Mediatique Essay

Using the Mediatique report as your evidence base, how is online technology affecting UK national newspapers.

The Mediatique report was commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to investigate the state of the press market In this report, it considers the state of the market across local, regional and national titles to give a broad overview of business models, major player, frequency and means of publication, circulation and readership. This informs a detailed analysis of current trends, the challenges faced by publishers and the range of actions that publishers have taken in response to sustained threats to the industry.

The press industry has been under sustained threat for the past decade. Circulation has been under pressure for 20 years and the declines have accelerated in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2007, total print advertising expenditure totalled over 4.6bn and net circulation revenue 2.2bn, meaning today's aggregate advertising expenditure and net circulation figures  equate to about half of their 2007 value, demonstrating the remarkably heavy losses sustained by newspaper groups on both fronts from declines in readership.

The cause of these changes is due to the advances in technological innovation, the access to these devices, particularly among younger demographics, with just 14% of 16-24 year olds report using newspapers for news, compared to 63% using the internet, where competition is much greater, content is readily available and generally free and there is a much lower propensity to pay.

This new rise in the use of the internet and mobile, specifically search and social platforms such as Facebook and Google, and the growth in digital more generally, have hit newspapers, its very important to speculate that considering the younger demographic is growing up without the newspaper dynamic, it may become relevant that newspapers will begin to die out as the new generations have minimal exposure due to the resolution of technology.

Newspaper groups have attempted to counteract revenue declines with a range of strategic responses, including scale-building, cost-cutting and diversification. The press industry, and in particular the local and regional press, has a consequence witnessed a period of significant consolidation. Consolidated groups can use scale to compete more efficiently by spreading overhead costs and investigating strategically. Margins have reduced markedly (from in excess of 30% for some local and regional groups prior to the 2008 recession to margins in the teens at best for most of those titles that are today in profit) many other titles - e.g. The Guardian and a number of local and regional titles in less populous areas -  make a financial loss.

The reasons for this are as follows: there is a low propensity amongst consumers to pay for news online; newsbrands' audience are worth a premium to advertisers (thus constraining  digital advertising); and finally, the scale of the competition for eyeballs and attention is vastly greater, meaning news content from publishers must compete with huge amounts of other material.

To conclude we will talk about the conclusions made in the Mediatique Report. The Report's analysis has identified serious threats and structural challenges facing the newspaper industry, as increasing amounts of people engage with online content, leading to a greater array of information for the consumers who chose to view online. As a result consumption habits have shifted away from the printed press and towards greater online engagement where the economics of news gathering and monetisation of audiences are more challenging. These habits will persist and deepen, as younger connected cohorts grow older.

The History of the Internet

CERN
CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research. Its one of the worlds largest and most respected centres for scientific research.

Tim Berners-Lee
Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, while working at CERN. The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world.

Web 1.0
Web 1.0 refers to the first stage in the World Wide Web, which was entirely made up of web pages connected by hyperlinks. Although the exact definition of Web 1.0 is a source of debate, it is generally believed to refer to the web when it was a set of static websites that were not yet providing interactive content.

Web 2.0
Web 2.0 is the name used to describe the second generation of the world wide web, where it moved static HTML pages to a more interactive and dynamic web experience. Web 2.0 is focused o the ability for people to collaborate and share information online via social media, blogging and web-based communities.

Social Media

YouTube - In 2005, three PayPal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, decided it was time for them to branch out.

Their original concept was a dating website called "Tune In", Hook Up", which allowed users to post videos of themselves for others to view and decide whether or not to "hook up" with them.
Sadly, no one was willing to make use of the service and the concept failed.

Fortunately, the platform's video uploading and posting technology was sound, and when the group had a discussion about how hard it was to find a video online of Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction", during the 2004 Superbowl Halftime show, a concept began to form.

Realising that a user-friendly video sharing platform did not currently exist, the team sprung into action, and on February 14th 2005, the name of Tune In, Hook Up" was changed to "YouTube" and an internet phenomenon was born.

Facebook -

Instagram - 

Snapchat -

Extension Questions

1) Self-regulation is mentioned in this section. Research 'The Leveson Inquiry' and find out what changes this lead to in regulation of the press in the UK. Are the Daily Mail and The Guardian subject to regulation?

