Feedback legend
i - You must include more media language, Shot types, camera angles, lexis, modes of address, gutters, headlines ETC
Annnnnd this was the only piece of feedback I consistently gave out. The below 'general feedback' highlights some more general issues that students had with the exam.
General feedback
1)
- A big issue here was a lack of analysis. Rather than just stating this like the target audience and the political ideology of the newspapers, it is essential to discuss how lexis, MES and other aspects of media language construct representations.
- But there was an even bigger issue. This was a representation question, and therefore you should have discussed how representations were constructed. The second you see the word representation, you must identify the people, places and events which are being represented. For the two set covers, you could talk about the representation of women and the representation of the political event Brexit. But you could also look at the representation of left and right wing ideologies, the middle class and working class audiences, and the representation of England itself.
- The most important ideological aspect of representations is that they reflect the ideology of the producer. Few students pointed this out, let alone explored how and why they were doing so.
2)
- Almost everyone managed to define 'conglomeration' correctly, though we did also accept the definition of 'conglomerate'...
- A few people spend WAY TOO LONG on the very short answer questions. Remember to always use the amount of marks available as a guide.
- In general, students wrote far too little for the final question. The average mark for this particular one was a high 'D' grade. This seems to indicate that not enough time was allotted to this question, though there were also examples of students not identifying IPSO as the primary regulators of newspapers, and other fundamental gaps in knowledge.
- The best answers to the final question used the News Of The World phone hacking scandal as an example of the ineffectiveness of the regulation of the newspaper industry.
- Many students pointed out the Mail Online's 'messy bedrooms' story as an example of gross dismissal of regulatory frameworks, but very few pointed out that the way in which the Mail can sidestep these regulations is through exploiting loopholes in digitally convergent media. Livingstone and Lunt should definitely have been mentioned here.
Teacher response
1 - Every media product will, to a significant extent, reflect the ideologies and the beliefs of the producer. This is encoded through media language, and allows the producer to not only demonstrate their ideological perspective, but also potentially to manipulate the ideology of the audience. All media products exist primarily for financial gain, and must make a profit in order to continue to be produced. The newspaper industry is no different, and in order to maintain their financial stability, newspapers must demonstrate a clear and easily identifiable ideological perspective. In order to explore this idea, I shall look at how the representations of women and a particular event are constructed in The Times and The Daily Mirror. The Times is a UK broadsheet newspaper with a right of centre ideology. It is owned by News UK, a subsidiary of News International, themselves owned by the influential Murdoch family. The Daily Mirror is a UK tabloid with a left leaning ideological perspective. It is broadly critical of the conservative party, and therefore constructs a radically different perspective of reality and representation for its working class, British target audience.
Both newspapers I am exploring focus on the same event: the result of a parliamentary vote where Theresa May’s Brexit proposals have been voted down. These policies are constructed by the conservative party as a whole, yet both newspapers have chosen to simplify a complicated political story and to focus instead on May as an individual. The Mirror includes a small, central image of May. The MES of her face pointing downwards and her dejected expression, along with the biased selection of a particular unflattering image is anchored through the blunt and bold headline BREXIT DELAY MAYHEM. The sans serif font and bold capital letters demonstrate an informal mode of address for the working class target audience, and clearly present May as the villain of a straightforward narrative. Stuart Hall suggests that representations shape reality, and are constructed through media language. In this case, a clear, simple, yet potentially condescending message has been presented to the Mirror’s working class audience.
Additionally, the Mirror’s front page is notable in the other stories that have been selected. The page furniture also includes two large adverts for horse racing and betting, a stereotypical mode of address for a working class audience. Again, through anchorage of images, a complicated narrative is reduced to a simple horse race. May’s ‘massive defeat’ is perhaps similar to the defeat a jockey or gambler may experience during a horse face. The cluttered mise-en-scene and busy page furniture of The Mirror constructs an exciting and dramatic representation of a complicated and potentially boring political event.
