Habermas’s– Public Sphere

Habermas’s theory of the public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion influence political action without the influence of the government. This can be applied to The Daily Mail as the government have no control over what is being written in the newspaper for the people to see. Both the I and The Daily Mail are on the internet and are now easily spread between people as well as this generation now being able to access the newspaper on their phone makes it much easier to spread and read the Daily Mail and the I amungst each other.

Habermas and the ideas of the Public Sphere

Habermas suggest the public sphere is “a public space between the private domain and the state in which public opinion was formed“.

Both newspapers support the idea of the Public Spheres as they wide spread information that serve the public therefore can spread communication between people easier as younger generations are more likely to read the news if it is on their phones. This is meant to serve the people, however it is run by the media elite and therefore biased, rather than being a media watchdog. This is seen in the Daily Mail as it is right wing than central and cannot fairly serve all people. The i is more central and therefore less biased to one political stance.

The public watchdog is responsible for “overseeing the state” which is seen the the CSP’s as they criticise the government by the Daily Mail saying ‘Boris set for war with UK’s five Church leaders’ which alerts the people of the workings of the government.

On the other hand, it does help people talk about societal problems within their country and spread important info. This is evident as the Daily Mail has a daily readership of 2.2 million and the i has 233,869 as of February 2019 which shows that the newspapers ideas can be spread across the country, especially via the internet (which is not measured).

Chomsky – the 5 filters that manufacture consent

The idea of The Media Elite filter is clear in the i as

Althussers’ ideas of ISA and Interpellation

This links to the Daily Mail and the i as it is about controlling the ideologies of the people through the media (newspapers). This si evident in the Daily mail of the headline of ‘Boris set for war with UK’s five Church leaders’. This rallied the readers of the Daily Mail against Boris by using hyperbolic language such as ‘war’ to control the people into believing Boris is too extreme. The idea that is presented creates interpellation that Boris is not a good leader.

The i’s headline of ‘UK heading back into lockdown by ‘back door’‘ suggests that the government is being sneaky as a back door has connotations of stealth. This links of ISA as it changes the ideology to be suspicious of the government and fear another lockdown.

The 5 filters that manufacture consent.

How does Noam Chomsky fit in with The Daily Mail and The i.

Ownership – The Daily Mail is owned by a large conglomerate called the Daily Mail General Trust, However The i used to be an independent newspaper until it was bought by Daily Mail General Trust in 2019.

Advertising – Because the target audience for the Daily Mail is lower-middle-class British women so they would try to advertise products that would be appealing and affordable to them. As with the i, because the target audience is much broader as it is for lapsed readers of quality newspapers of all ages, they would advertise products that could be for everyone.

The media elite shows how they can influence stories which means they are no longer true. Newspapers will do this so that their readers will have a certain view on specific events or topics. With the Daily Mail they may change certain details in a story so that their readers see it how they want it to be seen. This has been brought upon with the Daily Mail getting backlash for having “unreliable” stories. With the i they have been known to produce much more reliable stories.

Flak shows us how the media can influence what media we see. For example because the Daily Mail supports the conservatives, they will only show positive news about the Tory’s rather than negative. With the i, they are a centrist newspaper meaning they’re neither left or right wing so they have no political preference so they will have negative and positive news about all parties.

The Common enemy filter suggests that they need a common enemy to be able to produce more intriguing news.

Habermas’ theory of the public sphere could be linked to both newspapers because they support the public sphere because they are newspapers. The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can freely discuss societal problems. This links to the Daily Mail because newspapers get most of their news from sources who write into them who talk freely about issues gong on or their stories.

Chomsky– this links to manufacturing consent for example step 1 is ownership and this is clear with daily mail as it’s part of one large conglomerate DMGT, which owns several smaller companies like Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Metro and it’s even bought the I now for 49.6 million in November 2019 .

Step 2 is how the papers (Daily Mail and I) advertise the messages they want to spread within the paper, or for example ‘your tactical voting to boost the Tories and Brexit’, they can advertise and spread this message due to the fact they own several papers which are all owned by the DMGT therefore they can decide to advertise and spread messages promoting Brexit and cultivating the audience.

3 the media elite- these are the few bosses like Viscount Rothmore and he’s a supporter of the conservative party. Daily Mail was founded by Alfred Harmsworth and Harold Harmsworth. It’s the people at the top of company who get to decide what is posted and what’s in the paper and the editor is George Carron Greig who is an English journalist Greig supported the UK remaining in the EU in the June 2016 referendum as editor of The Mail on Sunday. He then shifted his stance to supporting Theresa May‘s withdrawal agreement. Greig was considered to have steered the Daily Mail in a pro-Remain direction, which has been criticised by his predecessor.

4- the flak is the people they go against and we know they’re conservatives so they’re against labor and democrats. Lastly, they are also the common enemy.

Habermas– the theory of the public sphere is evident in both papers, they both create a private space for people to meet and discuss common interests. For example, the conservative sided paper will allow other conservatives to meet and discuss their political issues as they share a common interest in them and they achieve this public sphere through the fact they have reading the paper in common.

