫من ل حف لسع ي ‪ ,‬ص‬

‫س تح ي ي مق ن‬ ‫‪ ,‬س مي أح (‪ ) 1666‬لقيم إخ ي في ل ح ف لع بي ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ -‬ل‬

‫ي ‪ ,‬س ل م جس ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫أ سط لسع ي ين أه‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ل حف ل ي‬

‫– ج مع ل ي‬ ‫" قسم إعا ك ي آ‬ ‫"غي م‬

‫لع بي‬ ‫س مق ن بين لق‬ ‫ئي ‪:‬‬ ‫‪ ,‬ص ب حسن (‪ ) 2115‬ل غ ي إخ ي ل‬ ‫‪-‬‬

‫– ج مع ل ك سع‬ ‫" قسم إعا ك ي آ‬ ‫أج ي ‪ ,‬س ل م جس ي "غي م‬

 APPENDICES

APPENDIX I : CODE SHEET

1. Date of Issue
……………………………………………….

2. Day
1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday
6. Saturday

3. Newspaper Name
1. The New Vision
2. The Daily Monitor

4. News placement
1. The front page
2. The last page
3. Insider Pages

5. Area (Column/ Inch)

………… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……… ……….

6. Visual presentation
1. No photo accompanying the story
2. Personal photo not related to the event covered in the story
3. Events Photo
4. Maps, charts and other drawings

7. News Treatment
1. General News “Hard news”

2. Feature “Soft news”

3. Others
8. News focus
1. Good News (Positive)
2. Bad News (Negative)
3. Neutral
9. Origin/Source of Story
1. Own reporter/ Staff
2. Agence France-Presse (AFP)
3. Associated Press (AP)
4. United Press International (UPI)
5. Reuters
6. Others Sources
7. Unspecified

10. Geographic Focus

1. Domestic.
2. International.

11. Domestic News Focus (Uganda)

1. Local
2. Regional
3. National
4. Inapplicable
12. International News Focus (Region)
1. Africa
2. Arab World (excluding North Africa)
3. Europe
4. Asia & Australia
5. North & South America
13. Selected countries in International news
1. United Kingdom
2. United States of America
3. France
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Russia
6. China
7. South Africa
8. Others

1
14. News Context
1. Contextualized (Thematic frame)
2. Decontextualized (Episodic frame)

15. Topic/ Theme of the News Item

1. Disaster/accidents.
2. Business.
3. Human rights/civil rights
4. Police/crime/courts/legal
5. War/international conflict
6. Health and Health
7. Politics
8. Science and technology
9. Social news
10. Culture/ Religion and Sports
11. Human Interest

16 - News values Present (1. Yes & 2. No)

1- Novelty and Unexpectedness

2 - Relevance and Meaningfulness to the Audience

3 – Negativity and Impact

4– Controversy and Conflict

5 - Consonance

6 – Humor and Entertainment

7 – Statistics and Facts

8 - Scandals and Crime

9 – Human Interest / Personalization

10 – Reference to elite Persons / Prominence

11 – Continuity and Follow-up
12 - Frequency and Timeliness
13 – Unambiguity / Clarity

14 – Action
Serial No.
Date of Issue
Day
Newspaper
Name
News
Placement
Area (Column X
Inch)
Visual
Presentation
News
Treatment
News Focus
Source of the
APPENDIX II

Story
CODING SHEET

Geographic Focus
Domestic news
Focus
International news
Focus
Countries in
International
news
News Context
Topic
Covered
Unexpected ness

Meaningful ness

Negativity
Controversy
Consonance

Humor

Statistics
Scandals

Human Interest

Reference to
Elite Persons
APPENDIX II CONTI……

NEWS VALUES PRESENT

Continuity

Frequency

Unambiguity

Action
 APPENDIX III : VARIABLES CODED

1. Variable A: Date

The date of the particular issue in which the story appears was recorded. The date was

written starting with the month, followed by the day and then the year. For example,

June 5, 2011 would be 060511.

2. Variable B: Day

Each day of the week in which particular news appeared was coded respectively as:

1. Monday

2. Tuesday

3. Wednesday

4. Thursday

5. Friday

6. Saturday

3. Variable C: Newspaper Name

The newspapers for this study are - The New Vision and the Daily Monitor.

Therefore, they were encoded as

1. The New Vision

2. The Daily Monitor

4. Variable D: News placement

This will refer to the place where the news appears in the newspaper.

