News Values, Media Coverage, and Audience Attention: An Analysis of Direct and Mediated Causal Relationships

This study examined causal relationships among news values, media coverage, and audience attention. News values—deviance and social significance—for 104 news events were measured. Then, media coverage of and audience attention to the events were obtained from Pew Research Center's two data sources. A structural equation model showed a significant effect of news values on the amount of media coverage and also a significant effect of media coverage on audience attention. Further, news values indirectly influenced audience attention, mediated by the media coverage.