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Newspapers - Coggle Diagram
Newspapers
The Times
The Times is published by Times Newspapers which is owned by News UK which is wholly owned by global conglomerate, News Corp. The Times being published by a vertically and horizontally integrated, diversified conglomerate gives it enormous power and resources.
The Times being owned by News Corp also means that they are able to take more risks e.g. having a pay wall on their website could repel audience but this doesn't matter as they can afford to lose money.
A global conglomerate can help a paper to be distributed across the world using its subsidiary companies to promote it.
Global conglomerate ownership has a lot of power and so can potentially bend rules that other companies cannot. For example some argued that News Corp escaped convictions for the phone hacking scandal involving Milly Dowler due to their huge amount of power and global connections.
Rupert Murdoch is the Chief Executive of News Corp. His friendship of Trump and support of the Republican party and conservative politics might suggest his papers could reflect his own political views.
News Corp and its subsidiaries say they try and be politically 'neutral' and that they embrace all political views.
As newspapers like The Times and The Daily Mirror are owned by stockholders, the companies have to protect their reputation in order to protect the cost of their shares to keep their shareholders happy. For example News Corp's involvement with the phone hacking scandal (especially their paper The News Of The World) caused a huge amount of bad publicity for the company. And so to protect their company they shut down The News Of The World to try and damage control the situation and protect the reputation and worth of their other newspapers. - Curran and Seaton (profit and power), Hesmondhalgh (minimise risk, maximise profit).
The Times print circulation is actually not decreasing it is reasonably steady. This may reflect their slightly older, middle/upper class, more educated target audience who are less likely to have drifted online.
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However, the paywall may also give the illusion that the content behind the paywall is 'quality' and 'worth paying for' perhaps gives the impression that its better than other free news available which may make people more inclined to pay. The Times can afford to take this risk as their audience typically have more money and so will more likely pay for news.
The Times' audience are higher educated and have a higher reading age (16) and so the stories tend to be much more complex and in depth with a lot of writing and less/smaller pictures. Good way of targeting audiences that want something more academic and complex to read.
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Due to the pay wall people who visit The Times website are offered the chance to sign up for free and receive two article view a week which may encourage them to pay.
The Times website offers a variety of competitions that will appeal to its target audience with prizes ranging from tickets to Royal Shakespeare company, wine tasting and events to listen to previous prime ministers speak in public. These act as a clear indicator of the class and income of the target audience.
The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror is owned by Reach PLC - a big organisation producing over 150 newspapers including national newspapers like The Daily Express. They have diversified and now produce a range of local newspapers.
Reach PLC is horizontally integrated as it buys out other competing companies means they can maintain there leading and powerful position in the newspaper industry. Horizontal integration means they can share journalists and resources between their different titles/ brands reducing overall costs.
The Daily Mirror circulation and readership has been rapidly declining for a number of years which is potentially because the target audience is going online. The Daily Mirror website is free and has a high online readership is very large - one of the best in the country. Diversifying into online news means that they are able to have high readership without selling papers. They earn money online through digital advertising so opens up an extra stream of revenue.
There are lots of other ways newspapers make revenue for example The Daily Mirror offers premium rate phone lines in the paper allowing people to phone up and get spiritual advise, gambling tips, lottery results ect.
The Mirror also have alternate revenue on their website including their betting site and dating site.
The rise of digital news, websites and social media by newspapers, reflects the increasing desire by audiences for 'interactivity' which might reflect Clay Shirky's ideas that the Internet and digital technologies have had a profound effect on the relations between media and individuals. And the idea that the conceptualisation of audience members as passive consumers is no longer tenable in the age of the internet, as media consumers have now become producers who actively 'speak back' to the media in various ways as well as creating and sharing content with one another.
The Mirror offers lots of interactive elements such as phone/ text ins, competitions, ability to comment like and share which keeps it relevant and current to audiences.
The target audience for The Daily Mirror are British, working class, males, over 35, from a C2DE socioeconomic background with left wing political views.
The website and paper helps to engage the low income/ lower class audience through the opportunities to earn more money like gambling, lottery results ability to enter competitions to win holidays.
The Daily Mirror features a lot of left wing articles (featuring Labour of Lib Dems in a much more positive light) and representing Conservative and Republican party in a negative fashion.
The Daily Mirror has a lower reading age (8-11) than The Times and tend to be engaged more by soft news (entertainment based, sports, celebs etc) no politically hard hitting or financial news. Articles in the newspaper have large pictures and small amounts of writing.
Regulation
Both The Times and The Mirror are regulated by IPSO - ran by the newspaper industry. IPSO have regulations about what newspapers can and can't do in terms of offensive language, libel etc.
Many argue that IPSO has major flaws including bias e.g. being run by the newspaper industry themselves it doesn't follow the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry etc
Newspapers want freedom of speech and press and sometimes want to be controversial to add 'shock value' without fear of prosecution or punishment/ sanctions as that is what sells newspapers.
Technology has made effective regulation of newspapers both easier and harder for differing reasons.
Using algorithms/ bots to regulate online content is good for being able to look at a lot of content in a short period of time. But hard to detect context and easy to 'get around' and so may fail to censor when something is offensive or inappropriate.
Many newspapers also employ human moderators to check online comments. They are good at detecting content but not good at looking at a lot of content in a short period of time.
Advertising
Advertising is tailored towards the specific target audience in terms of gender, education, class and most importantly income.
In The Daily Mirror you are much more likely to see adverts for Tesco, Lidl, Aldi, Mcdonalds etc.
In The Times you are much more likely to see adverts for shops like Waitrose, M&S, Harrods.
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Theory
Stuart Hall - Reception Theory. The reading the audience will take depends on whose reading it and their political stance, age, class ect. For example a left wing audience is much more likely to take a preferred reading of The Daily Mirror, but an oppositional reading to The Times. A younger audience may take an oppositional reading to both newspapers as they may feel that both are too complex or boring. They may also find the idea of printed newspapers quite dull and be more used to spending time online and so may take an oppositional reading to the printed papers.