This response/ plan specifically uses the Tuesday 2nd April editions of
The Times and
The Daily Mirror to explore the question.
How do specific processes of production, distribution and circulation shape The Times and The Mirror?
The Times
- Owned by News UK, a subsidiary of News International, an enormous media conglomerate which also also publishes
- Long established, a British institution est. 1785
- Sister paper: The Sunday Times
- Circulation 2019: 417,298
- Compact format, easier to read!
- Vertically integrated industry
- Currently £1.80
- Daily newspaper
- Right wing
- Middle class, older audience
The Daily Mirror
- Tabloid newspaper/redtop
- Working class audience
- Owned by Reach PLC (previously Trinity Mirror)
- Founded in 1903
- Circulation 587,803 (2017)
- Sister paper Sunday Mirror
- Reach also publishes a range of local newspapers - diversification
- "The intelligent tabloid. #madeuthink"
- Cover price 80p
Knee Jerk
Both newspapers have an extremely short production cycle
Both are examples of a highly specialised industry
Hierarchical structure with editors, journalists, designers and printers
Tend to be owned by massive multinational corporations, with an interest in profit and power
Times
- Advert for "first class train journey London to Budapest" £3k holiday: Newspapers make money through advertising revenue. Reach of advertising is vast!
- Article: op ed on Gin and Tonic "speaking to: Unto power of a nice G&T"
- Page three: soft news: cricket: middle class sport
- Kidney beans vs lentils: very soft story! Demonstrates a middle class mass audience
- Big focus on Brexit and british politics, demonstrating its newsworthiness to he mass target audience. An industry driven by profit, power, and money
- Average level of reading comprehension for The Times: 15YO. Slightly above national average demonstrating a middle class audience
- A variety of fun games at the back of e magazine, distracting the readership
Mirror
- Mcdonald's advert, promotion of gambling
- Double page image splash of a model of Teresa May skewering someone with her nose demonstrates an anti right wing ideology
- Tips for a good night's sleep: soft news, and appealing to a mass audience. Cyclical, reoccuring news story
- Front page skyline on Mick Jagger suggest a need to cater for a mass audience
- 80% of sports coverage devoted to football. Football is hegemonically established as Britian's national sport. A need to appeal to a mass audience
- Lexis use of slang and informal lexis
- Level of reading comprehension: approximately 9YO, the average reading age for the UK!
- Games and puzzles including sudoku. Celebrity gossip, and a horoscope, a pseudoscience!