Newspaper case studies - Daily Mail and Guardian (Media Messages, Paper 1, Part A) Flashcards
Economic context - The Daily Mail
The Daily Mail will often employ sensationalist or inflammatory rhetoric to sell as many papers as possible due to their priority of profit. The Daily Mail, therefore, often uses populist news stories to appeal to the mass audience as a greater readership will guarantee a greater profit.
Their website also helps them to successfully generate profit through clickbait and advertising.
Unlike The Guardian, The Daily Mail is not perceived as such a reliable paper therefore, people would not donate money to the paper. However, The DM does have a subscription for the Mail Online for regular readers of the paper
Economic context - The Guardian
The Guardian does not prioritise profit in the same way, instead, the paper relies on donations from the public through subscriptions and memberships
the paper is trustworthy due to its strict code of ethics and focus on real news, therefore, in the eyes of the public, the money donated will go to good use
The actual paper is £3, so many people will use the online paper instead. yet because the paper is high quality and deemed to be reliable, they still have a reasonable readership from an AB metropolitan audience
Ownership and Political context - The Daily Mail
Proprietor ownership - Jonathan Harmsworth (4th viscount Rothmere) and so the paper reflects his political beliefs - right-wing
Regulated by IPSO
the most reported newspaper due to insensitive or inflammatory content
The Levenson inquiry and creation of IPSO in response to the phone hacking scandal
phone hacking scandal
- it was revealed in 2011 that News of the World had been hacking the phones of politicians, celebrities and even members of the public to gain unknown information for their stories.
- invasion of privacy for profit
neither The Guardian or The Daily Mail joined IMPRESS as they felt it was too closely affiliated with the government and therefore could impede on free speech - Livingstone and Lunt
Ownership and Political context - The Guardian
Trust ownership - The Scott Trust
Self-regulating due to their strict editor’s code of conduct and their ethos of ‘no one edits our editor’
more neutral, less biased stance that focuses on news as information rather than news as entertainment (due impartiality)
the paper focuses on ‘real, investigative journalism’
Katherine Viner - Editor
majority of the public view The Guardian as a left-wing, liberal paper, yet they do not affiliate with nay political party
Audience - The Daily Mail
BC1C2D - middle market tabloid
75% of their audience are over the age of 55, these readers often resonate with the Daily Mail’s traditional and anti-immigration stance. A lot of these readers also host right-wing ideologies and likely vote conservative
Audience - The Guardian
AB audience - Compact broadsheet
champagne socialism - the paper hosts left-wing, socialist ideologies yet the majority of the paper readers as AB, and therefore likely benefit from the capitalist social hierarchy (hypocrisy)
Online - The Daily Mail
The Daily Mail website mirrors the sensationalist news content of their papers, yet the Mail online feels far less professional. The website layout is simplistic, with a large amount of clickbait and hyperlinks to entice their audiences.
Stories are surrounded by advertising
links to their other social media
live stories
Stories for different audiences
separate categories for topics
Online - The Guardian
The Guardian website discusses global news and therefore has sections of the website catering to different geopolitical locations.
The website mirrors the print style with a focus on information and due impartiality
The website often features live content to keep users continually updated with events and to prevent the paper from taking an opinionated stance on a developing subject.
Audience interactivity - The Daily Mail
Digital technologies are challenging and changing what journalism looks like
Instagram
synergy - #seriouslypopular
several accounts for different topics all tagged in their bio
- Daily Mail Royals
- Mail Sports
- Daily Mail
- Daily Mail Uk
to cater to a wide and diverse audience
TikTok
Surprisingly - due to the paper’s older audience - The Daily Mail is highly successful on TikTok. Their short-form content is sensationalist and presents news as more informal, colloquial even. These videos reflect the paper’s values and present news as more for entertainment than information. the Daily Mail also knows that inflammatory content will become more viral and ‘spreadable’ through shares and comments.
X - formerly Twitter
#seriouslypopular
The Mail Online - Daily mail’s social media
none of the stories discussed are hard-hitting, negative news and instead are more meme-like and comedic
they also have a Mail Online US to expand their audience
Audience interactivity - The Guardian
Website
- reader funds
- heavily moderated comments, so audience interactivity is limited
Instagram - The Guardian is relatively successful on Instagram, at least more so than TikTok.