The Time’s front cover however take an almost binary opposite approach to constructing a complicated representation of May as a politician and as a woman. The CU shot of May used on The Times, taken with a zoomed telephoto lens positions the audience in a voyeuristic code of address. A black bar; a cars wing mirror covers half of May’s face, creating a polysemic series of connotations. An image has been selected where May looks bitter, tied and defeated, but the angle and selection of image is nowhere near as unflattering as the image included in The Mirror. The preferred reading of The Time’s ideological perspective is that May is a sympathetic figure who has tried her best in a difficult situation. The headline, in lower case serif font takes a more formal mode of address, yet still uses a pun (driven to despair), demonstrating the wide readership of the times.
Lisbeit Van Zoonen suggests that men and women are represented in radically different ways in media products, with women being consistently sexualised by a voyeuristic and predatory ‘male gaze’. This reinforces concepts of patriarchal hegemony, and constructs a world where men wield significant power. We see these representations of sexualised women in a variety of situations, for example in magazines, in adverts, and in mainstream cinema. However, I suggest that both The Times and The Mirror present a more complex and less stereotypical representation of women through their depiction of May. The Times presents May as a complicated character, facing a difficult job. The MES of her defeated expression, coupled with the dramatic close up shot presents her as a defeated hero. By being shot in close up, there is no sexualisation, and no emphasis on stereotypical representation of women which may focus on clothes, bodies and fashion. May is clearly unsexualised. Likewise in The Mirror, A complicated representation of gender is constructed. While a biased and unflattering image of may has been selected for the front page image, the double page splash sees may spread over two pages, her arms held upwards and facing the camera. Once more a complicated and deeply polysemic representation is constructed. The anchorage “a faller at second” created by the headline may suggest that May is pathetic and weak, like a broken horse unable to complete a race, yet the positivity of the mise-en-scene of her gesture functions as a powerful proairetic code, suggesting that May is a powerful, strong woman. She forms a binary opposition between the images of Corbyn and Johnson, placed by her side in a much smaller format, again reinforcing her power. In this sense we see a complicated and nuanced representation of women being constructed in both newspapers that challenges dominant patriarchal hegemonic expectations.
Yet both newspapers must make money, and in order to do so, they must address, engage with and even construct their audience. The Time’s sophisticated mode of address is emphasised by the skyline article “8 tricks for your spring wardrobe”, which is clearly addressing a middle class audience and allowing them to identify with a pleasurably and affluent situation. However The Mirror takes it’s addressing of the working class to a significant level by using horse racing not only as a separate article, but also as a symbolic code to allow the audience to understand a complicated political story. The lexis of “faller at second” suggests an audience who are familiar with gorse facing. A jokey and tongue in cheek box out feature on the bottom of the double page spread sees ‘honest Jason’ a bookie providing horse racing odds on various Brexit scenarios. This is further reinforced through the sketch box, where a politician is called Tory Gandalf in a tongue in cheek intertextual reference to a mainstream, big budget action film. While arguably this provides a working class audience a means of understanding a complicated story, it is also a clear example of stereotyping. Stuart Hall suggests that through stereotyping, the ruling class is able to manipulate and to criticise the working class. Curran and Seaton suggest that the media industries are based on profit and power. By talking down to t5heir audience, and by the use of stereotypes, the Mirror seems to suggest that they are only able to understand simple concepts. This is primarily to construct and then to target a captive audience, who will go on top read the newspaper every day.
Both the Times and The Mirror construct and present a complicated and at times subversive representation of women through their representation of Theresa May. However, both newspapers demonstrate their ideological bias through targeting a specific social class. The Mirror in particular uses a condescending lexis that does not seem to be appropriate for an adult audience, and in doing so presents a negative and stereotypical representation of the working class in order to maximise profit and power.
2 a - Conglomeration refers to the process of a media organisation acquiring another media organisation for the purposes of limiting competition and increasing profit and power.
