Explore how the newspaper industry meets the needs of its target audiences. Make reference to a print edition of The Times to support your answer [10]

What needs do newspapers actually fulfil?

• Escapism. The world is bleak, and newspapers help to distract from this.

• Information. The news helps us to stay up to date and to make sense of the world around us

• Social interaction. We can use the news to interact with other people 

• Identity. Newspapers help us to form our own identity, and help us to find our political tribe

Essentially what we are talking about here is uses and gratifications theory. We are going to make the argument that these elements are essential to audiences.

You can find the ‘print edition’ we are studying today by clicking here

Underline the key terms

Explore how the newspaper industry meets the needs of its target audiences. Make reference to a print edition of The Times to support your answer [10]

Knee jerk reaction

The newspaper industry meets the needs of its audience through escapism, information, identity and social interaction

Plan

Uses and gratifications

Cultivation theory

Producer

Influence

Ideology

Pick and mix - David Gauntlett

Identity

Centre right ideology

Stuart hall reception theory 

Encoding and decoding

Modes of address 

Formal 

Masthead 

Hard news 

Middle class 

(End of audience)

Lexis

Broadsheet

(fandom)

Subscription

£2.20

Escapism 

Composition

High production

(representation)

Introduction

DAC - definition, argument, context

Audiences have a variety of needs, which they can get from media products. Producers will work hard to make sure the needs of the audience are met. In this essay I shall argue that the newspaper industry meets the needs of its audiences through a combination of information, identity and escapism. To make this argument I shall refer to the December 30th edition of The Times, a UK centre right broadsheet that targets a middle aged middle class audience. 

Paragraphs

PEA - Point, evidence, argument 

• An article about UK tennis makes clear that they are British. This connects to and is relatable to the British target audience. Tennis is a stereotypical middle class sport with a stereotypically middle class audience which will allow the target audience to pick and to use a middle class ideology from this newspaper, and to cultivate a sense of inclusion. Additionally the image of a stereotypically attractive young woman will be appealing to certain audience members.

• A section of the newspaper is devoted to art and culture. This meets the needs of a middle class audience who stereotypically will be attracted to and involved in the art scene, which provides them with a sense of inclusion and identity. 

• The Pele front page story functions as the main image, yet is not the headline story. This demonstrates the news values of the newspaper, and suggests that football, while important, is not as important to a middle class audience. The older target audience would remember Pele’s glory years, and would be able to identify with this story. 

• The page three story (which usually focuses on soft and informal news) covers women’s cricket, which indicates a middle class target audience. Additionally the representation of a middle class elderly woman provides the audience with an escapist mode of address, and also the pleasure of relatability.

• An entire page is dedicated to covid, which indicates that the needs of the target audience are being met by providing informative and up to date news coverage. This article cultivates the ideological perspective that covid is a significant issue. The article encourages the audience to agree with the preferred reading, and to acknowledge that covid is still a worry. The educated target audience will be aware of the dangers of a worldwide panic, and being older will be more likely to be affected by it. 

• The headline article takes a very anti union and anti striker ideology to to promote and cultivate conservative ideologies to a conservative audience. This not only reinforces the ideology of the audience, it also provides them the need of validation of their own anti union ideology, but also ensures profit for the newspaper as it encourages a pre-sold audience to continue to engage with it, therefore ensuring profit and power

• The Vivian Westwood article focuses on punk fashion, which traditionally is an anti-conservative ideology. This provides the audience with the gratification of escapism, as it presents them an ideology that they are unfamiliar. However, it also reinforces a capitalist ideology, by celebrating Westwood for her financial and entrepreneurial achievements. Additionally, she is a notable public figure famous from her work in the 1970s which fulfils a nostalgic need of the target audience.

