Political context

Political Context

Task 1: What are the news values in this cover?

Extension: What is the political alignment of this newspaper? How do you know (think about media language!)

Possible answers

Elite Nations - Use of Boris Johnson and his down-trodden facial expressiosn suggest they do not value Johnson as a Prime Minister.

Negativity - Clearly tries to antagonise Johnson through the headline and caption , couple with the use of close-up image clearly highlights their left-wing views.

Size - the PartyGate story was a widley circulated story after COVID-19 lockdown.

Continuity - the story has been featured in a number of front covers as more evidence was revealed in the scandal.

The news industry

The news industry has become extremely vast in the last 100 years meaning media moguls have gained a lot of power to influence audiences viewpoints and ideologies.

The news industry works at several different levels:

Production:

The ‘making’ of the product. An important stage as editors of news have to mediate news stories to fit their news agenda and ideological stance.

Distribution / Circulation:

The way the newspaper or online news source is released to and marketed towards an audience.

Consumption:

The ways audiences read and consume the news. Usually categorised into ‘passive’ and ‘active’ audiences who consume the product based on their own agenda.

Impartiality

In an ideal world news would be impartial

Impartiality means not being prejudiced towards or against any particular side or party. It means being fair and unbiased.

Mediation is the process everything goes through before it reaches an audience.

It’s down to re-presentation and mediation…

What you see or read in the media is a version of reality. But it is not reality.
Media makers (in this case, Newspaper Owners/Editors and sometimes Journalists) change or mediate what is really there to suit their own agenda.
This agenda may be politically aligned.

Mediation process

Newspaper editors have an enormous amount of influence in determining representations.

Task: Become a producer!

Create a headline for a news event - either positively represent or negatively represent.
Choose one of the below images to anchor your headline.
Justify reasons why you have created this representation.

It was revealed that Liz Truss has renovated her house by using the government's money.

Task: Analysis of contrasting covers

‘Brexit’ was a large-scale political issue that was represented very differently by different newspapers based on their political alignments.

Look at these two front covers. Both are from the same day.

How is ‘Brexit’ mediated by the respective newspapers?
How does elements of media language contribute to this meaning?
Can you deduce which one is left-wing / right-wing?

How would you describe the state of Britain's economy using the adjective 'booming'?
What image of those who voted to remain in the EU is conveyed by the term 'doom-mongers'?
In what ways does the coverage of another historic royal wedding edition emphasise patriotism?

What message does the image of a crumbling sandcastle anchored by the British flag convey?
What associations do we typically make with sandcastles and what message is being conveyed about Brexit through this image?
What does the presence of the Calais white Dover cliffs in the distant background, strong and clearly dominant, represent?
What is the significance of the beach mise-en-scene in relation to the overall message of the piece?

Possible answers you could consider

The Guardian's coverage is clearly anti-Brexit, with negative connotations in the small text and the image of a small, crumbling sandcastle representing Britain. Meanwhile, the white cliffs of Dover, symbolizing the EU, are shown as strong and dominant, conveying the editors' negative view of Brexit.
The Daily Mail is strongly pro-Brexit, using alliteration and positive connotations in the headline "BREXIT BRITAIN'S BOOMING" to convey the message that leaving the EU is good for Britain.
The black and white color scheme of the Daily Mail creates a serious tone and emphasizes the practical benefits of Brexit, while the alliteration and exclamation mark show their excitement for it. In contrast, The Guardian's depiction of a small sandcastle and blank background highlights their belief that Brexit will weaken Britain and lead to isolation.
The use of the white cliffs of Dover in the Daily Mail's front cover signifies trade and tourism, which will be lost with Brexit, while the Guardian's sandcastle represents the country's weakness and distance from the EU. These differences reflect the opposing views of conservative and leftist newspapers on Brexit.

Key terminology

Political Affiliation: leaning towards, or supporting a particular political viewpoint or political party.
Ideological Stance: the individual beliefs of a newspaper or the audience member (reader) of the said newspaper.
Free Press: the principle that communication and expression should be exercised freely.
Populism: news that is designed to not be the hard truth but instead what the readers want to hear. The core principle is to target as many people as possible.
Media Spin: a way of ‘spinning’ or providing a biased mediation of an event to fit the papers ideological stance.