2b – Curran and Seaton outline many issues with the process of conglomeration. One is that, through less organisations owning media industries, there is less diversity for consumers. For example, through Disney acquiring Marvel Studios and Lucas Films, sci-fi and fantasy audiences are essentially forced to watch Disney produced films as a result. Additionally, it could be argued that conglomeration is unethical and allows conglomerates to manipulate laws and audience. That The Murdoch’s were able to restructure News UK after the phone hacking scandal demonstrates, as C&S would say, an extraordinary level of “power without responsibility”
2c - The newspaper industry in the UK is regulated by IPSO, or the Independent Press Standards Organisation. IPSO was implemented to replace the PCC after the Murdoch owned ±Newspaper The News of The World corruptly and systematically hacked the phones and invaded the lives of innocent citizens in order to present scandalous and big selling stories to their audiences. However, the new IPSO guidelines are not only practically identical to the PCC guidelines, they also are extremely vague and are just that, guidelines. Newspapers in the UK are largely self-regulated, but thanks to a culture of corruption, political bias, rampant conglomeration and the factors of digital media convergence, I shall argue that the newspaper industry is poorly and ineffectively regulated.
It is easy to spot stories that break IPSO’s guidelines. The Daily Mirror Online currently host a story about a serial rapist where, in the third paragraph it mentions his Indonesian nationality. Under IPSO guidelines, mentioning an age, sexuality, nationality or other protected characteristic without a good reason is forbidden. However this vague rule can easily be contested.
Newspapers such as the far right wing Daily Mail can easily break these guidelines, especially in its online edition. The Mail Online,. Through it’s ‘sidebar of shame’ feature constantly posts voyeuristic and non-consensually taken images of near naked women with vivid descriptions of their bodies. While these prove exciting and scandalous for the website’s huge and predominantly female audience, it is arguable unethical, and contravenes IPSO rules on harassment. The Mail Online stoops to even lower levels in an article ostensibly about the ‘messy bedrooms’ of teenage girls. The images used for this article, taken from Online forum Reddit and clearly posted without permission following sexted snapchat images show nude young women in sexualised poses who may be under the age of 18. Not only are these images harassing and demoralising for the individuals who clearly have not consented, it also sees The Mail Online breaking child protection and child pornography laws. However, the vast wealth that The Mail Online generates through online advertising sees them able to settle lawsuits quickly and easily.
Livingstone and Lunt suggest that digital technologies and convergent technologies have let media products almost impossible to effectively regulated. One excellent example of this can be seen in the comments section when reputable news sources such as the BBC post stories on Facebook. As Facebook is hosted in the US, very different laws exist with regards to freedom of speech. Therefore, British commentators can exploit loopholes. An excellent example is the comments on a story surrounding the recent ‘machete riots’ at the screening of the film ‘Blue Story’. Commentators not only point out the ethnicity of those they see as being responsible for the ‘attack’, but also use dog whistle racist terms such as ‘multicultural society’ in order to communicate to other racists their dislike of black people. While the BBC is technically unrelated to these comments, it still profits from posting these stories on Facebook and the digitally convergent revenue streams that such a s business practice provides. Arguably, it allows the BBC and other reputable news sources an opportunity to present aberrant and racist ideological perspectives with impunity.
Ultimately, as we have seen, the regulation of the newspaper industry in the UK is largely ineffective. Alternative methods of regulation are difficult to suggest, as long as aggressive neoliberal capitalistic and conglomerated business strategies utilise digitally convergent media platforms to exploit already loose loopholes in a largely self-regulated system.
Student response 1
1 - Both The Times and The Daily Mirror construct representations, regarding the target audience, political figures and government parties successfully, in order to reflect the ideological perspective of the producer. Despite both ideological perspectives of the newspapers differing greatly, the range of techniques used by them, in order to create the intended effect is incredibly similar.
