Media Messages Section A - News

Stereotypes and Cultivation Theory

Media Representations are:

- Powerful

- Appear truthful

- Saturate our lives

- re-cycle existing ideas in our society 

- appear natural

Construction - The most Basic use of our media language - the layout of the page, the balance of image to text and the prominence that a story is given. If the lead front page is always dominated by stories by stories of asylum seekers and problems of illegal immigration then this will come to be seen by readers as the most important issue. The fact that such stories are repeated day after day reinforces this idea

Mediation - How newspaper or magazine photographs are cropped and captioned; how real life events are portrayed in a news report - which image is selected; what the caption says; amount of space allocated; front page or page 4

Selection - This refers to what has been selected to include in a media product. Stories that might offer a different view to that of the newspaper are often not reported or reported with a different spin

Stereotypes - The simplified representation of a person, groups of people or a place, through basic or obvious characteristics - which are often exaggerated. They can be used to describe people quickly, relying on existing audience recognition. Stereotypes are dangerous as they can lead audiences to generalise about people or places

Ideology - The ideas and beliefs, held by media producers, which are often represented in their media products*: IN a newspaper, the ideology of the owner or senior editors could influence the way stories are represented, such as leading support to a particular political party 

Cultivation Theory :George Gerbner - The idea that exposure to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them (i.e. cultivating particular views and opinions). The idea that cultivation reinforces mainstream values (dominant ideologies)

Reinforcement Theory - 

Mean World Syndrome - Mean world syndrome is a cognitive bias where people perceive the world to be more dangerous than it actually is due to long-term, moderate to heavy exposure to violence-related content on mass media, mainly television.

12A Radio 1 Breakfast Show

radio 1 construction

Daily Mail Front Cover Analysis

For both front pages, the main story is that the ex Duke and Duchess of Sussex have decided to leave the royal family in pursuit for a more normal life. Both front pages are presented in different ways due to their political views and standpoints.
The daily mail is a conservative newspaper aimed at social groups ABC1 which are upper middle class, middle class and lower middle class. The daily mail is pro-monarchy so this story for them is more important than it is to the Guardian.
The Guardian is a more left-wing and labour favoured paper and is also aimed at ABC1 social groups. The Guardian is a more anti-monarchy so the relevance of this story is lower compared to the Daily Mail.
On the daily mail front cover, the story takes up the whole of the front page and is addressed as a 'Royal Bombshell Special Issue'. The font size is large and in bold. In yellow, 'WE QUIT' is used to stand out as it is the main focus of the headline. The language used on the cover of the Daily Mail makes the story sound more scandalous and serious whereas the language used on the cover of the Guardian makes the story seem less severe. As the Guardian is a more anti-monarchist paper the story is less relevant which explains the fact that the font size is smaller and the picture is smaller. The Daily Mail sees this story as more important as the are a pro-monarchy newspaper. To make the headline seem serious the Daily Mail state that the Queen is furious and that the Sussex's 'dramatically step down as senior Royals - WITHOUT telling Her majesty, Charles or William'. The use of capitals and words such as 'dramatically' make the article seem more interesting and exciting as it is seen as a sot of scandal. Unlike the Daily Mail, the Guardian has one than one story on the front page. Whereas on the Daily Mail cover there is no article discussing the topic, the article for the Sussex's is on the front page, perhaps giving a brief insight which will be further elaborated on in the paper.
On the cover for the Guardian other stories such as 'Trump edging away fro war with Iran' to 'Suzanne Moore on Elizabeth Wurtzel'. This shows that although it is big news, the Guardian do not feel that the story is important enough to warrant a special edition or a whole front page to its self due to its anti-monarchy stance, whereas the Daily Mail who are more pro-monarchy feel as though the story is important enough to have a special edition such as this which is titled 'Royal Bombshell Special Issue'
On the daily Mail cover, the picture is edited to make it more dramatic. The photographs on each cover are the same but just fro a different angle. The Guardian's picture looks unedited and natural whereas the Daily Mail's cover is seen to be edited to add effect. The colours look more saturated and shadows look like they have been added or darkened to create a sense of dramatisation.

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