Daily Mail and Mail Online CSP: Blog tasks
Daily Mail and Mail Online analysis
1) What are the most significant front page headlines seen in the Daily Mail in recent years?
-Britain leaving the EU
-stories related to Brexit
2) Ideology and audience: What ideologies are present in the Daily Mail? Is the audience positioned to respond to stories in a certain way?
2) Ideology and audience: What ideologies are present in the Daily Mail? Is the audience positioned to respond to stories in a certain way?
Explores the soft and hard news related to the UK which reflects the British culture, this is what intrigues the audience and has gained loyalty from
Now visit Mail Online and look at a few stories before answering these questions:
1) What are the top five stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news? Are there any examples of ‘clickbait’ can you find?
Kate Middleton's surprise farm shop trip piles more pressure on the Palace to update the nation on her recovery because aides' silence is just fuelling more conspiracy theories, warn experts
Cuckolded husband, 46, who put up with his wife's 'multiple affairs' finally snapped and punched her rugby-playing new lover
CBB's Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu throws Lorraine into CHAOS by pulling out of a live appearance at the last minute - after THAT car crash interview and claiming she was edited to look bad
Zendaya and Tom Holland enjoy a cute moment together as they sing along to Whitney Houston at BNP Paribas Open after quashing split rumours
Why you should never set out to marry rich: And I know because I live in a world full of wives who wish they hadn't!
A lot of these examples are soft news, it explores more gossip and drama and there are some hard news involed aswell butr mainly soft news
2) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?In hindsight, I believe they attempt to cover international or domestic news that reflects the requirements of the audience, which I believe reflects the beliefs and ideologies to a significant degree.
3) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: why is MailOnline the most-read English language newspaper website in the world? How does it keep you on the site?
It reflects Bluber and katz uses and gratifications as it has surveillance as it informing people of news and what is going on in Britain. there is also Diversion.
Factsheet 175 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 1)
1) What news content generally features in the Daily Mail?
2) What is the Daily Mail’s mode of address?
3) What techniques of persuasion does the Daily Mail use to attract and retain readers?
4) What is the Daily Mail’s editorial stance?
5) Read this brilliant YouGov article on British newspapers and their political stance. Where does the Daily Mail fit in the overall picture of UK newspapers?
1) What news content generally features in the Daily Mail?
The Daily Mail is a national tabloid middle market daily paper in the UK. This means that the paper includes a combination of serious journalism and entertainment, occupying the middle ground between broadsheets that cover hard news (The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian) and the more down-market sensationalist tabloid papers (The Sun, The Mirror). The Daily Mail and the Daily Express are the only middle market dailies, and are distinct from other tabloids with their black top mastheads as opposed to red top mastheads.
The mode of address is a method of creating a relationship between the addresser (producer) and the addressee (audience). For print media, we consider the use of textual features. It is influenced by the genre of the media product, so the way a real-life event (such as the 2013
Boston marathon bombing) is mediated for news media is different from the way the same event may be presented in a film version (such as Patriots Day, 2016 or Stronger, 2017). However, whatever the genre for the media product, a mode of address requires a fictional image of the preferred audience to be created by the producer (an assumed target audience stereotype).
As newspaper print circulation has decreased in the wake of digital media, it is vital that institutions maintain readership figures to maintain revenue streams (cover price/ advertising/
sponsorships). A method used by the Daily Mail is the use of techniques of persuasion to establish a consensus in line with the political and social ideologies. These techniques are subtle
and will attempt to stir the emotions of the consumer to prompt consensus. These techniques are split into 3 areas: Practical, Emotional, Associations
The Mail’s political stance is traditionally Conservative, having supported the party in all recent general elections. The paper is also known for criticism of the Labour party, and in particular the current leader Jeremy Corbyn (correct as of January 2018). So much so, that during the 2015 general election, The Daily Mail advocated readers in some constituencies to vote UKIP (as the main challenger to the Labour Party). The paper is often critical of the BBC, seeing it as an institution biased to the left. Other published pieces reveal a pro- Brexit, consumerist stance that supports traditional Britishness.
