Timed Essay 5

 5) Explain how political contexts influence individual producers within the newspaper industry.  Refer to The Guardian and the Daily Mail to support your answer.

The owners of different newspapers control the content, representations and viewpoints displayed in their newspapers, meaning the owner of these papers have the power to influence their audiences and the public with their political views. The owners of large newspaper companies are usually middle-aged, white men who are upper-class with right-wing views. This is reflected in many of the UK newspapers through the way stories are reported on and how they promote their political ideas, which usually benefit their own social group. An example of this is the Daily Mail, a right-wing newspaper, as the representations of minorities are usually hostile and negative whilst the perspective will benefit right-wing groups. Daily Mail is a large company due to the political standpoint reflecting the dominant political ideology in the UK as the Conservatives are in power. This allows the newspaper to adhere to a mass audience of right-wing people without responsibility and these audiences will usually agree with the viewpoint.

Cultivation theory suggests that audience will seek out texts that reinforce their viewpoint, therefore, people with right-wing views are likely to buy the Daily Mail. Reception theory adds to this by suggesting that this audience will have a preferred reading of the texts because they agree with the ideology being presented to them and will feel positive about their views being reinforced and their own social groups benign characterized positively.

Left wing newspapers offer an alternative viewpoint for audiences and people with left-wing political views. Like right-wing newspapers, people with liberal views are likely to seek out texts that match their ideology meaning that people who would vote Labour are likely to read a newspaper such as the Guardian as they will have a preferred reading of the text. The Guardian is an example of how left-wing news texts offer an ideology that supports a democratic society. They also stereotypically give alternative representations compared to right-wing newspapers. For example, minority groups are shown in a more humanitarian way and presents the ideas of public interest for everyone, contrasting the conservative views. 

The liberal views are represented in the Guardian with news stories of refugees focusing on the human struggle of those people whilst the Daily Mail often presents stories focusing on the cost of refugees on the UK. This is a direct example of how right-wing newspapers reflect the interests of their target audience (predominantly white, middle-aged, upper class men with right-wing views) 

The views of both the Guardian and the Daily Mail are usually depicted through binary opposition in the news stories. The Guardian offers a opposition of the right-wing and the right-wing offers negative representation of left-wing ideologies and politicians, giving the audience a binary opposition and simple ideas of good and bad in the media. These representations effect the audience’s views according to cultivation theory. Over time, readers of both The Guardian and the Daily Mail will get used to the narrative depicted in regular stories and affect their perception of reality.

Power and media suggest that the media (such as newspapers) are owned by large conglomerates, resulting in lack of creativity and thought. This creates repetitive media that will sell and make profit, therefore giving power to companies. Newspapers could be used as an example for this due to their only really being two main ideologies presented in the newspaper industry; right-wing and left-wing. However, this caters to the public and matches the two main political parties in the UK (Conservative and Labour) This following of dominant ideologies gives more power to the media companies as they have a greater following and more ability to influence the public’s views. This may link to fandom and how regular readers of these newspapers will have a cult following of the stories and fans will promote their views in other ways.