![]() There is a cognitive element to how we process the news, and framing addresses how the cognitive process is engaged. From the food trucks of New York City that displayed above fold amongst coffees and hot dogs to the kiosks of Europe and South America enclosed by newspapers attached to wire with clothespins, people would gather around, peruse the day’s headlines and engage in casual social conversation with one another. When newspapers were not affordable or accessible to all, headlines would form the basis for conversation as people gathered and read them in cafés. In the early days of newspapers, newsboys yelped them out to attract passersby. Headlines are part of the magical allure of news reading. Citizens, journalists, and politicians can. But it also does not discern between truth and fiction. Technology is not neutral it augments exposure. This means that headlines about civil rights issues gain greater attention (#blacklivesmatter) at the same time that fake stories are elevated to prominence (#pizzagate). We might understand this process as a form of networked framing and gatekeeping, where a variety of actors work together or on their own, to crowdsource news content to prominence, via the use of conversational, social, and digitally enabled practices that symbiotically connect elite and crowd in framing what is relevant. ![]() Actors, engaging in independent or coordinated acts of journalism, have a say in what story is told, and how it is introduced to the public arena. While this pluralizes the news ecology, it does not necessarily democratize the process. Importantly, newer platforms afford anyone the opportunity to craft a headline, and subsequently a news story. Headlines are algorithmically generated and propagated by bots, leading to news, actual or fake. Hashtags become headlines, and tweets are reported as both the headline and the story. These phenomena are not new the words we use to describe them with have changed. ![]() In some ways, headlines have always been used as clickbait and the news ecology has always been driven by the economics of attention. But it also does not discern between truth and fiction.Īs a result, headlines become clickbait for a broad variety of news organizations, used to attract eyeballs. And so, we live in a news ecology of the ever-changing, always-updateable news beat headlines are always already new, to borrow a phrase from media historian Lisa Gitelman. Because they can be revised, they are constantly revised, lest the attention of readers drifts off. Headlines can now be revised without waiting for the next day’s edition, so they are. And in following suit with the ascent of the 24/7 news cycle that TV ushered in, new media platforms reinforce and reproduce an obsession with instantaneity in news reporting. Therefore, a directional lens offered through a frame becomes more visible, by reaching greater audiences more quickly. But they do amplify visibility and pluralize access. Newer technologies do not radically reorganize how headlines are framed, and which news values guide the framing process. This article is adapted from Zizi Papacharissi’s essay featured in the book “ Trump and the Media.” News values are about turning events into stories, and headlines present the first step in doing so. They frame the issue at hand, by selecting, as media scholar Robert Entman famously wrote, “some aspects of a perceived reality make them more salient in a communicating text.” Framing is guided by news values that prioritize recency, urgency, and proximity the economy and political affairs and privileged nations and dominant ideologies while also appealing to viewers by being commonsensical, entertaining, and dramatic. They offer a lens through which to understand it. Because headlines not only lure, they also direct the attention of the reader. It is meant to capture the attention of the reader without, ideally, compromising the essence of the story. The verbal economy of headlines is tight and it must work quickly and efficiently. The words bring the crucial elements of the story to the forefront, and the grammar and syntax drum up intensity, if needed. The language is meant to be short, summative, and sharp. The presentation of headlines may have changed over time, but the form remains the same. In the long term, they play a part in how stories are retold and recorded, thus eventually turning into memories and histories. They are a crucial part of how news turns into a story. They award significance, communicate gravitas, and reinforce status. Headlines introduce, frame, and contextualize. You are reading a news report of some form, but you are not reading a news story. Imagine, if you will, a news story without a headline.
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