• An article on page three presents an informative yet gender critical outlook on the representation of transgender people in sport, which will meet the needs of the target audience by cultivating and reinforcing their already conservative ideology

• A story about a sharp rise in mortgage costs predominantly targets a middle class audience, and provides them the need of information., The middle class audience can use this information for their own financial incentives and can start planning

Explain how social and cultural circumstances affect audience interpretations of newspaper content. Refer to a print edition of the Daily Mirror to support your points

You can find the ‘print edition’ we are studying today by clicking here

Note - this exact question came up in 2021!

Underline the key terms

Explain how social and cultural circumstances affect audience interpretations of newspaper content. Refer to a print edition of the Daily Mirror to support your points [10]

Knee jerk reaction

The socio cultural circumstances of an audience massively affects their interpretation 

Social and cultural circumstances refer to a range of different factors, including class, ethnicity, age, religion, sexuality, political ideology, upbringing, level of education and so on.

Plan

Cultivation

Reception theory

Preferred

Negotiated 

Oppositional

Media effects 

Pick and mix theory 

Intertextuality

Identity

Main image

Copy 

Informal mode of address

Lexis 

Representation 

Working class

Fandom 

(Postcolonial theory - representation of POC)

Captions, context and anchorage 

(van zoonen and feminist theory)

Demographics/psychographics 

Brand identity

conventions

Introduction

DAC - definition, argument, context

Social and cultural circumstances refer to the different ways that audiences can be categorised. Different audiences can interpret media products in different ways. Staart Hall argued that audiences can decode the ideological perspective of the producer based on their own socio-political upbringing. I shall argue that circumstances greatly affect audience interpretation. To explore this, I shall refer to the December 30th 2022 edition of the Daily Mirror, a UK tabloid that appeals to a working class UK left wing audience.

Paragraphs

PEA - Point, evidence, argument 

Paragraph examples/discussion/etc here

• The huge main central front page image of Pele reinforces not only the importance of Pele but also what he represents. As a working class representation of a man of colour, Pele will appeal to older, working class football fans and audience members of colour who will take pleasure seeing a diverse and complicated representation

• The headline ‘the best’ presents an overwhelmingly positive mode of address that uses hyperbolic language to construct an exciting and inclusive mode of address. A simple, straightforward, basic and informal use of lexis is used to appeal to the working class target audience of the newspaper, which reinforces the ideological representation that working class people lack education.

• The semantic field and symbolic references to holiness and divinity construct Pele not as a mortal human, but almost godlike in his qualities. One preferred reading of this would be to agree with the superlative language the notion of Pele being a ‘god’. However, an oppositional reading by a religious audience might be to interpret this representation as blasphemous and inappropriate. This is an excellent example of the newspaper appealing to a British target audience, who more recently are less likely to identify as being religious. 

• Lexis of ‘Vlad’s 70 missile blitz on Ukraine’ presents a colloquial mode of address through the use of lexis. The term ‘Vlad’ is deliberately disrespectful, and reinforces the ideological assumption that the working class audience will agree with this informal mode of address. Additionally the term ‘blitz’ has intertextual connotations, and makes reference to a British war event. This allows the British target audience to relate to a foreign conflict.

• The conflation of China with the coronavirus cultivates a simple and stereotypical representation of a complicated geopolitical situation. The article presents a simple straightforward ideology that is easy to understand for a working class target audience.

• News values dictate who or what is more important in each edition of a newspaper. Pele’s death is represented as being more important than Vivian Westwood’s simply because as a famous footballer, he will resonate more with the male middle aged working class target audience. However, a negotiated reading of this newspaper may involve a female secondary target audience choosing to engage with the story on Westwood, and this reflects that fact that different audiences can engage with newspapers in different ways

• The use of soft news, making reference to reality shows such as ‘strictly’ appeals to a stereotypical working class audience who may be less engaged with hard politics. By focusing on soft news, the mirror ensures its working class target audience are less engaged with serious news, and perpetuates and cultivates an ideological perspective that working class people are too uneducated to engage with serious politics. If the audience are engaged with soft news then they are more likely to buy the mirror every day

