The News

The News

Tabloid

● Informal
● Little Text
● Use of puns
● Alliteration
● Exaggeration
● Slang
● Short sentences
● Obvious advertisements
● Cover of 'soft news'
● Cheaper

Newspaper

● Formal
● Lots of text
● Metaphors
● Complex Sentences
● Puns are subtle
● Statistics
● Politicians comments
● Covers 'hard news'
● Expensive

Big news stories will be represented in a specific way, often to engage or please their audience. For example, The Sun and The Daily Telegraph presented Boris Johnson's support for the Brexit Leave Campaign as positive. Other newspapers did not as this would reflect their readerships views.

How a newspaper opts to represent a story/person/event will be determined by their values and political-leaning. Readers of newspapers typically the share the papers' values and political views.

22/11/23

Metro (extra)

The Metro has chosen to cover the news story in which 4 sixth formers who were on a camping weekend died in their car. As a result, this is hard news. The images they use in their newspaper showcase those who died in the accident, and a photo of the place where the event occurred. In the newspaper, the text is large and very readable, and covers the main story; the text takes up more space than the images do. The language that they have used in their newspaper is serious and professional, due to the event being of a tragic nature.

Daily Express (extra!)

The Daily Express covers the same stories as the Daily Mail, with a few secondary stories being added onto it. It covers hard news dominantly, with a small amount of soft news; the language they use is professional, straight to the point and formal however. The text, like many newspapers, takes up more space than the images do, especially the main headline.

Daily Mail

Just like the Metro, the Daily Mail covers the same news story involving the deaths of 4 sixth formers. Interestingly enough, the Daily Mail also chooses to display a story involving Kate (a member of the royal family). The text seeming takes up more space than images do, with the image of Kate being the largest out of them all. This is a mixture of soft and hard news; regardless, the language used is rather borderline professional. It is less formal than the metro is.

The Guardian

All news on the Guardian is typically hard news. As with all newspapers recently, it covers the story in which 4 missing sixth formers tragically passed away. It is very formal, informative and professional, with the text taking up more space than the images do. On the front cover, they also advertise subscriptions for their own newspaper, and a small section about the war in Israel. The images they use depict the 4 boys who died when their car overturned in Wales, and gives people a picture of who these people were.

Questions

1. The Daily Mail made a front cover that appeals to its target audience by making the headline big enough so that people understand what is being covered; the stories that they do cover are usually very popular and informative, which makes people want to read about it. It also offers soft news about less serious topics, which can give a sense of variety which can appeal to their target audience.

2. The Guardian made a front cover that appeals to its target audience by including a variety of serious stories that are quite popular. They are able to share news in an informative manner quite formally and professionally, which their consumers are looking for. They also use relevant images, and make their text only so big that other news and information can fit onto the front cover.

3. We know the Guardian is left leaning as they present members of the conservative party to be weak and negative. In this instance, Jeremy Hunt is said to "bow to Tory demands". The word "bow" can show weakness in that person and party.

4. We know that the Daily Mail is right leaning as they do not denounce right-wing parties in their newspaper, and choose only to cover soft and potentially sometimes hard news.

Audience

1. Newspapers are made available to everyone, but are dominantly read and bought by people who are of an older age, typically 50+. People read newspapers to get information about a particular event of story which has recently occurred, or just to keep informed and see if anything else may interest them. Typically, people who read newspapers aren't able to access the news online via the internet, as they do not have an internet capable device.

2. Different newspapers do have different audiences as they tend to lean to different sides politically. Some people may prefer to read a newspaper that leans left politically, when others may tend to read those that lean right politically.

3. The typical audience for newspapers has gone up in age, as newspapers and news are now being made available online via decides such as mobile phones, which has caused younger people to read news online, and not in the form of a newspaper. Older people don't really have access to such devices, and still read regular newspapers.

4. Newspapers try and stay appealing by covering only the most popular stories which everyone is interested in, not some random story that nobody cares about. They have to use these popular stories and use certain words to hook the reader, making them read the newspaper.

Tabloids tend to have informal language, exaggeration, soft news, sans serif and is image heavy.

Broadsheets tend to have formal language, hard news, multiple stories, like to be seen as reliable, and is text heavy.

Newspapers have been on a long term decline, and are struggling to keep up with new technology. Ways they can generate profit it by donations and subscriptions.

The problem with tech

New technology has lead to a huge reduction in printed press. For example, the Guardian has lost 200,000 print readers, and The Independent is now online-only. The lack of print publishers has caused the control of the press to be held by few people.

Paywalls

Paywalls make you have to pay to access online content or premium content. The times, The financial times and The telegraph have all introduced them. Some papers such as The sun have scrapped their paywalls, as they weren't successful.

Donations

Donations are one-off, and you can decide the amount; there no such thing as too little or too much. This can be useful to newspapers such as The guardian, as their newspapers isn't run to make a profit.

Embracing technology

Less print means that less paper is being consumed, which is better for the environment. They can target content by analyzing online data. It is easy to access. The audience is becoming the prosumer, as they produce content.

Steve Neale

Steve Neale argues that genres are not fixed but are constantly evolving. Genres influence each other sometimes forming hybrid genres. Products which link to the genre (eg advertising in a paper or the marketing material it produces) share the genre conventions creating an intertextual relay.

Tabloidisation

In order to reduce printing costs, some papers have reduced their size from broadsheet to compact, or Berliner. Both the Times and the Guardian have followed this trend.

This can sometimes be confusing as they can be referred to as tabloid, but this is in reference to size. In content they are still broadsheets.

Sometimes, broadsheets will borrow tabloid conventions, and this represents the shifting nature of the newspaper audience.

This borrowing of conventions is often referred to as dual convergence.

Concept of the Other

The idea that media representations define a 'norm' which they encourage the audience to identify with and portray those outside this norm as 'other' lesser and alien is a key concept. 

You are one of us, we belong, they don't belong and they are less important.

It builds an us vs them ideology and emphasises difference. The you in this context is the normal British citizen, with the them being migrants, immigrants, refugees and people from other ethnic groups.

Paul Gilroy

Paul Gilroys post-colonial theory insists that the period of colonisation from 1500-1900 has changed media up to today. It has caused minorities to be seen as different, and not being high-up or powerful; our media present British people to be more powerful and strong.

'Migrant Chaos All Summer'

The colonisation theory applies to this headline as it depicts migrants to have caused 'chaos', giving the inference that they are less powerful and more troublesome than the average British person. 

The headlines present similar stories but they have been twisted in two ways, to depict Phil Foden as really kind and selfless, and a minority footballer as greedy and wasteful. The negative headline depicts the minority footballer this way, possibly because he is part of a minority, meaning that Paul Gilroys post-colonial theory is correct and applies here, as the minority is being shown to be less than, and more troublesome. The positive headline depicts Phil Foden as really kind, likely because he is British and is not part of a minority, which according to Phil Gilroys theory, makes him better than minorities.

Stereotypes

Stereotypes simplify stories and make them more dramatic - they create goodies and baddies and tell the reader who to side with.

Stereotypes enforce prejudice and create a sense of shared identity with the paper - an us and them mentality.

They often imply judgement - the language tells you what you think about the person and the story.

'Moody teens slaving over their phones likely to be less developed for adult life.'