Stuart Hall: Media audience and representation

Reception Theory

• A group of theories have emerged around reception since the 1980s. This focuses on the conditions in which the audience read

Definition

• Encoding - meaning put in e.g. the intended message from the sun newspaper
• Decoding - meaning taken out e.g. audience interpretation
• Polysemy - where there are lots of potential media meanings into the media

3 Types of Reception Theory

• Dominant - audience accepts the producer's intended meaning and agrees with messages
• Negotiated - adds own interpretation
• Oppositional - disagrees with the text's intended ideology

Hall was particularly interested in the representation of 'the other', working class, and women, since the groups are often represented in continuous ways, so this should be contested. He drew heavily on his own experiences as an immigrant in the highly elitist Oxford university.

Stuart Hall on representation

• Re-framing "Britishness"
• Class, religion race in mainstream media "other"
• Immigrant from Jamaica in 1950s. Elitist university - Oxford University
• Popular Culture: soap-operas, magazines, celeb gossip.
• Media for Hall was a way of contesting representations of blade/working class groups 

November 20th 2017

Five things about women in the press

1. Sex Objects: If the sexualised images are designed for women then I don't see it as patriarchal power because a man is not forcing a women to produce the pictures for men and because of this, the statement that he addresses does have a point. It is objectification for women because they might want to have a same-sex relationship so they are attracted to women so it is possible for women to participate in the "male gaze"
2. Wives and mothers: The statement "You have to represent your whole gender" is true. Because of the words "sex" and "gender" have the same connotation but have a different denotation, a biological woman has to live up to the standards of the gender. A woman can be a wife to their husband but not be a mother only if they decide not to have children. 
3. Relative invisibility: Editors are usually male

November 17th 2017: Notes

Five Core Principles of Journalism                                http://ethicaljournalismnetwork.org/who-we-are/5-principles-of-journalism

• Truth and Accuracy
• Independence
• Fairness and Impartially
• Humanity
• Accountability

IPSO - Independent Press Standards Organisation

A ‘self regulatory body’ - the regulate themselves rather than being regulated by the government.

Essay: What are the news values in a newspaper article?

What are the News Values in a newspaper article?

News Values is how news professionals decide on what is newsworthy and how to attract the audience. I will be focusing on the newspaper article titled “May faces defeat by MPs demanding a meaningful vote on final Brexit deal” published by the Guardian. This article is dedicated to the Prime Minister Theresa May.

First of all, the article is portraying Theresa May is a bad person, therefore, the first News Value is Negativity. This is when bad stories that contain conflict gets overshadowed by the good stories. The conflict in this story is that she is denying the parliament a meaningful vote on the final deal with the EU so she is getting defeated by the Members of Parliament. Most members of the public like being scared or they like to see conflict as it will make the news interesting therefore more people will tune in.

Furthermore, this article shows Predictability. Companies publish the news to be surprising but in fact, the public has predicted the outcome of them. The fact that Theresa May will not fulfil her promises that she has made with the EU has been predicted by the audience. The residents that live in the UK will be concerned by the story as it will affect them in the future. This goes on to the next News Value…

… Which is Proximity. As Theresa May is the Prime Minister, she arguably has the most power, in terms of politics, in the United Kingdom, she can make decisions that can benefit or obstruct the people that are living in the UK. This story like this and stories from the west (for example stories about President Trump) will be favoured from a story like homeless people in the UK, a story that is closer to home. This is because they portray the people from the working class differently to people that have a higher status (middle class but mainly upper class).  For example, how the news portray Islamic people made residents in the UK terrified about them and to make them develop Islamophobia.

Finally, Continuity and Narrative will be the final news value that is present in this newspaper article. Since this is about Brexit and the fact that the United Kingdom hasn’t left the EU yet, this phenomenon will be continuous to the point that the UK finally leaves the European Union. The narrative aspect is that Brexit could be written like a fiction story with Protagonists and Antagonists like Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May.

