The term news - its concept and definition in Anglo-Saxon tradition. A review and classification attempt

Marek Palczewski

English version of the article

The article discusses various news definitions, its concepts and progress from mid XIX century until the present. The author analyses the genesis and the development of news theory as well as processes tied to globalization and tabloidisation of media. From the beginning news meant information treated as a good. The first definitions of news were created in mid XIX century, at that time the news paradigm was shaped according to the rules of journalist objectivity with a focus on information value of the events presented. Presently, due to globalization, tabloidisation and internetisation influences, we are dealing with a new news paradigm which increasingly takes on the form of light information combined with entertainment, sex and the so-called human stories. The author describes this process of transformation and attempts to carry out a typology of news definition, distinguishing four definition categories: object, subject, functional and constructive.

KEYWORDS

news, news definitions, news paradigm, tabloidisation, globalisation, infotainment, newshack