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