Newspapers - Media Contexts

The media contexts outlined for this course are:

• social
• cultural
• economic
• political
• historical

Industry
(economic)

How is the Guardian owned and funded?

The Guardian is owned by Scott Trust and is funded through the use of advertisements, donations, and subscriptions.

How is the Daily Mail owned and funded?

The Daily Mail is owned by Viscount Rothermere and is funded through the use of sponsorships, discount codes, and advertisements.

This difference vastly alters to what extent the audience are treated as a consumer.

Consumerism

(social, cultural, economic, political)

Treating audiences as consumers influences: 

1. the quantity of lifestyle content in newspapers such as the Guardian and Daily Mail. 
2. the celebration of celebrity culture as a lure to fickle consumers, particularly in online editions of newspapers, such as Mail Online. 
3. the representation of audiences themselves, whether by letters to the editor in the print editions, or comments  in the online editions and social media, or articles about readers in the membership section of the Guardian. 

1) The Guardian - Lifestyle content

2) Daily Mail - Celebrity Culture

3) The Guardian & Daily Mail - Audience Participation

Celebrity Culture

(social, cultural, political)

• Celebrity culture affects the representation in newspapers by enabling coverage of celebrities, celebrity events and celebrity politicians such as Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin. 
• Celebrities, including those from show business and the monarchy, feature heavily in the Mail Online, especially in the ’sidebar of shame’. 
• We have seen from the previous slide that this links to consumerism. The prevalence of celebrity culture often links to more sales so is a quick (and lazy way) to drive up sales. 

The Guardian

• Miriam Margolyes is a British/ Australian actress that is most well known for her part in Harry Potter. She is viewed in a very positive light by the newspaper and the audience - in the comment section.
• The story entails what life has been like for Margolyes during lockdown and she appears to be living that of an ordinary citizen. This allows the readers to connect with her and thus connect with The Guardian as a newspaper.
• The story is also used to promote her show about travelling Australia - linking to the idea of consumerism.

Multiculturalism

(social and cultural)

• Representations of Black and minority ethnic (BAME) people have become more varied and less focused on their race in modern media. This is the positive influence of multiculturalism. 
• However, writers such as Gilroy and bell hooks point out that racism is far from eradicated and assumptions of white superiority persist in the modern world. 

Feminism

(social, cultural, political)

• Any example of deliberately avoiding stereotyping or covering feminist issues may be seen as evidence of the influence of this context. 
• The coverage of female leaders such as Angela Merkel and Nicola Sturgeon is also useful to explore. Look at slide 10- Sturgeon’s gender and stereotypes of gender are not used which does show how far we have come in some ways. 
• However, feminists such as Van Zoonen and hooks argue that patriarchy persists in the modern world and that sexism if far from eradicated.