What Is News?

  Kirsten Eddy at al. wrote a Pew study of the meaning of news:

Key findings:

• Defining news has become a personal, and personalized, experience. People decide what news means to them and which sources they turn to based on a variety of factors, including their own identities and interests.
• Most people agree that information must be factual, up to date and important to society to be considered news. Personal importance or relevance also came up often, both in participants’ own words and in their actual behaviors.
• “Hard news” stories about politics and war continue to be what people most clearly think of as news. U.S. adults are most likely to say election updates (66%) and information about the war in Gaza (62%) are “definitely news.”
• There are also consistent views on what news is not. People make clear distinctions between news versus entertainment and news versus opinion.
• At the same time, views of news as not being “biased” or “opinionated” can conflict with people’s actual behaviors and preferences. For instance, 55% of Americans believe it’s at least somewhat important that their news sources share their political views.
• People don’t always like news, but they say they need it: While many express negative emotions surrounding news (such as anger or sadness), they also say it helps them feel informed or feel that they “need” to keep up with it.
• People’s emotions about news are at times tied to broader feelings of media distrust, or specific events going on at that time – perhaps in combination with individuals’ political identities. For instance, partisans often react positively to news about their own political parties or candidates and negatively to news covering their opposition, which means feelings can shift with political changes.

The answers to the question “What is news?” are not always straightforward. As this study confirms, the definitions people hold for news may not be consistent with their actual behaviors. There are sometimes clashes between what people believe others think of as news and what “feels” like news to them. And people often categorize information as “news” along a continuum rather than as a simple yes-or-no question. Those perceptions vary depending on the platform, source and individual.