News/OSP

Question 1

Galtung & Ruge’s 12 News Values (extra info, doesn’t need to be memorised)

Answer 1

1) frequency
- short term events (like murder) are preferred over long term events (like famine)

2) threshold
- the size of an event indicates importance

3) unambiguity
- events that can be simplified by the media and made easier for readers to understand

4) meaningfulness
- what an event means to us in terms of our culture (cultural proximity and impact on home culture)

5) consonance
- when an event is/feels familiar to us (plays on feelings of everydayness)

6) unexpectedness
- an events that is a rare occurrence and surprises us

7) continuity
- an ongoing narrative

8) composition
- events need a sense of balance (bad vs good, domestic vs foreign; Strauss & Gilroy can be applied)

9) reference to elite nations
- events most likely to be reported on if they happen in the developed world

10) reference to elite people
- famous and powerful people who are more newsworthy than the ordinary person

11) personalisation
- events are personalised to focus on individuals

12) negativity
- bad news is better than good news

Question 2

What are the conventions of a broadsheet?

Answer 2

• sentence case headline
• “hard” news; informative and educational usually about politics, economy, current affairs
• high text:image ratio (more copy than images)
• formal language register; uses sophisticated language
• large “broadsheet” size
• traditional serif mastheads
• addresses an upmarket audience (ABC1)

Question 3

What are the conventions of a mid-market tabloid?

Answer 3

• upper case headline
• more formal language than red-top tabloids but more opinionated than broadsheets
• a mix of soft and hard news
• traditional serif masthead
• front pages dominated by images, but more copy than a red-top tabloid
• offers news as entertainment and education
• compact size
• addresses a midmarket audience (BC1C2)

Question 4

What are the conventions of a red-top tabloid?

Answer 4

• upper case headlines
• informal language register; uses puns, colloquial language, jokes, irony & play on words
• “soft” news; purely for entertainment purposes such as sensational celebrity drama, making fun of politicians, human interest stories
• modern sans-serif masthead (white text on red background)
• high image:text ratio (lots of images and barely any copy)
• compact size
• addresses a downmarket audience (C2DE)

Question 5

Who is the regulator for newspapers?

Answer 5

IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation)

Question 6

What is the socio-economic demographic for broadsheets?

Answer 6

ABC1

Question 7

What is the socio-economic demographic for mid-market tabloids?

Answer 7

BC1C2D

Question 8

What is the socio-economic demographic for red top tabloids?

Answer 8

C2DE

Question 9

What genre of newspaper is The Guardian?

Answer 9

campaigning newspaper

Question 10

What genre of newspaper is The Daily Mail?

Answer 10

populist newspaper

Question 11

How have the daily print circulation figures of The Guardian declined?

Answer 11

From around 200,000 in 2012 to around 100,000 in 2021 (50% decrease)

The publishers now have stopped making the circulated data public

Question 12

How have the daily print circulation figures of The Daily Mail declined?

Answer 12

around 1.1million in 2020 to around 700,000 in 2024 (around 36% decrease)

Question 13

Who owns The Guardian?

Answer 13

Guardian Media Group owned by Scott Trust, a diverse board of people who oversee The Guardian

Question 14

Who owns The Daily Mail?

Answer 14

DMGT (Daily Mail and General Trust) owned by Lord Rothermere AKA Jonathan Harmsworth

Question 15

Who is The Guardian’s target demographic?

Answer 15

An educated, middle-class, left-leaning, 18+ audience

Question 16

Who is The Daily Mail’s target demographic?

Answer 16

Lower-middle class, older (40s and 50s) women

Question 17

How is The Guardian regulated?

Answer 17

Self-regulated by The Scott Trust

Question 18

How is The Daily Mail regulated?

Answer 18

By IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation)

Question 19

When did The Guardian rebrand?

Answer 19

January 2018

Question 20

What did The Guardian’s rebrand consist of?

Answer 20

The process of tabloidization

Downsizing the paper from a large broadsheet size to a compact tabloid size

Implementing more soft, sensational, celebrity gossip and lifestyle content alongside hard news topics

Question 21

Why did The Guardian rebrand?

Answer 21

To appeal to the modern, new generation who prefers smaller, compact ways to consume media and enjoy reading sensational stories alongside hard news

To save costs, it costs less to print in a small tabloid size

To remain fresh and appealing to new readers (Neale’s Genre theory, repetition and difference)

Question 22

What is the effect of the use of a “tricolon” ? (list of 3)

Answer 22

Used to make a memorable quote

Question 23

When was The Guardian founded?

Answer 23

1821

Question 24

When was The Scott Trust founded?

Answer 24

1936

Question 25

Why was the Scott Trust created to take ownership of the Guardian?

Answer 25

to secure the paper’s independence and ensure that no single owner could buy and own it

to safeguard the paper from commercial and political interference

to protect the paper’s news values of honest, fair, liberal investigative journalism

Question 26

Do shareholders make profit from The Guardian?

Answer 26

No, all profit is put back into the organisation to improve journalism

Question 27

Who is The Guardian’s editor in chief?

Answer 27

Katherine Viner

Question 28

Which political parties have the Guardian supported in the past?

Answer 28

Labour and Lib Dem

Question 29

When was the Daily Mail founded?

Answer 29

1896

Question 30

What type of model does the Daily Mail run under?

Answer 30

a proprietor model (relating to an owner/ownership)

Question 31

When did DMGT buy the i newspaper?

Answer 31

November 2019