The Times constructs Teresa May as an admirable leader, who is hardworking and selfless. This is achieved via the inclusion of the dominant image on the front page, which has a photo of Teresa May in the car. The mise-en-scene of Teresa’s makeup is messy, as her eye-makeup is dark and slightly smudged, making her seem disorganised. This is further reinforced by the style of her hair, which is unkept and windswept. This image arguably has polysemic readings, as despite the newspaper being right-wing supporters, and therefore most likely in favour of Teresa May, the quality of the image and the mise-en-scene is very unflattering. The caption composed directly below the image, states that Teresa was out until the ‘night’, this anchors the producer’s ideology and intentions. The connotations of the lexis, ‘night’, suggests that she has been working late, and therefore working hard, it implies that she does not take time into her appearance, as the future of the country is more important to her, and therefore creates the narrative that she is hard working and selfless. These qualities are often seen within heroic characters in movies and films, and further strengthens the idea, that they are trying to create a heroic narrative for her. The anchorage of this lexis helps to showcase the preferred reading for the reader, which is a technique spoken about by theorist Stuart Hall. By including these techniques, The Times manages to remain supportive of Teresa May and construct a positive representation of her, it also explores the ideological perspective of the producer being in support of Teresa May, because of her heroic qualities. The Daily Mirror, on the other hand, represents Teresa May as a weak and ineffective leader. In the centre-spread of the double-page, Teresa is pictured on her own. The mise-en-scene of her outfit, is a bold skirt and blazer combination, and appears to be expensive. Her pose in the image has her hands upwards, acting as symbolic coding for a surrender. This constructs Teresa May to be a weak leader, as the connotations of a surrender, imply that someone is not powerful enough to overcome the opposition. By picturing her in an expensive outfit, the image choice manages to reflect the bias and ideology of the producer, as it suggests that although Teresa May is rich and has a lot of money, she is still not a good leader. This relates to the stereotype of their target audience, the working class, as they are often presented to be aggravated by those who are rich and have opportunity, yet do not have the intelligence expected to have got them there. By appealing to this stereotype surrounding the working class, the newspaper manages to construct a dislikeable representation of Teresa May, creating the narrative that she is weak, unintelligent and ineffective at her job. This presents the ideological perspective of the producer as someone who dislikes Teresa May, because she is a bad leader.
The Times and The Daily Mirror, do not only construct representations of those within the articles, but also of their audience. The Times construct the representation that their audience are rich, middle-class and are of a high-intelligence level. This is exposed through the design of the masthead, where ‘The Times’ is written in black ink, with a white background, in a stylised font. The connotations of a stylised font act as symbolic coding for royalty, as the style mimics that expected on a royal note or invitation, as often presented in the media. The inclusion of an emblem, could also be symbolic coding for a family crest, all which rich people would be familiar with. By including direct references to royalty, the target audience are constructed to be rich, as the royal family are associated with money, wealth and power. The paper similarly constructs the representation that their audience are intelligent, as they have had access to opportunities and therefore a high-level of education. The body text in the main segment of the paper, includes lexis which would not be used in everyday life, such as the verb, ‘announced’, in place of the day-to-day ‘said’. By using words which take a higher level of intelligence to understand, the paper manages to construct a representation of their audience as being smart and able, due to their access to wealth and power. The Mirror, on the other hand, represents their target audience as being unintelligent. In the skyline at the top right-corner, there is a story titled, ‘Enders Hayley glassed by thug’, the intertextuality of this story references EastEnders, which is a soap-opera television show, aimed towards the working class, due to it portraying the lives of working class people. By referring to EastEnders as ‘enders’, the paper uses slang terminology, which is stereotypically used by those from unprivileged backgrounds. This implies that due to their lack of funds, the working class did not have access to a higher education and therefore extensive terminology cannot be used by the paper. Similarly, because they included a story about a soap-opera on the front page, the paper makes the assumption that due to the audience having a low level of intelligence, they only watch television. The Mirror manages to construct a representation of the audience being unintelligent because of their lack of money and therefore lack of access to higher education. This shows that the ideological perspective of the producer, is to create something he believes they would understand to make the paper approachable for them, using standardised methods of production in order to appeal to the masses.
When it comes to who each paper blames on the failure of the conservative party, The Times blame the people within the party, but do not blame Teresa May. The Mirror, opposingly, blame Teresa May and not the people within the party. Both papers include the statistics, stating that 242 people voted for Teresa May’s idea, whereas 391 people votes against Teresa May’s ideas. In The Times, these statistics are accompanied by a caption which states, ‘how the common-room voted’, this focalises on the people, rather than the leader, and therefore anchors the idea that the problem was caused by them, as this is how they voted. The Times construct a negative representation of the common-room, as they blame the failure all on them, opposed to Teresa May, as in this segment, there is no direct mentioning of her. In The Daily Mirror, the statistics are displayed in a bright-red font, perhaps acting as proairetic coding, warning readers that danger is about to occur. By displaying these statistics, they create a binary opposition between the two view points and represent good versus evil. As more people voted against Teresa May, this makes her seem like a bad person and therefore evil. The paper’s ideological perspective is that Teresa May is the only problem, constructing a negative representation of her through the use of statistics.
