P1 News

 Monday 28th March

What is News?

L/O: To explore the nature and ownership of the news industry

You will be asked 5 questions about the following:

-Online, social and participatory news (The Observer/Guardian)

-Media language, representations, industries, audiences and contexts

-Print newspapers

-Media language, representations, industries and contexts

What is the purpose of news?

-Notify people around the world about recent events.

-Advertise products/promote events

-Sporting news/events before the game e.g. world cup fixtures

News sources

-Social media e.g. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc.

-Radio e.g. Radio 1, PirateFM, Heart (trustworthy)

-The news on TV e.g. Good Morning Britain, ITV South West Country News

1. The reason for Stephens saying this is because it use to be a thing where everyone would work together gathering news so everyone working for the news would be approaching lots of random people for information about the news. It shows that news is also a lot about making money as everything is now a days. My reason for saying this is instead of all being apart of one news community, there is several different news stations because it makes them more money.

2. One reason for being able to show news everywhere around the world was the printed evidence such as newspapers because it is the best way instead of letting everyone pass around news which everyone will have a different version of.

3. The reason for this being the best thing about the news is brining everyone together with everyone and anyone having a role in the news of the world. It is something that everyone is interested in in some shape or form; for example, a teenager isn't usually going to be interested in watching the news on TV but if it is about a celebrity they know on social media, that catches their attention and gets them intrigued.

-In the 1960's news were beginning to urn into competition rather than one big community sharing news. It was up against television

-By 1965, circulation of Sunday newspapers had fallen to 25 million.

-The Times, for example, continued to fill its front page with classified advertising until 1966. 

-Broadsheet and tabloid are still used today

Tabloid:

-The Sun

-The Daily Star

The Mirror

Broadsheet:

-The Guardian

-The Observer

Hybrid:

-The Daily Mail

-The Daily Express

Ownership

-In the UK, there are only 3 ownership models (media barons, trusts, cross-media converged conglomerates)

-Newspapers are NOT PSB (like the BBC) they are commercial publications. 

-One three quarters (77.8%) of the British press is owned by a handful of billionaires. Over a quarter (27.3%) of the press is owned by Lord Rothermere and 24.9% by Rupert Murdoch- between them these two men have over 50% of the printed press.

-Newspapers and their online publications (example of synergy/convergence) are not legally obliged to provide an un-bias public information service. 

Mail- 39%, owned by DMGT

Sun, Times- 28%, owned by Rupert Murdoch

Star, Express* Mirror, People, Daily Record*- 16%, owned by MGN LTD

Telegraph- 5%, owned by Telegraph Media Group

Guardian, Observer- 2%, owned by Guardian Media Group 

Financial Times- 2%, owned by Nikkei

Monday 25th April

News case study

Media Language

-The ability to analyse the use of media language and the connotations.

-The generic conventions of broadsheets or quality print newspapers.

-The ability to analyse how these conventions are used by the Observer.

-How the versions of the Observer use the advantages of print and online technology.

-The ability to analyse the use of intertextuality in the Observer print prints and online, e.g in headlines

Representations

-Why and how the Observer selects and constructs representations to reflect journalistic ethics and the liberal messages.

-The ability to analyse the use of stereotypes and counter-stereotypes in the Observer and how far it counters historic inequalities in the representations of different social groups.

-Themes, e.g. politics, hard news, lifestyle, culture, sports expressed in the representations.

-Ideologies, e.g. liberalism, internationalism, patriarchy/anti-sexism, racism/anti-racism, expressed in the representations. 

-How representations are influenced by contexts such as current political debates and movements or social/cultural context such as consumerism, celebrity culture, multiculturalism, and changing attitudes towards genders and sexuality.

-Who owns The Guardian/Observer?

Scott trust limited

-What political stance do they have?

Left wing

-How are they regulated?

Self-regulated

-How do they make money?

Advertisements

-They don't have a PAYWALL for their online publications, instead they have a subscription/voluntary donation system - why do you think this is?

?

Print Observers readers are very equally spread between male and female, about 50-50. They live mostly in London and in the South (53%). These readers see ads which makes the money. 

Monthly UK online Observer are slightly more male than female (55%:45%)- the male majority is common in news content.

Who is the target audience?

The Observer target audience are people based in London and in the South, the target audience in terms of gender is tight but there is more men than women in the industry (55%:45%). 

1) Define what 'convergence' means 

The process or state of converging

2) Explain how it applies to the Observer

Convergence applies to the Observer because it operates online and on a paper (physical and non-physical copies)

3) Explain how digital convergence helps the Observer appeal to a wider audience

Most people now a days will get their news through the internet e.g. phones, computers, access anywhere etc.

Monday 9th May

Media Language

-Quote

-Bias towards the left.

-Mentions of foreign leaders; for example, Donald Trump

Monday 16th May

Historical Case Studies

1960s issues:

-Vietnam war 

-Protests (civil rights, Vietnam war, etc)

-Jackie Kennedy remarrying after JFK's death

-68 people killed in an Italian flood

In the 1960s, newspaper was already receiving a bit of competition that would most likely take over and become more popular leading to many papers going out of business. For example, televisions were becoming more and more popular and being more and more common which lead to people spending their time watching things instead of reading the news. The peak of newspapers was the early 50's and has never gotten more popular since and has only gone down. By 1965,  circulation of Sunday newspapers had fallen to 25 million (around 1.4 newspapers per household (use to be 2 per household), therefore showing people bought more than one paper per household. 

In comparison, papers in the 1960s were bias towards their favourite party and would big them up and belittle the other parties they did not like. In the 2010s, political bias was the exact same in the big papers such as The Mirror, The Times, Daily Express, Daily Telegraph and The Guardian; a reason for this could be that these newspapers are very loyal to their political party of choice.

Newspapers in the 1960s

Newspapers in the 1960s were beginning to be judged on its size as some newspapers were massive compared to others. All of the biggest newspapers such as The Observer were printed in the broadsheet format, whereas smaller newspapers such as The Sun were in the form of a tabloid format (The Sun went tabloid in 1969). Broadsheet newspapers were dominated by a news agenda, with not very much self-promotion on the front covers so they can attract readers. The Times, for example, continued to use self-promotion all over their front cover. 

'Briton shoots a gold' is based on a story where a veterinarian surgeon won a gold medal for clay pigeon shooting at the Mexican olympics. The difference with this is now a days, you would not see a normal every day person at the olympics because you have these olympians that train all day everyday day and are on a completely different level to other people. The use of a personification in the quote almost comes across as a pun as well as it is similar to a play on words.