• However, the mirror is highly critical of the conservative government, and presents stories about the cost of living crisis which not only are relatable to the working class target audience, but also serve to criticise the conservative party

To what extent have recent technological changes affected the newspaper industry? Make reference to The Daily Mirror to support your answer [15]

Circulation - refers to how many ‘copies’ of a media product are distributed to the audience. The measurement of circulation depends on whether a product is physically or digitally distributed

Daily Mirror fact finding mission

• Circulation (the most recent figure and a figure from around the turn of the century) - circa 2023 277,550. Circa 2020 451,466. Website c2021 - “32 million monthly readers”

• Distribution - A print edition and also a digitally convergent website 

• Producer - Reach PLC, a UK company that produces and distributes newspapers. Reach PLC specialises in producing a number of regional and local newspapers, adopting a pluralistic approach to media distribution 

• Reach PLC are a horizontally integrated and specialised industry

• Target demographic - working class, British and left leaning, and supporting the labour party

• Regulatory body - IPSO (replaced the PCC after the phone hacking scandal),. IPSO is fundamentally identical to the PCC, and operates at an advisory level. 

• Controversies - in 2019 they ran a headline controversially humanising a white far right mass murderer, constructing a very different representation to other representations of terrorists

Underline the key terms

For this question, you will be rewarded for drawing together knowledge and understanding from across your full course of study, including different areas of the theoretical framework and media contexts.

To what extent have recent technological changes affected the newspaper industry? Make reference to The Daily Mirror to support your answer

Knee jerk reaction

Recent technological changes have significantly affected the newspaper industry by directly affecting the circulation and distribution of print newspapers

Plan

Font

Regulation theory - Livingstone & Lunt

Ineffective regulation

Pull quote

Postmodernism? A shift from traditional political beliefs to populism 

Digitally convergent media 

Website

Shirky - end of audience 

Online commenting

Digital technologies 

Power and profit

Reception theory - Stuart hall

Piers Morgan - ex editor 

Ideology

Audience manipulation 

Tabloid 

Working class 

Declining sales

Reach PLC 

Horizontal integration

Diversification 

Introduction

DAC - definition, argument, context

In recent years, digitally convergent technologies have completely shaped the ways in which we consume media. DCT refers to how computers and associated technology can bring together previously separate industries. While this produces many opportunities it also leads to significant hardships for legacy media industries. I shall argue the newspaper industry has been particularly affected by changes in technology. To explore this I shall refer to the British left leaning tabloid the daily mirror.  

Paragraphs

PEA - Point, evidence, argument 

Paragraph examples/discussion/etc here

• Digital technologies have led to the decline of print media circulation. Mirror Circulation has fallen by more than 30% in three years

• The availability of online media and the move to websites

• The hypermodality of the website provides and exciting mode of address/user experience, involving a selection of different stories in a variety of different topics 

• The website offers audiences an interactive experience, and encourages them to become producers. The comments section allows audiences to share their own ideological perspective. However many comments are irreverent, unpleasant, misogynistic and disruptive, including comments that openly support outlandish conspiracy. This may be highly inappropriate and even illegal. Many comments are intrusive and defamatory. Yet ultimately Reach PLC profits off of this as these outlandish opinions create higher user engagement 

• Website funded exclusively through advertising and sponsorship which leads to a slow and clunky user experience

• Newspaper websites present an agile experience for the target audience, and allow only the most up to date news to be quickly and easily shared

• Digital technology has lead to a shift from traditional political ideologies to more populist ideologies. The amount of conspiracy theories shared during the covid 19 pandemic represented a huge shift in public opinion and a massive distrust in governments

• The Mirror website appeals to a working class audience through being free to access, something made possible through digitally convergent technology. However, a range of highly manipulative and confusing pop up adverts now fund this business

• Selection of scandalous stories combined with a simple straightforward lexis allows the mirror website to cynically target a working class audience. This is made easier than ever through digitally convergent technology

• Anonymous posting of comments leads to impossible to regulate media