Overall, The Times and The Daily Mirror both use a range of techniques to construct representations of different groups, and to reflect the ideolog of the producer. The Times represent Teresa as an admirable, heroic person, and blame the defeat on her party. They represent their audience positively as rich and intelligent, and construct the ideological perspective that supporting Teresa and the conservatives is the right thing to do. The Mirror represent her as a weak, bad leader who is not acceptable from a hegemonic standpoint, and therefore showcase the ideology that Teresa is an inadequate leader who does not help those from poorer, uneducated backgrounds.
2A) Conglomeration is the process in which a company buys another company. An example would be how Facebook recently purchased Instagram.
• 2B) One issue with conglomeration, is that some people may view it as unethical and unfair for one person to have so much ownership and money. This would be a problem, because those within the conglomerate could receive backlash from the public, and not a supportive reception
• Another issue with conglomeration, is that the media products put out by the conglomerate could all lack quality because of standardised methods of production. This would be a problem, because many people would get bored of similar products and therefore not support them or spend money on it.
2C) The regulation of the newspaper industry is highly ineffective. Majority of the rules, written by ISPO, are subject to interpretation. For example, some of the rules against ‘harassment’ and ‘intrusion of privacy’, could mean different things to different people. This has been proven in a variety of cases, such as a recent story regarding a woman who was strangled to death by her boyfriend, published by The Mirror online. This breaks a variety of the regulations, particularly against privacy, as many photos of her had been taken from her private social media, in order to be included in a story. Since she has passed away, she could not give permission for these photos to be used, and therefore her privacy was violated. However, this is subject to interpretation, and therefore many would argue that because she is dead, it doesn’t matter. This is one of the reasons these rules are very ineffective, because they are not clear. Many newspapers are also self-regulated, and therefore they can deem something to be acceptable, even if realistically it does violate the rules, because they can argue their opinion.
Other stories have also been included in this, the news segment on snapchat often reports suicides of famous singers. Recently an article speaking about a suicide of a Korean pop singer, Hara, was included in The Sun’s snapchat story. The story broke the rules against sensitivity to loss or grief, as it used her suicide in order to deter people from applying to the industry, rather than mourning her passing. This is disrespectful, and would be viewed as wrong by many, as it included detailed reports of her death. Many people who use snapchat are still children, so this would break more rules regarding exposure children have to graphic news. Yet, again many would claim that they view this to not violate rules, and it would be accepted because the paper is self-regulated.
Another example is the phone hacking scandal, where many phones were hacked into using the pin-number on the voicemail service. This violated privacy, because it was an intrusion into people’s conversations and lives. A young girl who was murdered, phone was hacked into, the parents believed because of this she was still alive, even though she was not. This is one of the few cases which were prosecuted against due to the industry breaking the rules. However, many people still work for news companies such as News UK, even today, after being involved in the scandal, proving once again that the regulation is very ineffective.
Overall regulation is very ineffective because it is all self-regulated and subject to interpretation. Even when there are prosecutions, the whole idea is not treated with any level of seriousness, as those involved in scandals, can still go back to work. The system is not strict enough, and would be much more effective if there were consequences for actions.
Student response 2
1. Compare how the Times and the Daily Mirror construct representations and reflect the ideology of the producer.
One way in which the Times and Daily Mirror construct representations is through their use of lexis. The Daily Mirror front cover has a lot of very aggressive or war-like lexis being used to construct a representation of the political system. For example it uses the words "surrender", "chaos" and "defeat." These are all words that you might see associated with war and conflict, which constructs the representation of politics in this story as being incredibly hostile. This construction is particularly noteworthy as it might cause an audience member to view politics in this aggressive way, which can cause people to become more riled up when discussing politics than they might otherwise have been. This use of war-like lexis is also backed up by the imagery and other stories on the front page. The othe images on the page are of a man on horseback (who looks like a jousting knight) and a story titled "enders Hayley glassed by thug" which all offer very violent insights into the world of current affairs. It is also worth noting that this story is in the top right hand corner of the cover, meaning it comes before the political stories on the z line.
