Newspapers: Daily Mail case study


Daily Mail analysis: Friday 21 September

Use your notes from the lesson to answer the following questions.

1) What are the front page stories on the 21 September edition of the Daily Mail?
Meghan Markle and her mum being part of the royal family and an angry Theresa May ready to walk away from negotiations.
2) From your analysis in class, what other stories and topics are covered in this edition of the Daily Mail? You should address the following pages:

  • Page 3- Keely from 'Bodyguard' an old series, appealing to older females as it reminds them of the past, also encourages them to feel better about themselves
  • Page 5- Soft news about celebrity divorce, soft news on BMW drivers and road safety
  • Pages 6-7- Hard news on politics, places Theresa May as a victim 'They are behaving like Bullies'
  • Page 10- Outlining issues with NHS, placing blame on young doctors, appeals to older audience, encouraging right wing approach.
  • Pages 12-13- Royal Family based, positive imagery, positive representation of black people, empowering for women 'we make things happen'

3) Media language: Write an analysis of the construction of the Daily Mail homepage: Page design, font, text, images, conventions, hard news/soft news, news values etc.
  • Serif Font- Traditional font used on broadsheet newspapers.
  • Royal Crest on master head - pro conservative and mid market
  • Two black woman seen on the front cover on Daily Mail which isn't usually seen

4) Narrative: How is narrative used in this edition of the Daily Mail? Look at the selection of news: is there an ongoing narrative? How is narrative created by the paper to engage an audience?
The story with the royal family shows how the views of the Daily Mail have changed over time as they feature a positive presentation of black woman in the section with Meghan Markle and her mother. The Daily Mail still show a large amount of support for the royal family as they have in the past as they feature many news stories around them.

5) Representations: Are any stereotypes reinforced? Is the audience positioned to respond to the stories in a certain way? You should focus on the Brexit and NHS stories (front page, p6-7, p10) as a minimum here.
The Daily Mail reinforces its right-wing ideologies in the Brexit story in the way they presented Theresa May's as a In the Brexit story, Daily Mail reinforces its right-wing ideologies in the story as they have presented Theresa May as a victim in the struggling negotiations for the Brexit deal. In the NHS story the Daily Mail reinforces the stereotypes of the NHS being disorganised and lacking sympathy towards their patients showing their right-wing ideology.

Add additional notes from class here for future revision. Remember, you will need to write in detail about specific stories from this edition of the Daily Mail and how these stories are constructed to appeal to the Daily Mail readership.


Factsheet 175 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 1)

Read Media Factsheet 175: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 1) and complete the following questions/tasks. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

1) What is the history of the Daily Mail?
The Daily Mail was established by Alfred Harmsworth in 1896. It was aimed working class citizens.

2) What news content features in the Daily Mail?
The Daily Mail uses a lot of content including cheap advertising, aggressive marketing and independence from part political control.

3) What is the Daily Mail’s mode of address? 
The Daily Mail have a dominant readership of adults aged 65+ in the demographic group ABC1(C2).

4) What techniques of persuasion does the Daily Mail use to attract and retain readers?
A method used by the Daily Mail is the use of subtle techniques of persuasion of the audience agreeing with a certain ideology. They attempt to stir the emotions of the consumer to make them identify with the ideologies it reinforces . These techniques are split into 3 areas: Practical, Emotional, Associations.Bribery, newness (being new, or new and improved); longevity, ease of use, inexpensive and luxury. Emotional techniques include: exaggeration or hyperbole, repetition, comforting and humour. Associations include: celebrity endorsement and experts.

5) What is the Daily Mail’s editorial stance?
The Mail's political stance is traditionally Conservative.

6) Read this YouGov article on British newspapers and their political stance. Where does the Daily Mail fit in the overall picture of UK newspapers? 
The Daily Mail identified itself as being right-wing newspaper. 44% of Brits also described the Daily Mail as very-right wing.

7) What is the Daily Mail’s view of the BBC? What are the possible reasons for this?
The Daily Mail is usually critical of the BBC, as they believe it is very biased towards the lef.

Factsheet 177 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 2)

Now read Media Factsheet 177: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 2) and complete the following questions/tasks.

1) How did the launch of the Daily Mail change the UK newspaper industry?
The Daily Mail created the idea of having "shorter, bite-sized" articles in magazine-style digests. This allowed articles to remain shorter and be more spaced out on the entire page; making them easier to read and creating the sense of "endless scroll".

2) What is the inverted pyramid of journalism and why was it important in the way the Daily Mail presented news?
There are various benefits to this style of writing:
  • Allows the reader to consume information quicker
  • Front-loading each paragraph makes skim-reading easier, making it easy for the reader to get a quick overview/understanding of the article
  • Readers can quickly decide whether an article interests them or not within the first paragraph
  • The key information is covered early on, so if the reader doesn’t finish the article they will leave with the reporter’s main point


3) What company owns the Daily Mail? What other newspapers, websites and brands do they own?

