The Nature of News Rules

Author: Michael Ryfe David  

Publisher: Routledge Ltd

ISSN: 1091-7675

Source: Political Communication, Vol.23, Iss.2, 2006-07, pp. : 203-214

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Abstract

Drawing on new institutionalist theory, this article presents a theory of news rules to explain the curious fact that so much of the news looks similar across news organizations, yet reporters maintain a great deal of autonomy in choosing which stories to report and how to report them. The theory hinges on a distinction between constitutive and regulative rules. Where constitutive rules tell us what the news is, regulative rules tell us how the news ought to be produced. The author argues that a better understanding of how these types of rules implicate one another in the production of news explains why the news can be both homogeneous and variable at the same time.