MEDIA-NEWSPAPERS

Question 1

Broadsheet

Answer 1

a newspaper with a large format, regarded as more serious and less sensationalist than tabloids

Question 2

Tabloid

Answer 2

a newspaper having pages half the size of those of the average broadsheet, typically popular in style and dominated by sensational stories.

Question 3

Red-top Tabloid

Answer 3

Image result for definition of red top tabloid
Red top tabloids, named after their distinguishing red mastheads, employ a form of writing known as tabloid journalism; this style emphasizes features such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news.

Question 4

Blue-top Tabloid

Answer 4

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Question 5

Local Newspaper

Answer 5

local newspaper. A newspaper that reports news and information in a variety of format relevant to a locality, community or specific local area in print or available online.

Question 6

National Newspapers

Answer 6

newspaper - a daily or weekly publication on folded sheets; contains news and articles and advertisements; “he read his newspaper at breakfast” paper. public press, press - the print media responsible for gathering and publishing news in the form of newspapers or magazines.

Question 7

Freesheet

Answer 7

A free newspaper

Question 8

quality newspaper

Answer 8

a newspaper, typically a broadsheet, that is considered to deal seriously with issues and to have high editorial standards.

Question 9

mid-market newspaper

Answer 9

A middle-market newspaper is one that attempts to cater to readers who want some entertainment from a newspaper as well as the coverage of important news events

Question 10

PPC

Answer 10

stands for Pay-Per-Click

Question 11

IPSO

Answer 11

Independent Press Standards Organisation

Question 12

Semiotic Theory

Answer 12

Roland Barthes
Semiotics simply means the study and interpretation of signs and symbols. It is the idea that texts communicate their meanings through a process of signification and codes – using the colour red and low key lighting for example uses signs or codes that an audience might associate with danger or fear. These signs within a text can function at the level of denotation, which is the ‘literal’ or common-sense meaning of the sign, and at the level of connotation, which involves the meanings associated with or suggested by the sign.
According to Barthes these constructed meanings can come to seem self evident, achieving the status of myth or normality through a process of naturalisation. Barthes’ interest in the structure of texts and how these structures communicate meaning also lead him to identify five “codes” that are present in the structures of the narratives of many texts and engage audiences. These are:
- The Enigma or Hermeneutic code – the way tension is built up in a narrative, engaging an audience by holding back information or leaving clues to create a sense of mystery and anticipation and leaving the audience wanting to know what happens next.
- The Semantic code – the way objects, characters and settings take on additional meanings. The audience are engaged by understanding elements in the text that have symbolic meaning and go beyond what is simply denoted.
- The Symbolic code – the larger symbolism in a text, particularly the way that many narratives are constructed around a conflict between binary opposites (see Levi Strauss below).
- Proairetic or Action code – these are signs that tell the audience that something is about to happen, they are shorthand ways of advancing the action. For example a cowboy putting his hand on his gun, looking straight ahead and chewing on a matchstick tells the audience he is going to kill the other man in a shootout without it being explicity stated.
- Cultural code – elements of a narrative that refer to the audience’s wider cultural knowledge. The audience need to have this knowledge to understand the reference.

In a nutshell: Barthes maintained that all elements of a media text are codes that need to be read and interpreted. These can all be understood as the thing they are (denotative level) and the responses they create (connotative level).

Question 13

Structuralism Theory

Answer 13

Structuralism is an intellectual movement which began in France in the 1950s. Structuralists, such as Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes, believe that cultural texts (books, paintings, and in our case media texts such as films, TV programmes, adverts etc) can best be understood by breaking them down and examining their underlying structures and codes. One of Levi Strauss’s key observations in examining the structure of cultural texts is that meaning is often created through the conflict between “binary oppositions”. In simple terms this means that the narratives of many cultural or media texts are constructed around two opposing forces: night vs day, good vs evil; clean vs dirty etc. Levis Strauss maintained that the way in which these binary oppositions are resolved (i.e. whether or not good triumphs over evil by the end of a film or book or whether or not the washing powder washes away the dirt in an advert) can have particular ideological significance.

Question 14

Representations/Reception Theory

Answer 14

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall describes representation as the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture through the use of language, signs and images which stand for or represent things. Hall developed the idea that communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences. He stated that there are three hypothetical positions from which messages and meanings may be decoded: the preferred reading, the negotiated reading or the oppositional reading. The preferred reading is the producer’s intended message, the negotiated is when the audience understand the message but adapt it to suit their own values and the oppositional is where the audience disagrees with the preferred meaning. In a nutshell: producers want audiences to respond in a particular way to a text. Some audiences do (preferred reading), some audiences don’t (oppositional reading) and some are in the middle (negotiated reading).

Question 15

Power an Media Industries Theory

Answer 15

• The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of large companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power.
• The idea that the concentration of power and control of sectors of the media in a small number of media conglomerates generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality.
• The idea that more socially diverse patterns of ownership help to create the conditions for more varied and adventurous media productions.
• In a nutshell: If we had more of a variety of media companies, we’d have more of a variety of texts.

Question 16

Regulations

Answer 16

Livingstone and Lunt
The idea that there is an underlying struggle in recent UK regulation policy between the need to further the interests of citizens (by offering protection from harmful or offensive material), and the need to further the interests of consumers (by ensuring choice, value for money, and market competition).
The idea that the increasing power of global media corporations, together with the rise of convergent media technologies and transformations in the production, distribution and marketing of digital media, have placed traditional approaches to media regulation at risk.
In a nutshell: - Who is regulation FOR? Can regulation keep up with new technologies?

Question 17

Cultural Industries Theory

Answer 17

Hesmondhalgh
The idea that cultural industry companies try to minimise risk and maximise audiences through vertical and horizontal integration, and by formatting their cultural products (e.g. through the use of stars, genres, and serials). The idea that the largest companies or conglomerates now operate across a number of different cultural industries. The idea that the radical potential of the internet has been contained to some extent by its partial incorporation into a large, profit-orientated set of cultural industries.

In a nutshell: - Industry uses tried and tested strategies to appeal to us - but we should be concerned
that only a few companies hold a lot of power.

Question 18

Cultivation Theory

Answer 18

George Gerbner
The idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them (i.e. cultivating particular views and opinions). The idea that cultivation reinforces or naturalises mainstream values (dominant ideologies/hegemonic values). In a nutshell: - The more we see the same representations and messages in the media or in the culture we live in more widely, the more we believe they are true.