News must be simultaneously novel and recognizable as something already known.
Evidence
To qualify, the phenomenon at hand would have to be new—it was called the “news” after all—and it would have to arrive with intensity and surprise the audience. The media would inevitably choose from a huge assortment of existing facts and illuminate just one of many truths. Furthermore, any story had to be readily comprehensible to the general public. It had to fit into preexisting categories and correspond to the range of things that people already knew about and considered possible. In other words, it must be comparable to something that has already happened. It must be “old,” at the same time. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 76
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to media theory discussions of news values and framing (Gitlin’s own work and beyond). — connects to: News must be simultaneously new and comparable to prior events — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 76; Sameness across history is knowable only through what is new. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 256
- QUESTION: How does this novelty-plus-recognizability criterion interact with the rise of algorithmic content recommendation?
Broader Connections
- News must be simultaneously new and comparable to prior events
#expands(0.95) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 76 - Sameness across history is knowable only through what is new.
#corroborates(0.78) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 256