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This paper argues that news is the end product in a series of transformations that occur across five stages. At each stage distinct but related information events are constructed to suit the needs of communicators and their intended audiences. During this process information events are strategically predetermined in order to define, frame, limit and shape information. This approach is applied to a case study on the reporting of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (variant CJD) in the United Kingdom. This paper suggests that an effective way to understand news and how stories come to be reported can be obtained through a combined approach that marries a weak constructionist epistemology to a realist ontological perspective. This paper contends that while reality as a concept should always be open to question and contestation, it is vital that as scholars, journalists and news consumers we do not abandon the concept of reality altogether.
Samantha Lay (Fri,) studied this question.