1. The front page

2. The last page

3. Insider Pages
5. Variable E. Area

The total area of the story was measured in "Inch by column" and thus by use of the

ruler. Measuring included the headline and by-line, text, photographs, graphics and

any other material relating to the news item. A story that ran on several pages, or the

author’s picture, was included in measurement of each story.

6. Variable F: Visual presentation

This referred to whether a particular story had an accompanying photo and drawing

for elaboration or not. In this case the protocol followed was:

1. No photo accompanying the story

2. Personal photo not related to the event covered in the story

3. Journalistic photo ( photo related to the event)

4. Maps, charts and other drawings

7. Variable G: News Treatment

News was categorized as either general news or feature news.

1. General News “Hard news” this included any story that emphasized facts

of recent events.

2. Feature “Soft news” this included longer, tone that is more reflective; often

humorous, or entertaining and human-interest stories.

8. Variable H. News focus

1. Good News (Positive): this category included stories that reported harmony

within the country and between nations and nationals, cooperation,

development, economic growth, and easing of tensions.

 2. Bad News (Negative): Were stories that depicted conflict,

misunderstanding, crisis, border disputes, human or natural disasters, poverty,

disease, dumping of toxic waste, smuggling, frauds, and scandals.

3. Neutral: these were stories, which did not fall into any of the two

Categories.

9. Variable I. Origin/Source of Story

Here the encoders considered the source credited by the newspaper as the origin of

particular news analyzed. These sources were:

1. Own reporter/ Staff; - This was for stories with or without a byline that

were identified as coming from the newspaper and correspondents

of the newspaper.

2. Agence France-Presse (AFP)

3. Associated Press (AP)

4. United Press International (UPI)

5. Reuters

6. Other sources; It referred to other news sources not mentioned above.

7. Unspecified; - This was encoded when the source of the story is not stated.

10. Variable J. Geographic Focus

1. Domestic: This referred to all stories of events that happened in Uganda

focusing on domestic affairs in the country be local, regional and national.

2. International: This applied to all news, which happened outside Uganda

but published in the selected newspaper. This included news events

emanating from Uganda but focuses at international affairs.

11. Variable K. Domestic News Focus (Uganda)

In this variable, encoders identified the focus for a particular domestic news. The

coding was:

1. Local – This was for news that focused on a particular locality, like a

village, a parish, a town council, division, municipality or at a district level.

2. Regional – These were news that focused on a particular region in Uganda,

like Central, Eastern, Southern, Northern or Western.

3. National – Was for news concerning the nation. Like high inflation in

the country, eruptions of diseases like Ebola, presidential elections, etc.

4. Others – this comprised of news that did not follow under the above

mentioned categories.

12. Variable L. International News Focus (Region)

Encoders determined the region or continent on which a particular international news

item focused, thus by establishing where the main action of the news item is located.

In situation where the main action appeared to be located equally in two regions, they

examined the headline. If ambiguity existed, they coded the first region mentioned in

the news item as the focus. Therefore, International news focus by regions encoded

as:

1. Africa

2. Arab World (Excluding North Africa)

3. Europe

4. Asia & Australia

5. North & South America

13. Variable M. Selected countries in International news

More so, some countries selected hence encoded in international news due to their

diplomatic ties with Uganda. To determine a chosen country in international news on

which a particular news item focused, encoders established where the main action of

the news item occurred. The encoded countries were:

1. United Kingdom

2. United States of America

3. France

4. Saudi Arabia

5. Russia

6. China

7. South Africa

8. Others, this was for international news that did not focus on any of the

above-mentioned countries.

14. Variable N. Contextualized or decontextualized news (Thematic vs Episodic frame)

Coders identified if the news item was contextualized and thematic or if it is

decontextualized and episodic. The contextualized and thematic coded as (1), for the

news item that highlighted causes or consequences related to the public good

(concerning public issues in general). The thematic framing position the news story in

a broader context that deals with its meaning or implications for society, a trend that

goes beyond a single event/incident. The story places public issues in a broad or

abstract context. Alternatively, the news item considered as decontextualized and

episodic with a narrow framing in terms of topic or individual reference, not related to

the public good/issues. Episodic framing referred to a particular event or incident.

