Ecquid Novi – the search for a definition

Abstract

News people, researchers and the public alike have addressed the issue of news over centuries. Still, this fleeting, elusive, but essential feature of journalism defies practical definition, let alone scientific specification. The research problem stated in this article is that little progress has been made to find an overarching conceptualisation of the term news: What does news consist of, how can one define it, and will there be universal acknowledgement if such a definition should exist? A literature and historical study was undertaken in which the origins and concepts of news were analysed, while the underlying paradigmatic assumption was that of a functionalist approach to media and society. The purpose of this article is then to explore four of the crucial or key theoretical and research dimensions of news as it traditionally developed over a number of decades, and which have contributed, but also hindered, the quest for a definition of news, namely: objectivity; typologies of news values; news preferences and reading habits; new news concepts; as well as training and education. Examples to clarify points made are taken from international journalism. It is concluded that a heuristic model for the development of a news definition should extrapolate and build on these four dimensions of news.

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