The Daily Mail is one of the most successful newspapers in the UK having made the transition to digital media effectively. It is important to consider how the paper and the digital service have integrated to meet the needs of the audience. The combination of simplistic language, news articles that reflect the values of the audience and the use of images (particularly online) offer the audience a product which is convenient and easy to consume.
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. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or online here (you'll need your Greenford Google login).
1) How did the launch of the Daily Mail change the UK newspaper industry?
2) What company owns the Daily Mail? What other newspapers, websites and brands do they own?
Now read Media Factsheet 177: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 2) and complete the following questions/tasks. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or online here (you'll need your Greenford Google login).
1) How did the launch of the Daily Mail change the UK newspaper industry?
Throughout the history of newspapers, technological developments have influenced the production processes. For example, in 1896 Harmsworth introduced new technologies into the production process. He raised revenue from carefully targeted marketing and developed national distribution on a larger scale than previously existed. The impact on the newspaper was seen in the way information was presented; the Daily Mail employed shorter bite-size boxes of
information see in the magazine-style digests, such as Tit-Bits (1881). This meant that news was presented in shorter articles with clear headlines.Technological developments allowed the Daily Mail to increase their volume of sales, and then offer an affordable cover price for the lower middle-class readership. The new layout appealed to this newly literate readership, but also to advertisers who provided a large chunk of the revenue.
The Daily Mail is owned by the British Media company DMGT (Daily Mail and General Trust plc) and “manages a balanced multinational portfolio of entrepreneurial companies, with total revenues of almost £1.5bn.” DMGT celebrates its links to the UK newspaper industry, and the Daily Mail brand online, which “attracts more readers around the world than any other English language newspaper website.” The company have also developed their B2B (business-to-business) information and from which they “derive more than half [their] revenues and two thirds of [their] profits.” This part of the DMGT business supplies “high-value data to the insurance, property, energy,education and finance sectors and operate highly successful large- scale events” The company operates in over forty countries globally, with the head office in Kensington, London. The leadership includes Lord Rothermere (Jonathan Harmsworth) as the Chairman and controlling shareholder of DGMT. Harmsworth is the fourth generation of his family to hold this position.
As editor, Dacre supported liberal politics covering student sit-ins, gay rights and drug
use. Also studying at Leeds during this time was Jack Straw (former Labour MP and Foreign Secretary), and Dacre wrote editorial pieces supporting Straw’s student sit-in protests. During his time as editor of Union News, Dacre introduced a pin-up section (Leeds Lovelies), instigated investigative pieces into the strip shows at local pubs, and achieved recognition from the Daily Mail after being named Student Newspaper of the Year. Dacre has said that “dull doesn’t sell newspapers” but rather that “sensation sells papers”. Dacre sees the success of editing a paper to be “firstly, the paper never, ever, forgot who its readers were and what interested them and their families. Secondly, it told everything through the prism of people.”
"Thirdly, something must be done about my favourite bête noire: the ever-growing ubiquity of the BBC. For make no mistake, we are witnessing the seemingly inexorable growth of what is effectively a dominant state-sponsored news service. The corporation has all but seen off ITV’s news services, both nationally and locally, has crippled commercial radio, is distorting the free market for internet newspapers and now, with its preposterous proposal for 65 ultra-local websites, is going for the jugular of the local newspaper industry. Lines must be drawn in the sand."
4) Why did Guardian journalist Tim Adams describe Dacre as the most dangerous man in Britain? What example stories does Adams refer to?