• The Leveson Inquiry was a jusge-led inquiry set up by Prime Minister David Cameron to examine the culture, practice and ethics of the press. It was established in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the now-defunct News of the World tabloid. Lord Justice Leveson has made recommendations on the future of press regulation.
• It looked at the relationship between the press and the public, including phone-hacking and other potentially illegal behaviour, and at the relationships between the press and the politicians.
• 'Very powerful relationships' between politicians and newspapers proprietors which are 'more subtle' than 'explicit'

2) On page 21 we are told that "The Daily Mail, in Hall's terms" provides a "more dominant representation of events" whereas The Guardian provides "a more negotiated representation of events". The Hall referred to here is Stuart Hall. He asserts that media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended. Research Stuart Hall's Audience Reception Theory and explain the 3 positions an audience can take when decoding a text.

Preferred Reading: The preferred reading is when audiences respond to the product the way the media producers want/ expect them to.

Negotiated Reading: This is when a member of the audience partly agrees with part of the product e.g. film, documentary, TV programme.

Oppositional Reading: This is when the audience are in complete disagreement with the product's message or setting.

3) On page 21 we are told that "news stories are constant disruptions of Todarov's narrative equilibrium".  Research Tzvetan Todarov's theory of narrative - explain this in ts simplest form.

Realism and Constructing Reality Questions

1. What is the difference between news and editorial?
News is traditionally separated from editorial, news being factual, and editorial being opinion. Both should be clearly demarcated from advertising. These boundaries are established by journalistic and editorial practice and professional ethics, by self-regulation, and by the laws of libel (which mean that a newspaper has to prove the facts to be true to successfully defend a libel case).

2. How do the Daily Mail and The Guardian aim to maintain the boundary between journalism and advertising?
Its easier to maintain these standards in the quality national press, where audiences are paying for high-quality journalism. In lower-status newspapers, such as local newspapers, advertising can more easily succeed in their aim to blur the boundary between journalism may simply be persuasive content from media relations and public relations personnel. The Daily Mail and the Guardian, by contrast, would aim to maintain that boundary by attributing sources and clearly labelling advertising or sponsored material.

3. Summarise in 7 bullet points the version of reality that is constructed by the Daily Mail.

• Many problems are caused by the ruling liberal elites and the nanny state.
• Problems are best solved by allowing the free market to operate and minimising bureaucratic interference.
• We should look after our own people before we look after foreigners.
• Ordinary people are rightly proud to be British.
• We should respect great British institutions such as the monarchy.
• Catching criminals is more important than protecting human rights.
• Brexit is a fantastic opportunity.

4. Summarise in 7 bullet points the version of reality that is constructed by The Guardian.

• Many problems are caused by uncontrolled free markets.
• Problems are best solved by public control in the public interest.
• As a rich country we have a duty to help others in the world.
• Some patriotism is associated with zenophobia and racism; we should be both internationalist and proud to be British.
• We should recognise where institutions need to improve.
• Protecting human rights is the cornerstone of a free society.
• Brexit is a disaster.

5. Which of the Daily Mail and The Guardian represents a more definite world and which represents a more questioned world? What do you think this means?
The two newspapers differ in how definite they are about their version of reality. Looking again at the two tweets on page 19, it is clear that the Mail tweet is trying to represent an unproblematical version of reality whereas the Guardian tweet suggests there is a problem caused by a difference between the image and the reality. Though both newspapers have their own moral certainties, the Daily Mail represents a more definite world, the Guardian a more questioned world. As we shall see later, this may be because the Daily Mail in Hall's terms, is providing a more-dominant representation of vents, one that accepts aspects of how society is organised and criticises other aspects.

6. What is the narrative equilibrium and how is narrative important in the construction of reality?
Narrative, is important in the construction of reality. The world of 'spin doctors', for example, is to create a suitable narrative around news events. News stories are constant disruptions of Todarov's narrative equilibrium in that most news stories are 'bad news' - a disruption of the previous state of affairs and a drive towards a restoration of a new equilibrium. Like dramatic narratives, a good story will keep the audience wanting resolution by at first delaying it, creating desire in the audience to know what happens next, then giving them resolution (e.g. will climate changed be remedied?) and are inherently less satisfactory. Examples of much more satisfactory resolutions include stories about people falling down wells when the narrative is resolved by a successful rescue. For example a news story about a bay who was rescued after 58 hours trapped in a well in 1987 was famous enough to be revisited by the Mail Online in 2017 in an article about 'baby Jessica' from the 'miracle rescue' 30 years on.

How far has the genre influenced the media language used in sources A and B?

Genre has a huge influence upon the media and the way its portrayed. The two types of newspaper genre are Tabloid and Broadsheet. Now almost all newspapers adopt a tabloid sizing, as its deemed easier to read, the original generic conventions of either a tabloid newspaper or broadsheet.

