News of 'Deviancies' : A Social Process of News Media Functioning

Abstract

Modern mass media contain news of various kinds and levels of "deviancies". In this article, the author proposes a research framework for news analysis, which focuses on the social function of the news ; by making "deviancies" open to the public the news defines and controls the boundaries and substance of "commonsense knowledge" in society. This framework is based on two concerns ; (1) when one assumes that news of deviancies constitutes an essential part of daily news output, what social conditions support such news production and "news values"?, and (2) what is the significance for society behind this? To examine these, the author introduces a social process model of news of deviancies, which puts into sequence news content, its production, and its social functions. These phases of the news process have been independently explored in some earlier studies on "mass media and deviance". Content analyses reveal that some "deviant behaviors" are stereotypically portrayed in particular ways. Studies on news production processes prove an institutionalised cennection between news media and their regular news sources, which frequently leads the former to depend on the latter in defining what's deviant and this has news value. These two approaches would be effective in explicating how the media work on news of deviancies while a third approach, that of S.Hall, J.Young, or some "Consensual Paradigm" theorists, tries to explain the social significance and functions of such news ; news media and their authorised soureces, by referring to each other, legitimize their definitions of "deviancies" and establish a pseudo-consensus on common social values. This approach, partly based on Lavelling Theory, suggests that this process of signifying deviance is one where a monolithic, however tacitly divergent, "commonsensual world" comes to appear in public. But in fact, news media, actual or potential soureces, and the public could all have their own "commonsenses". Through evaluating these three approaches from the standpoint of setting up a news process model, the author concludes that the key task for such news analysis is to investigate how and where the news media have these "commonsenses" converge into one.