Left-Wing Politics

Left-wing politics supports social equality and is often in opposition to social hierarchy. It believes that inequalities in society should be reduced or abolished and is considered more progressive in terms of their views.
Left-wing politics are generally more progressive in their attitude - this side of politics is considered more liberal.
Typically, left-wing politics supports Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, equality for all social classes, multiculturalism, anti-war, feminist movements as well as LGBTQ rights.

Progessive, Equality, Multiculturalism, Inclusive, Evolving, Support for movements such as feminism and Black Lives Matter

Right-Wing Politics

Right-wing politics supports the view that certain hierarchies and inequality is natural, inevitable or even desirable. It believes that inequalities that result as being the natural outcome of traditional social differences or the result of competition in market economies.
It is usually considered more conservative in terms of social change and tries to respect tradition and history.
Right-wing politics, in Britain for example, support British Values and the Monarchy as they are traditional. Typically, most UK national newspapers are right-wing.

Conservative, Nationalistic, Patriotic, Support for the Establishment (eg. Monarchy, Government), People should be accountable and self-reliant

Political Contexts - run down of the past 5 years

The UK is a democracy and the Conservative party have a majority in Parliament
The vote for the UK to leave the EU (European Union) was 5 years ago and the UK officially left in January 2020 although we were in a transition period until January 2021.
Brexit was called for by the previous Prime Minister – David Cameron. Cameron called for the vote feeling confident that it would not be voted for. He resigned shortly after the result.
The Brexit vote was Leave 52% - Remain 48%. This has caused tensions between the population of the UK (who are nicknamed Brexiteers and Remainers). Keir Starmer took over leadership of the Labour party (after Corbyn caused divisions) in April 2020.
There has been a huge amount of criticism of the Conservative’s government’s handling of the Coronavirus Pandemic - there was a large scandal revealed in 2022 (Partygate) whereby the ministers broke their own lockdown rules.
During 2022, there was a lot of political upheaval in the government; in July, Javid resigned from the government quoting he does not trust Johnson's leadership. Shortly after, Sunak left the government as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
At the end of July, Johnson decided to resign as the prime minister - throughout the summer, there was a campaign to elect the new Conservative Prime Minister - the final two were Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. The current prime minister is Rishi Sunak.
The King must remain impartial in regards to politics and not comment on either side of the debate.

Daily Mail - Political Ideologies and Affiliation

Politically affiliated with the Conservative party who are currently in power. HOWEVER, they have criticised the Government for the handling of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Daily Mail right-wing ideologies:

Individual responsibility
Cutting money from public services
Has been linked to austerity
Defence of our country is paramount
Has a tendency to focus on the monetary & financial aspects of events/stories, rather than the human aspects
Fixed views on issues such as crime, drugs, migration etc
Opposed to the left-wing (Labour) party/ideologies
Mainly campaigned to “leave” the EU (BREXIT) which was brought about by David Cameron.

The Guardian - Political Ideologies and Affiliation

Not politically affiliated as some of their views are centrist meaning they support neither. They have strong pro-liberal values. The Guardian has a mission of ‘fearless independent journalism’ suggesting that they report on stories as impartial as possible.

Guardian pro-liberal ideologies:

Welfare for those in need
Spending money on public services
Equality
Workers rights
Open minded
Debate rather than violence
Compassionate for foreign problems (though previous PMs such as Tony Blair have used war for financial gain).
Opposed to right-wing ideologies
Mainly campaigned to “remain” - BREXIT

Summary of political affiliation of UK national newspapers:

Theory Alert - Gerbner Cultivation Theory

Gerbner argued that over long-term exposure, audiences become desensitised (accustomed to) to certain values and ideologies and believe them to be real. Gerbner says that the media is a very powerful entity which has the ability to influence the values and perspectives of an individual audience member.

Application:

The newspaper industry is incredibly influential in controlling how audiences vote during parliamentary elections as well as imposing the specific values, ideologies and political beliefs of the newspaper on the audience member. Readers of the news are partisan (meaning they strongly support a particular newspaper) so they are likely to be easily influenced by what they read, if they consume the same newspaper everyday.

Gebner also argues that due to the inherit negativity surrounding mainstream media and its profitability, this can lead to the mean-world syndrome; a state where audiences are so influenced by the media that they think the real world is negative. Negativity forms part of the news values and many ‘negative’ stories are likely to make it onto the front page - this could lead to moral panics developing if audiences do not actively discern and understand what they are reading.

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