Althusser– His theory of interpellation and ideological state apparatus can be applied to either paper. These papers are what shapes us into who we are and they construct an identity for us, i.e the papers may include things that shape our political views or tell us how to behave and cultivate us into behaving and believing the way they want us to through inter

Althusser- The Daily General Trust owns the Daily Mail and many others meaning the editor has control over many different platforms, this links to Althusser’s theory of ISA ( ideological status apparatus.) as the editor can create a dominant idea among the audience.

Habermas (public sphere)- Habermas’ theory can be applied to The I as it allows for the spread of information between the public without the government interfering. The public sphere is the idea of public opinions being shared among a society, where individuals can come together to form a ‘public’. For example

Habermas is a theorist who talks about the public sphere which is where everyone is involved and people can interact with each other freely. Democracy is important in the public sphere as it allows for people to have an opinion, and depends on an audience that is informed. Curran focuses on Habermas and the concept of the public sphere; this could be because Curran is interested in how the public keep their interest, and individuals can come together to discuss freely and identify societal problems. Media is said to be ‘free’ however it may not be free in reality if it’s owned by one person and essentially taking away that free will and power the public could have. The media and public sphere can be seen as a ‘watch dog’ which is a form of investigative journalism where journalists/authors/publishers of a news publication fact-check and interview political and public figures; this will increase accountability. This form of journalism often takes on a form of ‘beat reporting’ about specific issues as these are often considered valid and important to cover.

In some newspapers such as the i the editors produce what is considered to be of interest within the public which means they are taking into account what the public want and the public will be able to see what they want reflected in the newspaper.This is important with newspapers as if the public are interested in something, they will be more likely to engage with and read the articles. Most newspapers are now produced online which is good as this will make articles more accessible to everyone and people can have more of a say in what goes into the newspapers as everything will be online. This means people will be able to contribute to the stories that people read meaning there will be positive reinforcement, which means there will be an overall better customer satisfaction.

Habermas’ theory on the public sphere is important as it implies that the public’s opinions are needed in order for something to be successful and people can grow to enjoy the media more if there are topics that convey what the public want to actually see. There is a dominant ideology here as it’s implied that there can’t be good media without having the opinions of the public, as people won’t want to read or watch what is produced if it is of no interest to them.

Gramsci’s theory of hegemony focusses on the idea that the view of the ruling class in society (upper class) has the power to influence and manipulate mass audiences. Their view becomes the cultural ‘norm’.

Evidence from CSPs

The Daily mail has accusations of being racist, sexist and homophobic. A former Daily mail reporter, Brendan Montague, stated that “None of the front-line reporters I worked with were racist, but there’s institutional racism.”

This links heavily to Gramsci’s theory because institutional racism is know as racism that has become a norm in a culture or institution. With regards to The Daily mail the hegemony isn’t shown as manipulating a mass audience yet influencing the employees of the mail. Some would believe that the more this behaviour is supported in the working environment, the more it may start creeping into journalism seen inside the paper.

The idea of hegemonic views becoming societal norms links to Gerber’s cultivation theory. The more society is exposed to certain views the more they will normalise them.

Conglomerates such as The Daily Mail and general trust who own several newspapers including the i and Daily mail which both have a large readership have the power to influence more people than someone who owns less of the media. As well as this, if we consider the i, which is aimed at travellers and those with limited time, we can expect a large diversity of readership since it is often found in large travel hubs such as Gatwick airport. The Daily mail also has a larger readership not only because it is a well know newspaper but because it is known as a ‘middle market’ newspaper which means it provides entertainment as well as sport and news therefore caters to a wider audience.

The Daily mail is known to be a right winged supporting newspaper yet the i (which is owned by the same company) is know as centralist and liberalist.

Another example of hegemony within the print media is Evgeny Lebedev. He is the owner of Lebedev holdings ltd who owns the Independent (the former sister paper of the i). They also own the evening standard which is known to be conservative. This is due to Lebedev’s close relations with conservative leader Boris Johnson. Lebedev was nominated for a life peerage by Boris Johnson. The implication here being that Lebedev uses his power of influencing society to win Johnson more supporters in return for political power.

Theoretical position – Curran and Seaton 

The idea that the media is controlled by a small number of companies primarily driven by the logic of profit and power. The idea that media concentration generally limits or inhibits variety, creativity and quality.  

The daily mail evidence –  

Owned by the daily mail and general trust – owns the daily mail, mail on Sunday, Metro, mail today and mail online.  

Political view – right wing/ supporting conservatives – meaning this political view will be represented throughout all the media forms owned and produced through DMGT.  

Jonathon Harmsworth is the aristocratic owner of the Daily Mail 

DMGT owned by Rothermere Continuation Limited – they can control all the right-wing news being released to the 2.2 million readerships daily.  

Overall, the news that is read by 2.2million people daily have the conservative view channeled through that all their different forms of media.