Newspapers - component one a - To what extent do representations in these newspapers make claims about realism?
Knee jerk
Both The Times and The Metro make explicit claims that the representations of issues and events on their front covers are 'real'. Representations are a re-presentation, where a person, issue of event is 'shown again' by the producer for ideological purposes. However, every representation is essentially biased in favour of the ideology of the producer. Representations however can cause harm to the audience, and in particular the group who are being represented. In order to explore this idea, I shall be looking at the set edition of The Times, published on 10th November 2016 by News UK, a subsidiary of News International. The Metro is a tabloid free newspaper published by DMG media, a broadly rightwing conglomerate which also publishes the mail and the mail online.
Plan
Verisimilitude
Bias by selection
Bias by omission
Anchorage
Intertextuality
Stuart Hall - representation
Polysemy
Semiotics
Pick and Mix - Gauntlet
Hard and soft news
If it bleeds, it leads
STEREOTYPES
(Butler?)
Composition
MES
Agenda
Sans serif/serif
Metro
- Headline and accompanying main image adopts a stereotypical tabloid mode of address
- Main image is a long shot, positioning the audience and anchoring the target audience by making intertextual reference to crime shows like Dexter, Breaking Bad and CSI. Confirms the newspaper is targeting a working class audience
- Main headline story focuses on the issue of youth knife crime in the UK. A moral panic which is currently affecting the UK
- Headline lexis uses classical tabloid hyperbole, for the purpose of constructing an exciting narrative which puts fear into the audience
- Choice of language, for example 'knife' and 'attacks' and 'random' is symbolic of the issues that the target working class audience may face
- There are problems with constructing representations like this. Can manipulate the audience by reinforcing hegemonic ideological perceptions of black teenagers
- Heading 'don't be an april fool' constructs may as an idiot, demonstrating the ideology and it's political bias
- Binary opposition constructed through the hard news of the kfe crime headline, and the soft news of the Vamps pullout
- A range of bright colours and bold text, with a conflict once more between soft and hard news
- Representation of knife crime in an exciting and dramatic manner presents a hyperreal and dramatic narrative to the audience
Times
- Symbolism of the american flag constructs Trump as a nationalist, which combined with the iconography of his clenched fist reinforces this ideology
- Anchorage of 'you will be so proud' demonstrates right wing ideologies of the newspaper, a hyperbolic construct that attempts to convey a realist, yet misleading representation to the audience
- Choice of font. Serious, serif, with connotations of middle class aspirations and sophistication, allowing the target audience to identify with the event
- Preferred reading is anchored through the word 'proud', though this may be frustrating to audiences who disagree with trump's ideology, rejecting this reading
- Highly atypical format and layout suggests to the audience the significance and momentousness of the event, an event so important it takes up both the front and back cover
- Takes a postcolonial perspective, where America is seen as being the most important country of all.
- Takes an ethnocentric viewpoint, favouring a white western president
- Reinforces the ideological perspective that Trump is a powerful force for good in the world, and has the weight of the US behind him
- MES of trump's empathetic face is a construct of reality, pitting him as the hero, yet may form a binary opposition with the reader's own perception of trump
- However, potentially negative connotations of the word 'shockwaves' functions as a hermeneutic code, suggesting an uncertain and mysterious future
- You will be so proud, repeated in the ominous colour yellow, also suggests a potential referential code, making intertextual reference to Marvel movie villains