‘Is the editor of the Daily Mail the most dangerous man in Britain?’, Tim Adams, The Guardian, 14 May 2017 First there is a series of front pages about Britain’s “wide-open borders”. These stories are sparked by a coastguard’s interception of a boat of 18 Albanian asylum seekers off the coast at Dymchurch. It follows with the splash that the boat had been bought on eBay. The following day, by implication, we get an extrapolation of what this boat portends. The headline identifies “EU killers and rapists we’ve failed to deport” and details, in the manner of Trump and Mexico,
that “thousands of violent thugs and rapists from the EU are walking Britain’s streets”, a number “equivalent to a small town” flooding in through Kent. The following week, we have our first view of Magwitch himself, Avni Metra, 54, who is surprised at his flat in Borehamwood in the proximity of a kitchen knife, and apparently wanted for murder two decades ago in Tirana. He is not alone: there is also the “one- legged Albanian double killer” Saliman Barci in Northolt. Though Albania and Kosovo (where the killers claim to come from) are not members of the EU, and it is not clear how leaving will do anything to prevent their arrival in Britain, the implication is clear. Cameron and his remainers are bringing a townful of knife-wielding Albanian murderers to the home counties. The 2,500 reader comments under this story speak with one voice: “Get them out now and get us out now!”
Of the 23 weekdays before the referendum, the Mail led with this immigration narrative on 17 of them. One
exception was the grim morning of 17 June when Jo Cox’s murder made the front page. Her killer, Thomas
Mair, was not a one-legged Albanian. Mair was, of course, a violently extreme advocate of “Britain first”.
The Mail appeared anxious to relegate his shouted rage against the perceived evils of multicultural Britain
to a side-issue, however. He was, their report emphasised, just a “loner with a history of mental illness”.
The following day it reported that the police were investigating primarily not Mair’s far-right links in
the targeting of Jo Cox for her pro-immigration views, but failures in the social services that led to his
depression going untreated. (The Mail subsequently, in November, shamefully, reported news of Mair’s
conviction for the only murder of a sitting MP this century on page 29 of the paper, making the case that
his motivation appeared to be that “he feared losing his council house to an immigrant family”).
In all these months, if you read only the Mail, that idea of “people” against whom all these unpatriotic
forces were ranged appears to get narrower and narrower. They are essentially and always, “people
like us”. One of the most telling insights in Andrew Addison’s book answers the question of how almost
everyone in the Mail’s feature pages tends to look the same.
Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context
Finally, read Media Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context and complete the following questions/tasks. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets or online here (you'll need your Greenford Google login).
1) What do Curran and Seaton suggest regarding the newspaper industry and society?
Curran and Seaton consider the relationship of mass media power to society, and how control is exercised over the media. They then further this by considering the nature of power which is also exerted over the media. They argue that newspapers have to reflect the needs and desires (interests) of the reader in order to maintain circulation and readership. Curran and Seaton, taking a participatory approach, consider that anyone should be able to set up a newspaper and that newspapers should maintain a liberal ideology. They do, however, acknowledge that this does not always happen in practice; newspapers can be wielded as propaganda tools to influence readers. However, the assumption that anyone is free to establish a paper is an illusion because the press has been industrialised; ‘ordinary people’ would require substantial capital to establish a paper. The Internet has lowered these entry costs, however the “the list of the ten most-visited sites is dominated by large news organisations like BBC News, the Guardian, The Times, The Sun and Telegraph.” This would suggest that the individual may have the access to resources, but they will have difficulty reaching an audience without the power of the mass media industries.
As Curran notes, “it was only when newspapers acquired mass circulations that the position of proprietors underwent a fundamental change.” When, in 1896, the Daily Mail’s circulation reached
1 million then the national dailies gained a readership in the working classes. The growth of the press as a mass medium was accompanied by increased concentration of ownership. For example, in 1937 Viscount Rothermere (Daily Mail) Baron Beaverbrook (Daily Express) and Lord Kemsley (Daily Telegraph) controlled 45% of national daily circulation and 51% of provincial morning circulation.This gave them an aggregated readership of over 15 million people.
3) Why did the Daily Mail invest heavily in developing MailOnline in the 2000s?
