Representing Historical Contexts

Explain how broadsheet newspapers reflect the time and historical contexts in which they were published.

There are a number of ways in which newspapers reflect their historical contexts, in the way these contexts influence their producers, their audiences and the world that they represent through their news stories.
Britain in the 1960s was a more patriarchal society and this meant most journalists were men, that audiences expected patriarchal representations, and the mostly political news that featured on the front pages was about powerful political figures - nearly all men. Only one female politician - Mrs Castle - features in the three front pages below.
Britain is becoming a multicultural society in the 1960s but still saw itself as white, and race relations as a 'problem'. What stories in these front pages reflect that tension in British society? The newspaper is trying to be liberal on 'race issues' but still presents a very white point of view.
There is much less marketing and little news about celebrities compared to today, showing less development of celebrity culture and consumerism in the 1960s.
The Cold War is reflected in articles about Russian spy planes, Russian spies and the Vietnam War. This shows the importance of this historical conflict at the time.

Look closely at the articles in the historic newspapers to understand more about the time they were written.

Click on each image to find an electronic copy of the newspaper that you can easily read. Read each article and then answer the questions. The answers are designed to help you write an exam-style answer in your book. You can type your answer, using a Word document entitled historic newspaper analysis, (you need to email it to your teacher by the end of today's lesson l.downie@lutterworthcollege.com).

Questions:

1. Read the main articles on each newspaper and consider what each one is in turn. Make a list of the articles with a short explanation of what topic they are covering.
2. Look at how ethnic groups are represented in all three newspapers. Comment on what this shows about the multicultural Britain of the 1960s in comparison with the multicultural Britain of 2019.
3. Look at how women are represented in all three newspapers. Comment on what this shows about women at the time.
4. How much coverage is there of celebrities. Why do you think this is?
5. What do the newspapers say about historic conflicts that were happening during the 1960s? How are they being reported in a different way to contemporary conflicts in 2019?
6. How do the adverts reflect the time the newspapers were published?

Wednesday 30th October 1968

Monday 30th October 1966

Sunday 6th November 1966

 

News: Deconstructing the Observer homepage

Using your news glossary, label all of the conventions you can find on the homepage. You can click here to access the online newspaper site for yourself in order to explore the conventions used.  You need to then answer the following questions in your book in full sentences.

1. What are the key advantages and disadvantages of publishing news in a digital format rather than a traditional print format?
2. How is the homepage branded so it is clearly produced by the Guardian's Sunday paper? What conventions are included?
3. How does the newspaper use colour to brand the site and to help readers navigate it easily?
4. How are hyperlinks useful for a reader and why do you think they appear at the top of the page?
5. How are the different sections of the news illustrated on the homepage? What conventions are used?
6. How important are the images on the website? How might they appeal to the reader?
7. How are readers encouraged to interact with the news stories and why do you think this might be important to the newspaper?
8. Why does the website feature such large advertising banners? How is the online version of this newspaper paid for by the reader?

Extension task: Write a comparison (similarities and differences) between the conventions of a print newspaper and an online newspaper, with reference to the Observer.

News: The Observer: An Introduction to The Guardian's Sunday paper

For this lesson you are going to research The Observer newspaper in pairs. You are going to create a presentation based on the following questions. Credits are awarded for a combination of the quality of written analysis and the clarity and creativity of the presentation. Click on The Observer logo above to find the newspaper website.

1. Media Industry

• Who publishes the newspaper?
• How long has it been running?
• Who owns the newspaper?

2. Media Language

• What stylistic features does The Observer newspaper format have?
• Analyse the front page (deconstruct the conventions using the news glossary to help you label all of the elements). Explain in detail how The Observer uses these conventions to appeal to those readers.
• What is the newspaper's Target Audience and how can you tell?
• How does the layout of the newspaper work to appeal to consumers?
• What features of the front page would you consider the most important and why?

News: Press Regulation: Who reports on the reporters?

The owners of newspapers can influence the editorial stance of a newspaper. The motives and agenda of newspaper owners and editors, and how they try to influence our understanding of certain events, is important when analysing how newspapers tell stories. Newspapers will also attempt to influence how the public vote in elections, with certain newspapers openly backing specific political parties.

With this much power, it is important that newspapers stick to a code of conduct or rules set out by independent organisations. This is known as regulation.

Regulation and Press Complaints

Sometimes it is not facts that are reported but the opinions of journalists and editors. This is known as bias. This is one of the reasons why newspapers are subject to regulation. Journalists often go to extreme lengths to find their story and news organisations are regulated to protect people from press intrusion or harassment.

