News Analysis

News Analysis and News Immediacy – what is the difference?

People need to understand the difference between ‘news immediacy’ and ‘news analysis’. The former is up-to-the-minute. It is scattershot. News immediacy gives us many bits of information and images unrelated to each other, except that they have been captured for media-casting at the same time. When you are up-to-date with news immediacy, it becomes impossible to make sense of the buzzing profusion of content. Dangerously, in order to cope with the continuing onslaught of news immediacy, what people tend to do is self-censor their news feed so that it reflects their own underlying prejudgements. The alternative is news analysis. The limitation is that individual persons cannot undertake universal news analysis, they need to specialize. I encourage my students specialize in crime and police news analysis. News analysis requires us to think about the historical genesis of issues as presented in the mediascape. For example, students studying crime issues – like ‘serial killers’, or ‘gun crime’, or ‘sexual assault’, or ‘police mis-use-of-force’ – first realize that these topics have come into being as recognized topics in news media. News analysis asks questions like: when did this topic arise?; how is this topic framed?; who is framing the topic?; what are alternative views of the topic?; and ultimately why is this a topic? News analysis requires critical thinking and aims to escape prejudgment. Answers to questions are not obvious. Specializing in news analysis, what ever kinds of topics you choose (they don’t have to be criminological) and training your mind to do news analysis is part of the process of taking command of ones’ self in a world dominated by Media corporations.