Revision - Component1b - Newspapers

Question

How do specific processes of production, distribution and circulation shape The Times and The Mirror?

Facts

• The Times

• Owned by News UK, a subsidiary of News International, an enormous media conglomerate.

• Long established, a British institution est. 1785

• Sister Paper: The Sunday Times

• Circulation 2019: 417,298 a day

• Compact format, easier to read

• Vertically integrated industry

• Currently £1.80

• Daily newspaper

• Right wing

• Middle class, older audience

• The Daily Mirror

• Tabloid Newspaper/Redtop

• Working class audience

• Owned by Reach PLC (Previously Trinity Mirror)

• Founded in 1903

• Circulation 587,803 a day (2017)

• Sister Paper: Sunday Mirror

• Reach also publishes a range of local newspapers - diversification

• "The intelligent tabloid. "hashtagmadeuthink"

• Cover price 80p

• Both newspapers

• Produced daily

• Extremely short production cycle, meaning more emphasis on quantity rather than quality.

• Examples of a highly specialised industry

• Hierarchal structure with editors, journalists, designers and printers

• Tend to be owned by massive multinational corporations, with an interest in profit and power

Underline

How do specific processes of production, distribution and circulation shape The Times and The Mirror?

Knee-Jerk

Both newspapers target a mass audience and want a mass circulation.

Plan

• The Times

• Advert for "first class train journey London to Budapest" £3k holiday: newspapers make money through advertising revenue. Reach of advertising is vast!

• Article: opinion editorial on Gin and Tonic "speaking to: Unto power of a nice G&T"

• Page three: soft news: cricket: middle class sport

• Kidney Beans vs Lentils: very soft story! Demonstrates a middle class mass audience.

• Big focus on Brexit and british politics, demonstrating its newsworthiness to the mass target audience. An industry driven by power, profit and money.

• Average level of reading comprehension for the Times is 15 years old. Slightly above national average demonstrating a middle class audience.

• The Daily Mirror

• Mcdonalds advert on the front page, promotion of gambling.

• Double Page image splash of a model of Theresa May skewering someone with her nose demonstrates an anti-right wing ideology.

• Jordan Pickford story is bigger and more easy to read on the front page than it is on The Times looking like it is more appealing to working class that someone got in a bar fight compared to in The Times.

• "Tips for a good night's sleep": soft news, and appealing to a mass audience. Cyclical, reoccurring news story.

• Front page skyline on Mick Jagger suggest a need to cater for a mass audience.

• 80% of sports coverage devoted to football. Football is hegemonic-ally established as Britain's national sport. A need to appeal to a mass audience.

• Use of slang and informal lexis.

• Level of reading comprehension: approximately 9 years old, the average reading age for the UK!