Another way that The Times and Daily Mirror construct representations and reflect the ideology of the producer is through the use of shot type and gesture. In the spread used in the Daily Mirror paper, you can see an image of Theresa May and another image of Jeremy Corbyn. The differences here create a very marked distinction in representation. The image of Theresa May has her looking particularly worried and concerned, with her hands raised as if to try and (ineffectually) calm down a tense situation. Her facial expression being shown is also incredibly helpless looking, which has been chosen in order to make her look incompetent as a politician. Corbyn however is shot from a high angle, which would usually make an audience member think they aren't very powerful, but here this isn't the case, as we can see his commanding body language (or gesture). He has his arm raised out, pointing aggressively at May, while looking down his glasses at her. Of course it isn't clear if he was actually looking and pointing at her when he assumed this pose, but by the placement of the images it's clear that the producers of the Daily Mirror want us to think that. It is also worthy of noting that this image has the caption "attack", while a picture of Borris Johnson has the caption "warning." Clearly these words are intended to show the competence of these two men in relation to May, which would push the left-wing bias of the newspaper. This is a potentially harmful representation as it could affect the way people view these politicians, and may cause ignorance or hatred towards the people involved, who weren't even necessarily going against each other with that level of hostility. Clearly the producer wants the audience to side with Jeremy Corbyn in this situation and to agree that it's a good thing that there are "MPs looking to take over" as is mentioned in the text bellow the image.
Another way that The Times specifically constructs representation is through the use of their chosen headlines. The phrase "driven to despair" accompanies an image of Theresa May in her car looking very wistful. The choice of lexis here really highlights the emotional response that the producers want the audience to have when looking at this image. May, in the image, could be feeling despair, howevr it is equally possible that she is looking off into the distance at oncoming traffic. It is purely by the use of the phraseology used here which constructs the image of her seeming tired and upset. This has probably been done in order to get the audience to feel sympathy for her, as the verb "driven" implies that the things leading to her unhappiness are out of her hands. This would support the right leaning view of the producers of the Times. It is also potentially worthy of note that the image is placed centrally on the page, which might make the audience further sympathise with her,as she seems boxed in.
2.
a) Briefly explain what you understand the term 'conglomoration' means.
The term conglomoration refers to the combining of different media industries, in both vertical and horizontal intergration.
b) Briefly outline two potential issues that arise from conglomoration.
One issue that might arise from conglomorations is a lack of diversity in media products being produced. If large areas of the market are all being controlled by one company as, for example, Disney is with blockbuster movies at the moment, then there is very little room for companies to give different ideologies. This is the point argued by Curran and Seaton. Another issue that may arise from conglomorations is the lack in competition could cause a stifling in creativity. Why bother making something new and interesting if you can essentially make something average and have millions of people pay to see it because there isn't anything better to see. This is a big problem with the monopolisation of the media industry that occurs because of conglomoration.
c) How effective is the regulation of the newspaper industry? Make reference to specific examples.
The regulation of the newspaper industry is actually incrediby poor. It largely relies on self-regulation. While IPSO does have guidelines on the type of things a newspaper could ethically do, it is incredibly vague. For exapmle, it says that the newspapers aren't allowed to intimidate people. It could be argued that intimidation can mean anything from showing up on your doorstep unannounced and shoving a microphone into your face, to threatening you with violence if you refuse to provide them with a story. There is a huge room for error here, which can easily be exploited. IPSO is, of course, only here now after the scandal of the News of the World, where they would spy on peoples phones. This, clearly unethical, action lead to the dismantling of the PCC. In short there is still a huge amount of things that could be made much clearer in order to establish what newspapers can and can't do, however, in the UK, we have freedom of the press. This basically excuses the newspaper industry from ethical quandaries, which might have a greater impact on other types of media.
