MKTG3033 Chap.4 Media Pathways and News Values
Media Pathways and News Values
Week 4 asks how messages reach people. This chapter starts from Mahoney’s chapter 9 principle that communication pathways must reflect the ways target publics prefer to access information, then uses the PESO model of paid, earned, shared and owned media to read a real campaign flowchart.
It sets out the five news values journalists use to decide what earns coverage, works a pathway decision on a tax clinic’s small budget, and connects all of this to the critical news consumption task. Practice items cover PESO classification and news judgement.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Pathways as channels for objectives
- 02
Media fragmentation and the PESO model
- 03
Reading a media mix from a campaign flowchart
- 04
Control against credibility across media types
- 05
Five news values for earned coverage
- 06
Choosing pathways on a small budget
Worked example · free
Reading the media mix in a launch campaign flowchart
- +1Paid and owned each take 6 ÷ 18 = 33.3% of the planned items, two-thirds of the plan between them.
- +1Earned takes 4 ÷ 18 = 22.2% and shared takes 2 ÷ 18 = 11.1%.
- +1Interpretation: the plan prioritises reach and message control, which paid and owned media provide.
- +1Risk and fix: credibility rests on the smaller earned share, so the outreach letters and press activity should be timed tightly around launch.
Key terms
- Communication pathway
- A method or channel used to carry a message to a target public, chosen to serve a stated objective.
- Media fragmentation
- The spread of audiences across many outlets and platforms, so no single channel reaches everyone.
- Earned media
- Coverage that journalists or others decide to give an organisation, carrying third-party credibility but little control.
- Owned media
- Channels an organisation runs itself, such as its website, emails, newsletters and packaging.
- Timeliness
- The news value that makes recent or current events newsworthy because they have only just happened.
Media Pathways and News Values FAQ
What does PESO stand for in media planning?
Paid, earned, shared and owned media. Paid is space or time bought from a media owner, earned is coverage others choose to give, shared is content people circulate and discuss, and owned is channels the organisation runs. Each trades message control against credibility, so most campaigns combine several types.
Which news values make a story newsworthy?
The course worksheet lists five: timeliness, proximity, conflict and controversy, human interest and relevance. Test any media relations idea against them before writing a release. A story that clears only one is unlikely to be covered, so plan an owned or shared pathway for it instead.
How should I choose channels for a campaign with almost no budget?
Start with how the target public prefers to get information, then lean on owned and earned pathways and on content people want to share. Several client briefs in the course have budgets in the low thousands, and they explicitly ask for creativity, earned attention and relationships rather than paid media.
Why does earned media carry more credibility than paid media?
Because a journalist or other third party chose to run the story, audiences read it as independent judgement rather than self-promotion. The trade-off is control: the organisation cannot fix the angle, the timing or whether the story runs at all, which is why a mix of media types is usually safer.
What did the critical news consumption task ask students to do?
Students were asked to view an episode of the ABC program Media Watch, or another issues-based show, then track one current issue through two or more outlets. The point was to compare treatments: which details each outlet foregrounds, which it drops, whose voices appear or vanish, and whether the overall tone leans positive, negative or neutral.
What is media fragmentation?
The spread of audiences across many outlets, platforms and formats, so that no single channel reaches everyone. It is the reason campaigns combine several pathways and why planners must find out where each target public actually gets its information before choosing channels or spending a budget.
Exam move
Memorise Mahoney’s pathway principle and the five news values word for word, since both are short and quotable. Then practise classifying channels into PESO types and stating one strength and one weakness for each. For every pathway you recommend in practice answers, write the public and the objective in the same sentence.
Finish by comparing one story across two outlets each week, noting emphasis, omission and missing voices. For revision, take one recent campaign you have seen and list its pathways under the four PESO headings, then name the public each pathway reaches and the objective it seems to serve. Rank your pathways by credibility and by control so you can defend the mix under questioning.
Working through Media Pathways and News Values in MKTG3033? Sia is AskSia’s AI Marketing tutor — ask any MKTG3033 Media Pathways and News Values question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how MKTG3033 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.