Here J K Rowling complains to the regulators about press behaviour outside her home.

Case study: The Leveson Inquiry

The Leveson Inquiry was a public, judge-led inquiry. It was set up by Prime Minister David Cameron to investigate the press after journalists at The News of the World were accused of illegally accessing the voicemail messages on other people's phones, without their knowledge or consent. They were also accused of bribing police officers. Some of those who had their mobile phones 'hacked' in this way were celebrities, sports people and politicians.

The News of the World was closed down by its owner, News International, when this information became public. Lord Justice Leveson stated his recommendations on how the press should be regulated. They were:

• Newspapers should continue to be self-regulated and government should have no power over what newspapers publish.
• A new press standards organisation, with a new code of conduct should be created by the press industry. Legislation should be provided to ensure this new press standards organisation would be independent and effective in dealing with public complaints.

Who regulates newspapers now?

Newspaper editors must follow the rules of the Editor's Code of Practice. 

Before the Leveson inquiry, newspapers and their editors were regulated by the Press Complaints Commission (PCC). 

After the Leveson Inquiry it was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).

The IPSO now investigate complaints about breaches of the Editor's Code of Practice.

Who regulates online news?

Click on the logo to find out more about Impress.

Newspaper funding in the age of the internet.

How are newspapers funded? When you buy a paper, you spend money purchasing the product. But what happens when people are reading the same stories for free via the internet? Why would people still pay for the product at all?

Since the internet has eroded traditional funding streams, it is vital that newspapers continue making enough profit to pay journalists and editors to generate the news product.

Task: How much does each newspaper cost? Research the cover price of the following newspapers. What do you notice about the prices and which newspapers cost the most or the least? Why do you think this is?

1. The Times
2. The Sun
3. The Daily Mail
4. The Guardian
5. The Telegraph
6. The Mirror

Circulation and readership

A major source of income is via advertisers who pay to market their own products in newspapers. Companies know it is a major part of a marketing campaign to advertise their product in a newspaper with a large readership because plenty of potential customers will see their advertisement. As a result, advertisers pay news organisations substantial costs to buy space in their publication, and how much they pay depends on how many readers they expect to buy the newspaper.

A newspaper's circulation is the number of copies that are distributed to newsagents and news stands on an average day. These numbers are recorded by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).

The ABC's membership comes from various media organisations, traders, advertisers and agencies that provide statistics to calculate research data.

The National Readership Survey (NRS) provides audience research to newspapers and potential advertisers on estimated readership numbers, which can often be quite different from circulation figures.

A newspaper's readership is the newspaper's total circulation multiplied by the average number of people who read each copy. For example, various family members may read the same copy of a newspaper. This 'pass-along' rate is generally thought to be about 2.5 readers per publication. This relationship between readership and circulation is known as readers-per-copy.

Task: Click on the logo above to find out the ABC figures for each of the national and regional newspapers. Create a table in your book detailing the ABC figure for each newspaper's print edition and online product.

1. The Times
2. The Sun
3. The Daily Mail
4. The Guardian
5. The Telegraph
6. The Mirror
7. The Leicester Mercury

Online news

All major UK newspapers have web editions which can sometimes include more content than the printed paper. Newspapers may offer a lot of this content for free, a number place some or all of their content behind a paywall, which means readers must pay to access it. Being able to link to existing web pages allows readers access to additional content which includes archived material. 

Online newspapers enjoy a crucial advantage over print versions in that they can be updated in real-time with breaking news. This has made online newspapers more like broadcast media channels that can transmit 24 hours a day. 

In 2005, 13 million newspapers were sold daily; by 2015, this figure fell to 7 million. The availability of newspapers online is partly responsible for this decline but the popularity of blogs, vlogs and other online content areas have made an impact too. The Independent newspaper moved to an online only publication in 2016.

Homework Task: Look at the online news products offered by the different newspapers.

Mail Online - homepage analysis

Complete the following tasks:

Go to the Mail Online website.

• List all the first 30 news stories that appear on the homepage.
• Categorise the stories by type: celebrity gossip, sport, world news, UK news, politics, sport etc
• What stories appear more often?
• Why would those stories be popular? Give reasons? What does this tell you about the sort of person that reads this site?
• Look at the 'sidebar of shame'.
• List the first 20 'stories'.
• Categorise the stories - this may need to be by type of celebrity or content of the article.