Assessment – Leila
Plan for question one
• Talk about how they construct Teresa May to be a bad leader in the mirror, and a good leader in the times (symbolic coding and anchorage)
• Talk about assumptions made about the audience and how they represent their readers via lexis, mastheads etc
• Talk about how the blame (statistics)
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.
Plan for question one
• Talk about how they construct Teresa May to be a bad leader in the mirror, and a good leader in the times (symbolic coding and anchorage)
• Talk about assumptions made about the audience and how they represent their readers via lexis, mastheads etc
• Talk about how the blame (statistics)
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.
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