 The Daily Mail is owned by the DMGT (Daily Mail and General Trust PLC). They own brands such as:

  • The Daily Mail
  • Mail on Sunday
  • Mail Online and Mail Plus
  • Metro and Metro.co.uk
  • Mail Today and Mail Travel
  • Wowcher
  • Jobsite
  • This is money.
4) Between 1992 and 2018 the Daily Mail editor was Paul Dacre. What does the extract from Dacre’s speech on the freedom of the press tell us about his ideological position?
He believes that the press should not be regulated.'Since time immemorial public shaming has been a vital element in defending the parameters of what are considered acceptable standards of social behaviour, helping ensure that citizens – rich and poor – adhere to them for the good of the greater community. For hundreds of years, the press has played a role in that process.' From this we can see that he believes the press shouldn't be regulated for the greater good of the public despite the risk of peoples privacy being invaded.

 5) What is Dacre’s view on BBC news?
Dacre believes that the BBC is too powerful as it "has crippled commercial radio, is destroying the free market for internet newspapers". "It is destroying media plurality in  Britain and in its place imposing a liberal, leftish, mono culture that is destroying free and open debate in Britain."

6) Look at the right-hand side of page 4. Why is the editor of a newspaper so important?
Editors are able to effect the public decision depending on what they publish in terms of politics. 'Adams noticed that the Daily Mail’s usual cover topics (the NHS and health tourism, political scandal, waste of foreign aid, terrorist threats) were superseded by the fear of mass immigration should Remain win.'

7) Why did Guardian journalist Tim Adams describe Dacre as the most dangerous man in Britain? What example stories does Adams refer to?
8) How does the Daily Mail cover the issue of immigration? What representations are created in this coverage?
They are extremely against immigration and tend to demonise refugees and immigrants by describing them as "rapists and thugs". They address it as a social issue rather than something we have to work with and accommodate with compassion.

9) How did the Daily Mail cover the murder of MP Jo Cox?
They blamed the murder on a 'one legged albanian' despite that not being the case. This shows the way how they demonise immigrants. The fact the felt the need to include his original natioality shows how they have a "them against us" approach in terms of immigration.

 10) What was Dacre’s position on Brexit?
He wanted to leave the EU and to have a "hard brexit".

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Media regulation: blog task

1) What is regulation and why do media industries need to be regulated? 2) What is OFCOM responsible for? 3) Look at the section on the OFCOM broadcasting code. Which do you think are the three most important sections of the broadcasting code and why? 4) Do you agree with OFCOM that Channel 4 was wrong to broadcast 'Wolverine' at 6.55pm on a Sunday evening? Why? 5) List five of the sections in the old Press Complaints Commission's Code of Practice.  6) Why was the Press Complaints Commission criticised? 7) What was the Leveson enquiry and why was it set up? 8) What was the PCC replaced with in 2014? 9) What is your opinion on press regulation? Is a free press an important part of living in a democracy or should newspapers face statutory regulation like TV and radio? 10) Why is the internet so difficult to regulate? ) Regulation is what media companies are allowed to display on TV & Cinema and make sure that industries operate "fairly." It is needed as it
Read more

Narrative

Image
1) Give an example from film or television that uses Todorov's narrative structure of equilibrium, disequilibrium and new equilibrium.  Above is the movie "The Matrix" and I believe is uses Todorov's narrative structure of equilibrium as the protagonist lives a normal life at the start of the movie. However he then suffers from various nightmares and finds out why they occur. He is then given a choice if he wants to partake in an ongoing war or go back to normal life. He chooses to take part, which is the disequilibrium.   2) Complete the activity on page 1 of the Factsheet: find a  clip  on YouTube of the opening of a new TV drama series (season 1, episode 1). Embed the clip in your blog and write an analysis of the narrative markers that help establish setting, character and plot. 3) Provide  three  different examples from film or television of characters that fit Propp's hero character role. Iron Man- "Iron Man 1, 2 & 3" Batman- "T
Read more

Advertising: Persuasive techniques blog task

Create a new blog post called 'Advertising: Persuasive techniques'. Read ‘Marketing Marmite in the Postmodern age’ in MM54  (p62). You'll find  our Media Magazine archive here . Answer the following questions on your blog: 1) What does John Berger suggest about advertising in ‘Ways of Seeing’? "All publicity works on anxiety" "Advertising offers us an improved version of ourselves whether we are male or female. Publicity is always about the future buyer. It offers him or her an image of themselves made glamorous by the product or opportunity it is trying to sell."  2) What is it psychologists refer to as referencing? Which persuasive techniques could you link this idea to? 3) How was Marmite discovered? A German scientist discovered that brewers yeast could be concentrated, bottled and eaten. 4) Who owns the Marmite brand now? Unilever 5) How has Marmite marketing used intertextuality? Which of the persuasive techniques we’ve learned can this be li
Read more