Tabloid newspapers, this type of newspaper has as downmarket or commonly working class target audience. Due to its specific target audience the newspaper has been designed very differently to a broadsheet newspaper. Tabloid newspapers tend to encompass a softer news agenda, talking mainly about human issue stories or celebrities, it also contains a less formal language register, using simple common dialect, the mastheads is bold, often red on white, similarly the headlines are bold and capitalised, all text is written in sans-serif font. The pages are usually dominated by headlines and images.

Broadsheet newspapers, this type of newspaper has as upmarket or commonly middle class target audience. Due to its specific target audience the newspaper has been designed very differently to a tabloid newspaper. Broadsheet newspapers tend to encompass a much harder news agenda, including politics, finance and international news, it also contains a much more formal language register, using a more extensive, complex dialect, the mastheads often black on white, while the headlines are capitalised as in a sentence, all text is written in serif font. The pages are usually dominated by copy.

Looking at the tabloid newspaper first, the Daily Mail, this is a middle-market tabloid as apposed to a red top tabloid. It finds its own characteristics a blend of both tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in the middle of both set of conventions. We see a cover with a 50/50 split between copy and image a balance between tabloid and broadsheet conventions. Capitalised but lack of extreme formal or informal language, it finds the median between both alternatives. This enforces that the genre is of a tabloid, however a slightly higher market than red top tabloids, reinforcing the belief that it is a middle market tabloid newspaper. The type of language used in the newspaper has a lack or formality, however remains stereotypically informal (swearing/ obtuse language) this reinforces the representation of it being a stereotypical middle-market tabloid.

Upon analysis of the Guardian, we can see its a typical broadsheet genre newspaper. as apposed to a tabloid. It finds its own characteristics with the original broadsheet newspapers conventions. However this issue of the Guardian is less typical and appears to have been hybridised, aside form the masthead being white on blue which is the Guardians own original convention we see a cover dominated with image, which is not stereotypical of broadsheet. There is also a short headline, however the cover conforms to the conventions of a broadsheet with the lower case of the headline and the use of serif font. This reinstates that the genre is of a a broadsheet, however the conventions are being changed in this issue. This could be an overall change in hybridising the newspaper and breaking conventions as to being marketable to a larger target audience. By appealing to more people they may gain a larger viewership and then increase profit and influence. Or this may be a special one off edition as to emphasise the situation thats being reported.

To conclude both newspapers are in some way influenced by the genres and conventions that have been set however, many conventions are being broken and altered to appeal to a larger amount of people. This change is a way of hybridising the magazine however, it is clear that set conventions still show and this may be permanent no matter how much change is seen with the newspapers.

The Times Newspaper

Ownership

Since 1981, the owner of The Times newspaper has been Rupert Murdoch, until present. The conglomerate of News Corp, founded by Rupert Murdoch has the ownership of many companies and has a worldwide reach. News UK 

Audience

The demographic of the audience is businessmen. 

• The Times is Britain's oldest daily newspapers, reaching a unique demographic of business people
• Achieved record subscriptions at over 413,000 and has returned to profit

The Big Issue - Cover Comparison (Romesh) & (LEGO)

How do the Romesh and Lego construct representations which reflect The Big Issue's identity and values?

The Big Issue is commonly know among many for having a strong social conscience, they like to talk about social issues and appear to care about attempting to aid issues in society. Both of these cover appear to be relative to social issues. The Romesh cover is clearly concentrating on the common issues surrounding debt and financial troubles, the negative topic is juxtaposed with the use of Romesh and a comical cartoon-ish theme lighten the mood and make it appear to be a less harrowing read, encouraging more people to purchase the issue. Similarly, the Lego cover is concentrating on how many perceive the increasing use of mobiles as a solely negative thing. The Big Issues is attempting to educate many that it may not be as negative as many think, not only this but there can be many positive outcomes from the use of phones. The Big Issue is attempting to educate the readers on something, once again highlighting its social conscience.

The Big Issue always includes it famous tagline of  'a hand up, not a hand out' the deep nature of this message hits hard for many people. Not only is this magazine produced for our benefit, entertainment and education but The Big Issue has never lost sight of its original purpose, to aid and support the homeless though providing jobs as vendors. They wish to motivate the homeless and including them into society and helping them move forward and be able to cope with the unfortunate circumstances that put them in those positions. The fact that this is still their main goal and other objectives has not taken priority is a huge sign of the social conscience that they stand for, it continues along the journey whilst simultaneously attempting to help not only the vendors, but the readers by educating them on a wide variety of matters.