The News Values that were present in this newspaper article are Negativity, Predictability, Proximity and Continuity and Narrative. These news values are common to the theme of politics so this article will be found on broadsheets instead of tabloids because it fits the criteria of them and it is a formal story.

November 13th 2017: Newspapers: Codes, Conventions and Content

Tabloid Vs Broadsheet

Newspapers can commonly be defined as either a ‘broadsheet’ newspaper or a ‘tabloid’ newspaper.

Tabloid

• Feature popular articles that appeal to the masses, for example, human interest stories and celebrity gossip
• Tone used is informative and informal
• Uses jokes and headplay in headlines
• Adverts are aimed towards lower social groups
• Use more images than text (image led)
• Examples include The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Star

Broadsheet

• Feature 'quality' articles including political and international stories
• Tone is informative and formal
• Headlines are more factual and direct
• Adverts target higher social groups
• Use more text than images (text led)
• Examples include The Times, The Telegraph, The Guardian

Paywalls For and Against

On your blog:

For

Q. What does David Simon mean by ‘slow suicide’?

• He means that the news industry is going to end up destroying themselves by Slow Suicide.

Q Why does he mean by saying anti-paywall people “don’t understand the first thing about actual journalism”?

• He means they don't understand that people need to make money and with newspapers and journalism, as a whole, on a decline. People who condemn paywalls are essentially condemning the entire news industry.

Q What does he mean by “journalism is a profession”?

• He is saying that journalism is a job. It requires wages and actual money; people's lives depend on this just as much as any other job.

Q. What do you think made 1 million people pay for the NYT(New York Times)?

• They must have paid for the political view as well as the price or perhaps it is the ease of access.

Against

Q What does he mean by “Band-Aid to cover a bullet hole”?

• They are trying to say that they are covering the problem in-adequately which just makes the problem more noticeable. It could also be trying to say that their solution is only temporary and eventually will, like a band-aid, fall off with minimal effort and protection.

Q How much would you pay for Facebook (or any other social network)? Why this 

much?

• I would pay a minimal amount on Facebook, if I had an intention of using it, but would expect some sort of reward or new features to be added frequently.

Q. What would make you pay to read a newspaper? (Value-added content)

• I would pay the same amount as the average right now. The only real reason I would pay for a newspaper, even though I can receive it in almost every aspect of my life, is if they have the same political views as me which would allow me to receive some form of validation.

In your own words put together a 200 – 300-word argument IN FAVOUR of Paywalls – to try to convince a young person who has never paid for a newspaper. 

Paywalls are used by newspaper companies so that the users are restricted to view their content in which they force them to subscribe to their website. This is beneficial for young people because firstly, it is easy to access and it is on the internet. Young people will just need a Wi-Fi connection to the internet and they can read a newspaper article if they have paid for a subscription. This means that the companies don’t have to waste money printing papers and they can devote all their time putting the articles on their website. Additionally, the more people sign up for a subscription, the more revenue they are earning. Furthermore, the internet will know about the user’s favourite topic and it will select the papers that they like reading. This establishes that the user doesn’t have to waste their time looking for articles they like reading. In addition, the website that they are subscribing to will be secure so the website can’t be hacked easily and the user will gain trust to the website. Finally, there will be no adverts when they have paid the subscription. The adverts that will be on the website, blocking the article which enrages the user will be extinct so that the user can enjoy reading the article without any distractions.

November 9th 2017

Media Plurality

• We have defined plurality as a) ensuring there is a diversity of viewpoints available and consumed across and within media enterprises and b) preventing any onemedia owner or voice having too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.

Power without Responsibility

• In their book James Curran and Jean Seaton argue that the Press holds a lot of power, but has little responsibility.

Task

• News Corp or the original News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation headquartered in New York City. It was the world's fourth-largest media group in 2014 in terms of revenue.
• Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American media mogul. He is the chairman and the CEO of News Corporation, which is the world's second-largest media conglomerate.

