The Logic of Media

The Logic of Media

As distinct from politics, the mass-media focuses public attention on a limited range of topics or themes. The media have an extremely limited capacity to transmit a full and complete picture of the nearly limitless wealth of events that comprise political reality, so they always have to pick and choose what they will feature and how they will present it.

The media apply two different filter systems in translating real events into media products. Filter 1 regulates the selection of events by applying news value-criteria: the more of these reportage factors that apply to an event, the higher will be its expected newsworthiness, and the more likely that the media will pay attention to it. Obviously then, the most reliable formula for attracting media attention is to find an event with roughly the following profile: there should be a strictly limited number of well-known individuals involved who come from the audience's immediate circle, whether in a cu...