Wednesday, 19 January 2022

Audience positioning and the newspaper industry - U block


Explore the ways in which audiences are positioned by this front page of The Daily Mirror


Make reference to:
  • Anchorage
  • Lexis
  • Layout
  • Technical codes
  • Language codes
  • Bias

Informal language, eg 'porkie pie', cockney rhyming slang, appeals to working class target audience

Directly accuses the UK PM of lying, suggesting a left-wing ideology

Clearly against the ideologies demonstated by the PM, "plot to ditch PM"

Use of informal lexis makes heavy use of assumptions, for exacmple the acronym BGT insead of Britains Got Talent suggests a familiarity with the typically working class TV show

A binary opposition is constructed between images of sterotpyically attractive and powerful women, and the weak, cowardly and potentially incompetant PM

Image of Johnson looks concerned and cowardly, which suggests bias by selection on behalf of the newspaper

The use of the colour red is symbolic of danger, warning and excitment which suggests to the working class audience that the newspaper will contain scandalous and exciteing content 

Johnson dominates the front page, which suggests that the newspaper is prely focusing on negative elements surrounding the PM 

Condesending mode of address. The producer is taking a clearly complex issue, and is "dumbing it down" by reductin g tit to a funny joke involving a prok pie. Attemping to make a complex issue comprehensible for a less infomred audience.

A highly sterotypical positioning of the working class target audience 

By constantly using simple language to communicate with their working class audience, The Daily Mirrir may be creating a less educated audience reliant of the Mirror for their news. 

Can this allow the paper to control their audience? Is the biggest threat to the uber rich the working class?

Marxist theory: those in power use their power to keep the rich rich and the poor poor