News revision.

News revision:

The Guardian: left wing, labour
The Daily Mail: right wing, conservative

Question 1 and 2. 
You will be given two sources to analyse in the exam. The sources may be extracts from print newspapers, from newspaper websites, or from newspaper social media feeds such as Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.


One will be an extract from a quality newspaper


One will be an extract from a popular newspaper



The two sources cannot be both of the two set products; The Daily Mail and The Guardian. At least one source will be a newspaper you have not studied in depth

Question 1 will probably ask for analysis with the focus most likely on analysis of media language or representations. It may require you to use a specific concept or theory in your analysis.

Question 2, as well as testing your knowledge and understanding of print and / or online newspapers as media forms and analysis skills (probably of media language or representations), will also ask you to make judgements and draw conclusions.

Media language: 

• Colour
• Newspaper layout: masthead, skyline, byline, standfirst, sidebar, columns, headlines, image, space
• Online layout: margins, headers, footers, navigation bars, tabs, sidebar
• Online functionality: hyperlinks, embedded multimedia, interactivity
• Images
• Language: formal / informal, mode of address
• Typography: serif, sans-serif
• House style: of the news brand / social media site

Media language theories: 

• Barthes: signifier and signified; denotation and connotation; anchorage; myth (ideological meaning)
• Todorov: narrative equilibrium / disequilibrium and narrative disruption (beginning, middle, end < equilibrium aka balance, then something happens e.g bad guy > disequilibrium aka no more balance)
• Levi Strauss: binary oppositions (good and bad people)
• Baudrillard: hyper-reality and simulacra (fake news?)
• Neale: genre as repetition and a shared code that changes over time

Useful example of analysation:

Layout conventions: print, masthead: Daily Mail, headline: "Smirking at soft justice Britain", images which accompany the story, captures the audience's attention, standfirst: "mockery: kyle davis", columns, 

Online functionality: Hyperlinks (click on something to take us to another page), embedded multimedia videos on the bottom right, sidebar of shame (embarrassing things of celebrities), headers, navigation bars e.g home, news, U.S, sport, etc, 

Language: informal language/slang used e.g "selfie", tabloid unlike The Guardian.

Typography: Bold serif font, 

Housestyle: use of white and blue on the website, as well as on the print; "eat to beat illness"

Theories: Barthes semiotics theory: the man on the right who is taking a selfie looks careless, which could connote how he is not serious about how he has just came out of court after 'dodging prison'.

Todorov: tells the story of 'Jodie' who was a stab victim on page 16

News values: 

• Dictates form and conventions as well as content. Galtung and Ruge (1981)
• Frequency - time scale of events perceived to be newsworthy
• Threshold - The bigger impact the story has, the more people it affects, the more extreme the effect or the more money or resources it involves, the better its chances of hitting the news stands.
• Proximity (includes cultural proximity- see Gilroy)
• Negativity - Bad news is always highly more rated than good news, because it's more exciting and interests the readers more
• Predictability - 
• Continuity and narrative (see Levi-Strauss and Todorov)
• Composition
• Personalisation

The Guardian world view/ politics
*Independent Scott Trust: liberal, progressive

*Reader funding model

*Shirky’s collective intelligence / cognitive surplus applies to the interactive nature of social and www.theguardian.com and “below the line” UGC commentary / shares on social media


The Daily Mail world view/politics:

 The Mail supports a free market economy, and British traditions such as the royal family, the church and the army. They are sceptical of the European union (although they have criticised Theresa May over Brexit). Owned by DMG, a media oligopoly. Hegemonic?? (Hall)

*Populism is favoured over in- depth debate / comment pieces BUT “below the line” is popular.

*Link to Curran and Seaton’s theory: The Mail follows the capitalist pattern of increasing concentration of ownership in fewer hands. This leads to a narrowing of the range of opinions represented and a pursuit of profit at the expense of quality or creativity. News is still controlled by powerful news organisations, who have successfully defended their oligarchy.

Theories on representation and ideology (Q1/Q4) 

Hall- representations are constructed and contested. They are not fixed. This might particularly apply to representations which go against dominant ideologies = dominant, preferred and negotiated

Gilroy- looks at the creation of a transatlantic Black identity. Also focuses on the way the media “others” non-white representations.

Van Zoonen- gender is contextual and performative (in this sense she agrees with Butler). Women are objects and men are spectacle.

Butler- gender is not natural, it is culturally determined and performative

hooks- intersectionality describes the varying representations and experiences of women according to class and ethnicity. Black women should develop an “oppositional gaze.”

Gauntlett- identity is not fixed, online media offers a route to self-expression and choosing one's’ own identity (post-modern).

Deconstructing ideologies

*Patriarchy: Van Zoonen, Butler, hooks;

Van Zoonen's theory: Van Zoonen believes the media portray images of stereotypical women and this behaviour reinforces societal views. The media does this because they believe it reflects dominant social values (what people believe in) and male producers are influenced by this. This is a patriarchy (a society ran by men for men) which dominates and oppresses women.

For The Sun's front cover, we can apply Van Zoonen's theory as the woman is clearly being portrayed as a sexualised object because we can see that she has barely any clothes on and is exposed.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6603313/Serena-wears-green-lycra-bodysuit-Australian-Open.html Again, we can also apply Zoonen's theory to this because as above, the woman is also being sexualised by being given a custom jumpsuit by Nike, that exposes her curves and legs and the paper focuses on her body more than the actual sport that she's playing. 

Exams may ask you on:

• The Times: centre-right wing, conservative, quality
• The Sun: right wing, conservative, popular
• The Daily Mirror: left, labour, popular
• The Daily Express: right wing, popular
• i: liberal
• The Star: 
• The Daily Telegraph: right wing, quality

Individualism papers:  right wing

Collectivism/social action: left wing



Q1. Analyse the different representations of gender, social class and / or ethnicity in Sources A and B. Apply one appropriate theory of representation in your answer. [10 marks]
In terms of representation of gender for this front cover of The Sun, we can apply:

•  Van Zoonen's feminist.
• Being very sexualised; chest area exposed, wearing red; connotes seductiveness & promiscuity, her face is airbrushed, which means stereotypically, she is supposed to look perfect because she is a woman, and society believes women are supposed to be beautiful and desirable, hence why Van Zoonen says women are treated as sexual objects in the media.
• Gillroy's "otherness" theory; in this cover, she is connoted as a white person rather than a mixed person; this could signify that since the Sun is right wing, they're not as for mixed people, as they are for white people. 

Can you find examples of recent news stories from the Daily Mail and The Guardian which have been widely shared on their social media and the meaning mediated / shared / commented on / gone viral?

How could these be an example of collective intelligence / textual poaching (Jenkins) or cognitive surplus (Shirky)?

What are the pros and cons of this sort of audience / pro-sumer activity?

Prepare a case study for each of the online / social news sites

The Daily Mail:

The Guardian:

Fans pay tribute after rapper Nipsey Hussle killed in LA shooting - video; A large crowd of fans gathers to pay tribute to the rapper Nipsey Hussle after he was shot dead outside his Los Angeles clothing store on Sunday. The 33-year-old earned a Grammy nomination this year for his major-label debut and was a respected figure in south LA, where he grew up