Student response 3
1. All newspapers have a bias, it's impossible not to. The mirror however is well known for being bias towards the left wing; and that means not liking Theresa May. Therefore, when it comes to producing an article about the woman, you can assume they aren't going to say the best of things considering May herself.
On the front cover of the extract we see the term 'BREXIT DELAY MAYHEM', not only does this instantly scream the word Brexit in big impact font to attract the reader's attention, but mayhem is also a pun on Theresa's last name (eg, MAY-hem). The use of a pun here along with stating a relevant topic in big black font is done by the producers to target the working class, who in which they seem to talk down to and make assumptions about very often.
We can also see a picture of Theresa on the front cover looking quite defeated, ugly and bored; this is done by the editor in order to give her a bad image along with the rest of the text. It's also worth mentioning that the picture itself is smaller than the rest of the text and images on the page, making her seem insignificant and unimportant. This also completely subverts Van Zoonen's theory that women are used to sell things and made to look hegemonically attractive in media.
The front cover also uses words such as 'chaos' along with the previously stated mayhem, these have genre connotations of an action movie, constructing the reality that everything is going wrong and the world is chaotic due to the 'action movie villain' Theresa May.
The producer does this as being left wing, they want to make out the right wing May to seem as bad as possible, without obvious slander. It's also worth mentioning that this cover contains an advertisement for horse racing at Ladbrookes, with the image of the horse rider being bigger than the image of Theresa herself.
On the double spread page we can immediately see the headline 'A Faller at 2nd', this is a polysemic title appealing to both the working class and the older audience; '2nd' means she isn't worthy of winning and cant reach 1st which is a very oversimplified way of stating her position, and the entire phrase itself is a term commonly associated with horse racing; it's not a coincidence that the Ladbrookes horse advert was bigger than her on the front. This entire representation and horse racing imagery is done to present Brexit as a sport, narrativising the situation in order to try and make it more exciting and appeal to a wider audience.
On this page we can also see a huge picture of May at a conference of some sort, with her arms in the air and hands facing away from her, outstretched. This image also has polysemic meaning, some might see it as her surrendering, however some might see her as asserting dominance over the others at this conference, quietening them down almost with her broad and confident body gestures. However, the editor was most definitely trying to make her seem confused, idiotic and in a state of panic due to their left wing bias.
Another thing that's worth mentioning on this sheet is the satirical story on the left hand side, consisting of a Lord of the rings pop-culture reference. This would appeal to a larger, and most likely working class audience in the eyes of the producer.
On the other hand, The Times, a so called middle centric (but more right wing) newspaper presents may slightly differently. On the front cover we can see an unattractive picture of May due to the high key lighting and boyeuristic photo, she wouldn't have even realised she was being photographed.
Accompanying this was the title 'Driven to despair'. The word 'driven' is a pun as in the photograph she is in the back of a car, which you can tell by the mise-en-scene of the vehicle interior and out of focus rear-view mirror.
This pun is mostly likely added in to appeal to a wider, working class audience as the general view of the times is that more middle classed audience engage with their articles. It's also worth noting that theres a lot of text accompanying this image of May, the only image on the paper. This is very unlike the mirror as they contain many pictures, huge headlines, lots of colour and little writing on the front cover; which is done by the producer in a belittling way to appeal to the working class audience.
Student response 4
1. The Times has a clear bias against Theresa May, and create their own representation of her on the front page. The main image shown has clearly been chosen carefully, as it is a particularly unflattering image of her, looking confused and unfocused. The fact that she is in a car, and the obvious flash on her face suggests the photo is revealing what she looks like when not expecting to be viewed by the paparazzi. Matched with the negative headline "Driven to Despair" (perhaps a pun to make fun of her), anyone picking up this paper will instantly see the prime minister negatively. This links into Stuart Hall's theory of representation, which suggests media producers will force their own presentation of people in order to push their ideology into the world. The Times clearly want others to dislike May as they do.
The lexis applied in the body text is also very negative about May. The journalist has frequently used "again" when writing about how she has failed or what she has done, forcing their opinion that she is a constant failure in Downing Street who is always letting down the people.
