Key Assessment 2 Newspapers

Key Assessment 2 Newspapers

1- 

The Times and its media producers constructs the ideology of the audience deciding what political leaning they should have from the paper's neutral stance, giving an un-biased article. For example the front page gives no heavy indications of being left or right wing, by only stating what happened to May and the current negotiations on Brexit. The article talks about May failing to meet deals with the European Union to leave, and members of parliament disagreeing on what she is doing. The newspaper gives as many people's point of view without giving too much bias.

The Daily Mirror and its media producers constructs the ideology of the audience having a left-wing stance by portraying May poorly. For example, 'PM loses key vote again' and 'chaos', the lexis used suggests that the paper believes that May is making 'chaos' from losing the 'key vote'. This is further seen as the small image of May is placed near the bottom, showing the insignificance of her compared to the 'Eastenders' story as the image is slightly larger. May was the prime minister at the time, with making deals on Brexit. The newspaper gives mostly one side of the story, and not much of the oppositions' arguments.

The similarities of representation in both newspapers, using Zoonen's feminist theory, which is that women in the media are usually portrayed as sexualised, being weak and vulnerable. On The Times' front cover it shows a large image of May in her car seen as she is emotional after her loss. This further proves that May is portrayed as being vulnerable and emotional. In The Daily Mirrors' front page, the image of her is small and her loss is being criticised, as well as that there is an image of 'Haley' from 'Eastenders' who has been 'glassed by thug', she is also seen as being vulnerable. However it could be argued that The Daily Mirror doesn't follow what many other tabloid do of sexualising women. 

The differences of representation with both newspapers is that The Times represents as being a more traditional and sophisticated newspaper and as a broadsheet. As the name suggests history and the logo is seen as patriotic, this may come across as being slightly right-wing. However The Daily Mirror represents as being less sophisticated and as a tabloid, the masthead is more modern compared with The Times. The Times' audience are middle-class, with ABC1 jobs. Whereas The Daily Mirror are working-class, with working-class jobs.

In conclusion, the ideological perspective of the producer of the The Times' is believing that the audience can believe and decide what side they should be on. On the other hand, The Daily Mirror's ideological perspective from the producer is disagreement of May and her policies, it is seen as being left-wing.

2a-

Conglomeration is the process of large companies owning smaller companies (subsidiaries).

2b-

A potential issue of conglomeration is that it makes larger companies harder to control and mostly only show one voice and ideology, making it not diverse in views. Another potential issue is dealing with rules and regulations of companies, as they may cross some lines of whether the article is seen as appropriate or not.

2c-

The effectiveness of regulation of the newspaper industry is seen as somewhat effect and somewhat not. For example, there was a phone hacking scandal with News Of The World, where particular members would hack into celebrities or victims' phones to put into articles, which invaded people's privacy causing huge issues for the company after being caught and therefore making the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) to create harsher regulations. This shows that before they were caught the regulations may have not been as effective as they thought. 

Another example is the recent resignation of Harry and Meghan of royalty, seen as to be caused from one of the issues of a private letter from Meghan to her dad being put into an article of a national newspaper. The regulations placed only show what you can and can't do, which is effective however it doesn't show what you should and shouldn't do, causing privacy and ethical issues.