November 6th 2017: News Values

News Values

• It is about how news professionals decide on what is newsworthy and how to attract the audience.
• Newspapers online and social news.

Convergence - refers to the crossing over/coming together of 2 or more techs/platforms

Objectivity - about the balance or showing both sides of the story. Most news professionals believe in this.

Galtung and Ruge (1981) - Argues that news is structured according to unspoken values rather than discovered.

Frequency

• This value is to do with the time scale of events perceived to be "newsworthy". With 24 rolling news channels, online and social events need to be much more frequent to be favoured in news coverage.

Threshold

• This is the size of an event that's needed for it to be considered "newsworthy". Commonly occurring events happening to individuals will not usually count (except for local news) unless they involve either a celebrity or an unusually violent or sensational happening.

Proximity

• This value is to do with how close to home a story is. However proximity clearly has an ideological agenda. Stories from 'the West' are favoured over those from the developing world, regardless of the geographical proximity. This reinforces existing prejudices and "otherness" (Gilroy)
• The 'other' (Paul Gilroy) - when non-white, especially working class, people are portrayed in the media. They are defined in terms of the ways they differ from the (white) majority, not any individual characteristics. This is usually negative. E.g. Black criminal, Asian terrorist (This refers to faith groups)

Negativity

• Occasionally, news with a happy ending will be favoured, but usually catastrophe and images of violence are covered over positive stories

Predictability

• Although a key convention of news is to present events as surprising, actually a lot of these are predictable. E.g. an important vote in parliament.

Continuity and Narrative

• News involves story-telling just like fiction, and it is convenient for journalists to cover stories which are likely to continue over a period of time, with new events unfolding.
• Brexit is a good example of a story with great potential for continuity and narrative story-telling.
• Protagonists, antagonists and other recognisable characters will drive the narrative binary oppositions (Levi-Strauss) will e favoured to help the audience to understand quite complex stories.

Composition

• Newspapers needs to be balanced out, and if the editor feels that there is a disproportionate type of one news-for example, rather dry political stories-he or she will ask journalists to balance out with a human interest or funny story, to add composition.

Personalisation

• Events are often personalised to give them a human interest angle. This is particularly useful when reporting rather dry, complex political or business type stories.

H/W News Values

What are News Values?

• News values determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience.

Who originated the concept of News Values? Date?

• Galtung and Ruge originated the concept of it in the year of 2001 and they have devised a list describing what they believed were significant contributing factors as to how the news is constructed focusing on newspapers and broadcast news.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_values

November 3rd 2017

Task on Thursday 2nd

Ways to make money.	Pros	Cons
Charge a paywall	Allows me to constantly make more money, and provides a new way to keep up with technology. This would also allow me to have more regular newspaper sales as I could offer a bundle with both the ability to view news digitally as well as on a newspaper.	People may not want to pay. This could cause people to try and find other ways to get past the paywall. This could also give my newspaper a negative reputation which could further reduce sales.
Increase the price you have to pay to have your advertisement shown. I would also make them pay by the number of viewers and increase this as the amount continued to grow.	Would allow me to make a lot of money as I would constantly be making money rather than only making a small amount once, like if I had offered a one time fee.	Could be seen as too expensive, which would drive away sales. Could be used to
Increase cost of paper	Would allow me to increase the profits I would make daily, this is guaranteed as long-time readers are not very likely to stop after a small increase.	The public would be hesitant and will not buy the paper, especially if they can get one at a cheaper price or free.
Sack Journalists	This will mean a higher profit for the company and the money can be used to invest in other ways to share the news	Sacking journalists means that there will be fewer resources for the company to publish so that will mean less income
Put more 'sponsored content' online in your paper

Key Words:

Conglomerate - a number of different things, parts or items that are grouped together; collection. Large media companies are normally conglomerates.

Oligopoly - a state of limited competition, in which a market is shared by a small number of producers or sellers.