Abstract:

In the media we constantly select information and topics. We know quite much about the criteria for this selection, we recognize why do some topics seem interesting and others do not. Moreover, we can study both the journalists choosing process and the influence of this selection on social reception of news. Nevertheless, we still ask ourselves whether the scope of interest of broadcasters and the audience is the same? Is the image of the world depicted in the media real or distorted? How much is it fragmentary? There are many, more or less persuasive theories on this subject. One of the first was news values theory. The term "news value" was first used by American journalist Walter Lippmann (1922). The Scandinavian researchers Johan Galtung and Holmboe Ruge contributed immensely to the development of the theory, by formulating a list of 12 selection criteria - media information selection factors. While the gatekeeping in media focuses on the characteristics of the journalists making the selection, the news values theory explains the selection by taking into account the characteristics of the events themselves. In the paper we want to apply the same set of selection criteria to the realm of online learning, believing that the situation between learning content producers and online learners is cognitively similar to that between news reporters and audience.

Further development of new sets of news values and intense discussion around them in last decade inspired us to formulate similar multidimensional index of quality for online learning. We focus on the learning content, methods of teaching, both directions communication as well as peer communication and networking as all contexts that play role in providing the best fit of learning process to each user.

Keywords:

News values, gatekeeping, online learning.