The Times have also cleverly used statistics on the left of their front page, and have shown the votes for yes and no. This includes one of the only uses of coloured text on the page, as red is applied to draw the reader's attention to it, and notice that the vote results are not in May's favour. Though this is simply a showcase of true statistics, it once again helps to construct the negative viewpoint of Theresa May to the reader.
On the Daily Mirror's front page, a similar contempt for the Prime Minister is visible, even more obviously here. The Daily Mirror have also picked an unflattering image of her to show, same as The Times did. It is a low-angle shot of May, which makes her seem looked down upon and small. The picture has also been taken at a point in which she looks confused and unsure, akin to The Times' image of her. However unlike the broadsheet's front page, the Daily Mirror have made this image very small and put it in the right corner, making her seem somewhat irrelevant and unimportant.
The tabloid's front page also shares a very negative lexis in it's limited body text, and even the headline, which see's the word "AGAIN" used once again, to push their ideology that Theresa May is incompetent.
There is considerably less words and reading to be done on this front page however, likely to the nature of it being a tabloid. The attempt has clearly been made to lure the reader in with this negative headline and brief paragraph of writing - encouraging them to open the paper to read more or buy it. It is here where they will read more of the paper's ideology. However The Times has arguably benefited from being a broadsheet and included what looks like an entire article on the front page. This would intrigue any reader who has seen the headline, and wants to read what has to be said about their Prime Minister, as the article is right in front of them.
Both of the papers have used enigma codes on the front pages, by suggesting in their headlines that Theresa May is in a bad situation or has made another mistake. The main images also don't show what exactly they are talking about, as they only show the image of her looking unprofessional. Therefore the producers have succeeded in constructing a negative representation of her, and also in gaining the reader's interest, as they will now want to pick up the paper to read about what May has done wrong, likely now believing the forced ideology.
Both front pages also contains pullouts on Cheltham Fesitval, although the Daily Mirror's is much large and more focused, with bigger and bolder text to advertise it. The Times' is a much smaller one at the bottom on a skyline. This shows the tabloids' ideology is more based around money, and they will likely expect their reading audience to be interested in this as well.
Overall, it can be strongly assumed that both of these newspapers share more or less the same ideology - that Theresa May is not a good country leader and has failed time and time again, and none of us should like or trust her in power. They both want to construct this reality on their front pages, in an attempt to change their readers' minds. However it is obvious that this bias has been constructed very forcefully, as the main images used have clearly been picked from particularly awkward moments or scenes where she naturally doesn't (and arguably shouldn't in The Times' pick) look fully motivated and on top performance. Little to no positivity is used in the body text, and negative lexis and the constant repetition of "again" is used by both papers in order to miss out any positive aspects and imply repeatedly that she has already made these mistakes in the past, despite not providing any citations. The newspapers are determined to construct a seemingly dramatised reality of Theresa May and her failures.
2a. A conglomeration is a media business/company who have acquired multiple smaller companies, perhaps some working on different levels like marketing or distribution.
2b. One issue of conglomeration is that these large companies tend to dominate the market, not giving other media producers in the same field a chance to get their media noticed or as popular. A second issue is the power these conglomerations obtain by owning other companies. It results in them being able to force their own ideology on a large scale in various media products. This can result in a lack of imagination, originality or different viewpoints in the general media. The power can also mean conglomerations can work their way around things like regulation.
2c. Regulation in the newspaper industry has varying degrees of effectiveness. For example, whilst any newspaper is allowed to express their own ideology and show what they want, there is a limit to this. A regulation company like IPSO can limit their bias if it goes beyond their standards, or if something shown in the paper breaches human rights. However they do not always succeed in this. Once, the Daily Mirror showed an article containing and about selfies of multiple young, some half-naked, women in their bedrooms. This was viewed as an irresponsible article which was not only extremely biased but damaging to the women's privacy and rights. Whilst this article did get printed and got past the regulations, it was followed up on and has become a talking point. So although IPSO and their regulations are mostly applied on a regular basis, like most regulations they aren't too hard to breach and as a result a lot of newspapers occasionally will, and to limited consequence.