TikTok - The Guardian’s focus on real investigative journalism and their view of news as information, not entertainment, doesn’t bode well with the sensationalist short-form drama context of TikTok. They do have a TikTok following, yet their videos are considerably less successful than the Daily Mails. Their attempt at sensationalist news stories and short-form content is less successful due to the hard and political news stories that the paper generally prioritises.
Twitter—The Guardian has recently left X because it feels that the app is not regulated enough and that its informative perception of news is being lost in the sensationalist and hateful content that dominates X. Many posts on X are also far-right, and these values do not resonate with the Guardian’s liberal and progressive stance.
Historical context - The Daily Mail
1896
changed to a tabloid format in the 1970s to be more convenient for their readers and to also distinguish the paper from its competitors
when it transitioned to a tabloid format, the middle-market paper merged with the daily sketch
Historical context - The Guardian
1821 - older newspaper
From its initial publishing until 2005, The Guardian had a broadsheet format, likely due to newspapers being a traditional form of news and a primary source of information for many as the internet either didn’t exist or was far less prevalent.
2005 - 2018 the paper adopted a hybrid format before changing to a tabloid format in 2018
Culturally the paper is still a broadsheet, the tabloid format refers to the size of the paper as a smaller more compact paper is cheaper to print and additionally easier for commuters.
Key points from case study - The Daily Mail
front cover
Study 1
Labour set for Historic landslide - populist to gain profit as the story is not reflective of the DM political views
- dramatic language of the ‘battered tories’ and ‘wipeout’
- Election Special Edition
- Uncharacteristically positive depiction of Starmer and Victoria
Study 2
Hundreds of high-risk flights land in the UK unchecked
- border watchdogs
- anti-immigrant and nationalist stance
- soft secondary story of celebrity Taylor Swift
Study 3
- Boris vs Rishi – Soul of the Tories
- dismissive of women - Truss was disastrous
- subverts expectation as we would assume they would be more supportive of the conservative party
Website
Study 1
Support for the Reform party undermines Labour’s success
- Nigel Farage is ‘coming for labour’
- Reform values resonate with the DM readership
- inflammatory rhetoric to engage readers
Study 2
Convergent story to the paper - UK Border Force failed
- culture wars and anti-immigration
- Us vs Them narrative
Social Media
X, formerly Twitter - inflammatory and sensationalist language with the intention of causing an argument
- Child Islamic conversions
Key points from case study - The Guardian
front cover
study 1
Same story as the Daily Mail
- A positive picture of Starmer and Victoria dominates the page, which is arguably hegemonic and stereotypical
- huge majority
study 2
- ‘stand with me’ - unity
- Global story appeals to their global audience
- A critique of Putin explores their real investigative journalism stance and free speech
- almost providing a voice for those who are unable to speak up against Putin
Website
- sunlight of hope (quote from Starmer)
- The Guardian has no political affiliation but holds more progressive values that resonate more with Labour
- live video for continual updating, as viewers want continually accessible news
study 2
- mirrors the story on the paper (digital convergence)
- live video for continual updates
- Yulia Navanaya
Social media
Before they left X (Twitter)
- maintains the broadsheet style of news in a more casual, tabloid style
- personal story
- let me see my son
- interactive and video
Regulation of Newspapers
physical papers are regulated more traditionally, with the filter then-publish approach, yet digital news is far more complex to regulate
- fast-paced digital news cycle
- content is produced and distributed on such a large scale that it is almost impossible to regulate entirely
- especially user-generated content
General historical content
The first paper was published in 1665 - Oxford Gazette
newspapers and print news are the oldest forms of communication and therefore, historically were particularly influential as there was a far less pluralistic array of views on political stories.
Papers, understandably, reflect the beliefs and ideologies of their owners.
digital technologies and the development of Web 2.0 (introduction of user interactivity) have taken this power away from the papers by offering a change in our consumption of news.
Social media offers sort form content from varying perspectives and allows users to engage with the content through comments and sharing which differs from the previously passive audience.
Pre-Levenson Enquiry
the Levenson Enquiry took place in response to the News of the World Phone Hacking scandal and investigated the ethics of British newspapers.
Before the Levenson enquiry, papers were self-regulated (since 1953) and could be reported to the Press Complaint Commission (PCC) yet this was found to be rather ineffective
The PCC was replaced by IPSO
