News values

Immediacy: has it happened recently?
With social networking sites you can now find out the news instantly, this may be as you are following news accounts such as BBC or the people you are following are tweeting about these immediate events and you can then look further into this. So Twitter for e.g. lets you find out news straight away as a tweet gets sent in seconds.

Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
It may not be close to us if you are thinking literally but if you are on Twitter it may feel close to us as people are tweeting from all over the world and it could be made to feel that it is close to us. For e.g. the Oscar Pistorious trial was in South Africa but was made to feel close to us due to the impacts it had and the coverage it got all over the world.

Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
If it is a big event it will most likely be seen and tweeted by people on twitter this would then give the rest of us people on Twitter a better idea of this large event. Even now on snapchat with snapchat live it allows people to see the big events happening in the world such a big worldwide concerts for e.g.

Frequency: did the event happen fairly quickly?
If it happened fairly quickly it may be a negative for newspapers as they can only make posts daily and not hourly or by the minute if you were based online for e.g. so if this event was to happen quickly the newspapers may be late in giving out their version of the news so they might have to change the way they are presenting it and giving a different angle so that they gain sales.

Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
This may be Twitter's main weakness as many different people will have different sources with some sources being fake, untrue or bias. So us as tweeters may believe one story that isn't true when the real story is the exact opposite. You may then have to look at the amount of followers your sources has or whether they are verified as they may then be trusted.

Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
If you are on Twitter you may expect it to happen or even on Instagram for e.g. celebrities are seen as very popular people in today's day and age and for e.g. if a celebrity couple were to break up we may be able to predict this as if the couple were maybe having an argument on twitter or abusive images to each other on instagram, so as a result of online social networking we may be able to predict things to happen. 

Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
Similar to predictability there may have been some coverage on social networking of this event taking place. But if it is an unexpected event then I don't think social networking could have done anything to get this media story out before anyone else such as a famous person dying the social networking sites were not going to know this person was going to die and therefore this news value of surprise would least affect Galtung and Rufge's theory.

Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
If it is continuous and seen as a big case then Twitter would continue to give different stories on this event. It is also beneficial to newspapers if it is continuous as it allows for the stories to be published daily as it the story is being continued and so newspapers would not fall behind.

Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
If it is the big countries in the world such as America it would get more coverage on social networking than countries such as Kenya. If it is America it would affect most people in the world including us in the UK, if it was Kenya it wouldn't affect as many people. It may get tweeted the story in Kenya however the story in America would probably be trending across Twitter and may be the main source of discussion. Likewise with newspapers it may be on the front pages of newspapers with America however with Kenya it may be a little section on it.

Negativity: is it bad news?
If it is bad news it will still be shown on Twitter and other social media sites, this coverage may also be bias as they may be even more against the bad news and portray the person for e.g. who is suffering from bad news in an even more negative way and may be seen as a folk devil.