Typical examples are, personified and/or single out stories, or stories that does not go
much beyond that specific event (rather it takes the form of a case study). Episodic

news were recorded as (2)

15. Variable O. Topic/ Theme of the News Item

1. Disaster/accidents: This category consisted of news items about the occurrence of

natural phenomena (like flash floods) and those caused by man (like road accidents)

leading to, usually, violent physical destruction or damage to property, the

environment, bodily injury and loss of life.

2. Business: This category contained news items whose subject matter was related to

issues such as general economy developments and trends; Trade/commerce;

Prices/interest rates; Monetary/fiscal policy; Stock market; Individual company

performance or sector performance; Public sector finance (taxes, budgets); Collective

bargaining; Agriculture/farming/rural issues/fishing and other business issues.

3. Human rights/civil rights: Under this category the following were measured: News

items about violation, promotion or safeguarding of human rights as detailed in the

UN Charter on Human Rights some of which are freedom of expression, the right to

life and freedom of association; news items about children’s rights; news items about

women’s rights; and

other human rights issues.

4. Police/crime/courts/legal: News items in this category were those in which the

police were going about their work including the following: news items about police

arrests, investigations, clashes with the public (as long as they were not political) or

criminals, theft and robbery. News items about crime such as drug trafficking, fraud

and murder among many other activities classified as crime in various countries;

News items about court cases (those being argued before courts, pending judgment or
about to go to court); and news items about legal issues or action capture of illegal

immigrants and legal quarrels between countries.

5. War/international conflict: This category had the following: news items that were

about civil war or international conflict in a country or war involving two or more

countries; news items that were not necessarily about fighting but international

disagreements, about borders for example; news items about conferences and

meetings to discuss peace initiatives; and news items about terrorism

6. Health & Environment: In this category placed were news items about patients in

hospitals, various diseases, disease outbreaks, government health plans, and issues of

nutrition. More so, issues related to environment like wetland encroachment,

pollution, landslides among others, were encoded in this category.

7. Politics: The following items were placed into this category: News items about

campaigning for political office, electoral disputes, or protests, voting, elections

monitoring, and swearing in of presidents/prime ministers, political parties,

parliamentary debates/disputes/sessions; and News items about changes to electoral

laws.

8. Science and technology: This category consisted of news items whose subject

matter covered scientific experimentation, Science & Research, Innovations & New

Gadgets, Technology, Organic/Ecology, Natural disasters, and response to them,

Weather, Animals, and Other Issues.

9. Social news: News items in this category was restricted to news about human

population, leisure, travel, welfare, clothing, culture, fashion, art, morality, education,

housing, weddings, recreation, and family issues, Sensations & Curiosities, items on

1
cultural traditions, popular culture; Religion and Stories about Faith & Philosophy. It

will also include and other Entertainment.

10. Sports: This category included all news stories on National (and local) sports

events, Internationals sports events, Sports Stars/Celebrities and other sports related

issues.

11. Human Interest: Stories encoded in this category included news about events,

organization or faceless historical happening, such as about the life of an individual

soldier during war-time, an interview with a survivor of a natural disaster, or profile

of someone known for a career achievement, among others.

16. Variable P: News values

The operational definition of a news value is an attribute that makes a news item

newsworthy. Nevertheless, this variable will measured the newsworthiness of news.

This was by determining the number of news values present in a single news item.

In measuring the prevalence of news values in a single news item, Yes, was encoded

as (1) and " No'' if not found encoded as (2). The news values considered in this study

were:

1- Unexpectedness and Novelty: This news criterion describes the tendency of

focusing on events and people that are out of the ordinary. Events may be unexpected

because they happen suddenly; they violate predictions or conventional wisdom or

because they are rare and unusual occurrences. Role reversals, amusing adventure,

new inventions, events, and other breaks with traditions often considered newsworthy

for their novelty, hence encoded in this category.

2 - Relevance and Meaningfulness to the Audience: This included events or ideas,

whose positive consequences explicitly presented in a news item. The intensity of

relevancy depended on the perspective or the object: It was not the same if a single

person or a state had a great benefit. Different grades of relevancy depended on

centrality of values and the length of consequences. Indicators of meaningfulness are -

advancement, positive development, better, more, privilege, agreement, and

analogue/similar terms. Material or ideal improvements (e.g. protection of flora and

fauna, sportive success, election victory, positive business results) for a limited

number of people directly involved.