The Daily Mail’s owner was all also too aware of this, and invested heavily in a digital content for the paper. MailOnline is now the most visited English-language website in the world, with approximately 15 million unique visitors to the site per day. The site includes content from the print paper, as such Daily Mail content is read by more young people than ever before and MailOnline serves to address the declining readership of the print Daily Mail. When current owner, Jonathan Harmsworth (4th Viscount Rothermere) was asked where the company’s ‘future power’ lay he said “MailOnline... if we make the right calls and invest more in content and grow our traffic, it can be a bigger business than the Daily Mail – financially, in terms of reach, and everything else.”
4) How does MailOnline reflect the idea of newspapers ‘as conversation’?
Conboy sees contemporary newspapers as providing a daily conversation in an environment where other forms compete to provide a communal voice. Conboy considers the way that newspapers are adapting their language in order to compete for this voice, and argues that language is multifaceted, drawing on the
work of Bakhtin. Essentially, Conboy sees language as complex – what we say is not a unique expression, but is influenced by other 'voices’ or experiences we have had. Furthermore, what is expressed in a text can have more than one meaning or viewpoint. There is a heteroglossia evident. If we apply this to a newspaper, we can see that within a single edition there will be competing voices and opinions. A newspaper is informative, but also entertaining, political and reflecting social identities. Conboy sees it as the job of the newspaper to pin down this heteroglossia down into one unified editorial voice. Conboy argues that a newspaper’s style and content remain determined by the voice of political economy.
5) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?
The helm for the MailOnline was taken by Martin Clarke in 2006, and was a completely separate entity to the Daily Mail. Clarke was for many years a ‘picture taster’ meaning that he would spend hours finding images for the picture editor to present in conference. As such, Clarke places high importance on the visuals that accompany a story and he takes a photograph-heavy approach for MailOnline. The homepage of the MailOnline, the shop window as Addison describes it, reflects the conventions of a tabloid frontpage (albeit a very long frontpage). It is a scroll, not a newspaper. The digital Daily Mail publishes around 1000 stories, but 10,000 pictures.
6) How does original MailOnline editor Martin Clarke explain the success of the website?
As Clarke said in a live video ‘hangout’
with Mumbrella:
“The reason MailOnline has become a success is because we cover the waterfront. It’s all the news you need to know, all the news you wanna know. The big stories. The lighter stories. The completely amazing stories. You’re just competing for people’s time. So, I’m competing with people spending tome on their Facebook page... when they could be looking at pictures of Kim Kardashian. What you have to decide is what you want your site to be, and make it as compelling and as sticky and engaging and interesting and fascinating – and as fun – as possible.”
MailOnline offers a direct, immediate and ongoing conversation with the reader. The relationship then develops between editor and reader, as the editor can respond to reader likes or dislikes (much like a DJ might in a club). Clarke constantly edits the homepage so the, unlike the print Daily Mail, content is tweaked to appeal to widest readership and encourage the highest clicks. Clarke’s team are able to see how many people are reading a story an any one time, and respond accordingly.
Clarke recognises that the readers are in control of digital content, the polar opposite of the print Daily Mail which is controlled by the editor. If we were to consider this in terms of Clay Shirky’s ideas on prosumers, the Daily Mail offers a one-way line of communication from producer to audience, whereas MailOnline offers a two-way method of communication, where producers receive feedback from readers, but also where readers can communicate with each through the comments. Clarke says, “we let the readers decide what they’re interested in, that’s why MailOnline is so sticky and why it’s so addictive and why people love it so much.” The stories that are on the homepage are there because they have a high click count; lots of
people in the last 5 minutes read these stories so it’s highly likely that new readers arriving at MailOnline will want to read these as well. The vastly wide-ranging content on MailOnline acknowledges that readers
are not confined to one niche; people want to read about political conflict as well as look at the latest celebrity relationship fallout. Indeed, Clarke goes as far as saying that stories which do not receive
traffic lack the readership before MailOnline staff have “sold it wrong”.
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