ABSTRACT
While the other chapters in this volume have treated each of the six key concepts in depth, it is important to consider the relationships between them and the extent to which they are interconnected. Indeed, some scholars have made connections, at least theoretically, between a number of different developments (e.g., Patterson 1993). Several advantages flow from such a cross-conceptual approach. Specific concepts can be related to each other, which gives readers some idea of how they may interact. For example, the degree of personalization and negativity in the news may be related but may also operate independently. Understanding these cross-concept relationships further can improve our insights into journalists’ processes of news construction. It is highly likely that decisions about the selection and construction of news are based on a combination of content features rather than on individual features of events or topics. This line of reasoning was already a key idea in the early studies on news factors, which hypothesized that different content features would add up to the specific news value of an event (e.g., Galtung and Ruge 1965).