3 – Negativity and Impact :This value considered the negative outcome of an event or

idea "Bad news." This included news items where the negative consequences of

events and ideas were explicitly presented in the news items. The events could refer to

either material, ideal or existential issues. They also included social unrest and

disasters, destruction of nature, inequality, sportive failures, election defeat, personal

failures, short-term existential damage e.g. Light sicknesses, and imprisonment. Life,

long-term diseases, absence of freedom (existential damage), long-term ideal or

political damage, and other threats to peace.

4 - Controversy and Conflict: Controversy meant the explicit presentation of different

opinions, which are carried out verbally or literally, but not only as an action (e.g.

violently). News items encoded here when there was a situation involving more than

one party in direct or indirect opposition over an issue. For example, government

conflicts and disagreement, protesters, rioters and strikers, political conflicts and

protests abroad, political balance, among others. It included big arguments between

parties, high level of intensity in the conflict or reproaches that deny domestic purity

of individuals or rightfulness of performance.

5 – Consonance: This value referred to stories that attract interest from reporters and

audiences because of their cultural resonance and hence confirm our views of the

world. News items encoded here when the events covered in the news accorded with

the pre-existing prejudices and expectations of journalists and audiences. For

example, Cultural Resonance, National Ceremonies; Disasters Abroad; Elections and

Peaceful changes in Government; Predictability; Consensus; Naturalization; Racism;

Patriarchy; Metropolitanism, all these are among the cultural forces that are served by

the media's tendency to report the consonant.

6 – Humor and Entertainment: In this news criterion, encoders looked for stories that

"transmits feelings, not just ideas especially those with good emotional hooks that

interest an audience. Supporting features in this criterion were - unexpectedness,

sexuality, humor, memorable emotions, drama, and entertainment.

7 – Statistics and Facts: News stories here encoded if they were found with facts and

statistics that gives journalists and readers confidence in the accuracy of a story.

Among these facts and statistics were - election results, survey numbers, figures from

studies, statistical aggregates and so on.

8 - Scandals and Crime: In this criterion had - Scandals, Sensationalism, Victims,

Alleged, and Actual Violators of Laws, Crime and violation of social customs. They

included scandals and crimes featuring both known and unknown individuals plus the

prominent individuals generally discussed in relation to white-collar crimes and

transgression and the unknowns associated by the media with base and violent crime.

9 – Personalization and Human interest: This news value concerned with the reference

to individuals rather groups and institutions. It also referred to the question whether
the people in the news item were mentioned as individuals or if they represent a

certain institution. The focus was on the individuals as such, their viewpoints, actions,

or characters. Indicators are Human Interest; People Stories; Role Reversal; Hero

Stories, Personalization and News about People. Encoders focused at situations where

newspaper avoided stories about ideas and focused on actors. For example, reporters

focusing on the scientist as an actor rather than the science as an idea.

10 – Reference to elite Persons/Prominence: This value measured the degree of

prominence of a person independent from his or her influence, thus famous people

and their activities were one of the major subjects of the news. Hence, this value

focused at the level of publicity of a person mentioned by name independent from his

or her political or economic power. It didn‘t matter whether they were acting, they

were interviewed or they were mentioned. It also included Nationwide and

internationally known individuals (e.g. politicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, national

heads of religious institutions, celebrities, Elitism; Famous faces, Powerful and

famous individuals involved in events.

11 – Continuity and Follow-up: In this criterion, focus was put on news whose past

coverage inspired continued coverage. These included elite politicians and their

activities, state or local politicians among others.

12- Frequency and Timelines: In this news value, encoders focused at the time-span

of an event and the extent to which it fitted the frequency of the newspaper's schedule.

For example, murders and accidents would qualify as they are all of short duration

and therefore fit into the schedule unlike economic, social, or political trends that take

a long time to unfold.

13 – Unambiguity / Clarity: In this criterion, encoders considered news item whose

meaning was clear and immediately grasped on spot. It included news on theft, road
accident and others, which were clear and not subjected to multiple framings and

interpretations.

14 – Action: This value suggests that the news media tend to prefer action to

discussion and abstract concepts. Therefore, this value included expressions with a

decisional character, concrete actions, and changes in law plus court proceedings

among others.
APPENDIX IV: SAMPLE OF ANALYZED NEWSPAPAERS: THE NEW VISION

SAMPLE OF THE DAILY MONITOR