Curran and Seaton present the view that a free press relies on a free market where individual newspapers can compete through their political stances and points of view.

Analyse the ways that The i and the Daily Mail attempt to establish a distinctive identity within this free market.  To what extent has this been successful? Refer to the specific edition of your case study – for both papers – as well as, on-line versions of these publications

Curran and Seaton are two theorists who developed the theory of the liberal press. This is where the freedom to publish in the free market, ensures that the press reflects in a wide range of opinions and interests in society. Furthermore, the shape and creation of the press is determined by its own readers. In context of the Daily Mail, its average daily readership is the ABC1 demographic, which helps to form the news within the media.

The press can be seen as biased due but to the theory of the liberal free press from curran and Seaton, which he states that despite the fact anyone is free to make newspapers, this is not the case, due to financial status and stability. So, the wealthy people are the ones who have the power to address their opinions and put forward it to the public. This is done through the media press. The audience (lower class) read the news (created by the upper class). Linking in Gramsci, he talks about the theory of Hegemony. This focuses on the idea that the view of the upper class in society have the power to influence and manipulate mass audiences and create a hegemonic society. Their view becomes the cultural ‘norm’. We are almost being brainwashed by the superior. However, what makes a good newspaper? Is it the entertainment? Trump supporters? Biden supporters? In the 1960s, the idea of uses and gratifications was developed by the theorists Gurevitch, Haas and Katz. This is an approach to understanding why and how people seek out specific media to satisfy needs. They created the media order of preference for satisfying needs, including A: personal needs (understanding self, enjoyment and escapism) and B: Social Needs (Knowledge about the world, self-confidence, stability etc.) Looking at the Daily mail, it is multi-various, as it gives your knowledge about the world, escapism and enjoyment. In 1960s, Skinner, a psychologist and theorist developed the study on operant conditioning. The conclusion of the theory is that institutions will appeal to what people want. If people want information about trump put in the newspapers, they will do that, to satisfy the personal needs. We can link this to Zuboff, where he looks into individualism and personal freedom vs behavioral modification. Through his book on “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” he states that “technology has begun to develop new methods of behavior control capable of altering not just an individual’s actions but his very personality and manner of thinking.

The Daily Mail is a British middle market newspaper published in London with a target audience of 55% being lower middle-class British women. It is owned by Jonathon Harmsworth also known as Lord Rothermere, who is worth 1.9 billion pounds. It is companied by a sister paper of the daily mail on Sunday, which was launched in 1882. This newspaper tends to lean more to the right wing, which helps to distinguish them from their competitive as a unique platform of media. The right wing is characterized by the emphasis on notions such as authority, hierarchy, duty and nationalism. This would include republicans such as Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

Newspapers often use propaganda and persuasion. Harold Laswwell, a leading American political scientist and communications theorist, wrote a book on “Proganda Technique propaganda is the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately to individuals or groups with the view to influence the opinions or actions of the other individuals or groups for predetermined ends through psychological manipulations. On the other hand, propaganda appears as overly political and manipulative

This links to cultivation theory, Gerbner’s, which says that over time we can be persuaded by the media. So, with the daily mail, there’s a section called “Femail”, where they talk about typical female characteristics, such as manicures, hair salons and Botox, and makes women look shallow, as they only think about their looks, as it states “I prayed to the grooming gods”. It’s not explicitly said, so it’s not propaganda, therefore its persuasion, as they are hinting and dripping information to audience that you should believe in certain things. Over time readers will believe that this is an ideology that they should follow. This newspaper has been clever, as their audience is mainly women, they are more likely to be persuaded by the media.

Structures and corporations such as the news have more power than individual agencies. They are simply unaware of manipulation. This can be linked to Skinners theory of operant conditioning, and the concept of the fiction of free, where we as an audience feel powerful as we believe we come up with the ideas and opinions ourselves, when really, they are the ones who have been manipulated by the power. Linking to the Daily Mail, when the audience read certain headlines and articles, they may believe they came up with their own ideas, when really, they have been subtly manipulated into that idea by the media, the power, Lord Rothermere.

We can associate this with Gramsci theory of Hegemony. this focuses on the idea that the view of the upper class in society has the power to influence and manipulate mass audiences. Their view becomes the cultural ‘norm’. In relation to the daily mail, it is a newspaper, which is owned by a ruiling class family. Wikipedia states that the daily mail is a unreliable source, as their aim is to simply sell their newspapers, to create profit. So, the use of front on the front paper is normally in black large, bold writing, making it more likely to sell, as it is eye catching. So, linking back to gramscis theory, the rich (Lord Rothermere) creates a story, in order to manipulate and influence the mass audience.

The i newspaper was first introduced on 26^th of October 2010. It is owned by the daily mail and general trust, along with a sister paper called the “The I Sunday”. The i is known to give balanced political views to its audience, which is 60% male, 40% female. The daily mail bought the i for approximately 49.6 million pounds. Its readers are people who are travelling to and from work, who don’t have a specific political viewpoint and are liberal. The paper doesn’t favor the left or right wing, they just deliver information that has been said in the news, without favoring a specific party. They keep their audience interested though publishing new article daily.

An article in the i, “Biden vows to ‘heal America’ as armed trump supporters warn ‘this isn’t over’”. This is evidence that the I doesn’t favor either left or right wing, as they are simply addressing plain English information, with no puns, indicating a liberal press. Ironically, the statement displayed on the top right corner “Biden just made his victory speech while trump lost his dignity”, suggests that they are leaning more to the left wing, as they seem more in favor of democrats, such as Biden. We can argue that the The i was developed to take a right-wing approach, after the Daily Mail bought the I for 49.6 million pounds. We can see this through the i article “Donald Trump Jr mocked for geographically wrong election prediction map. This shows that he is being mocked by the public. They use the method of persuasion to send the news to the public. When addressing information to the audience, they can decode the message however they want. The theorist Stuart Hall developed the theory of reception in 1980s, where media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer encodes messages and values in their media which are then decoded by the audience. In relation to The i’s article “Donald Trump Jr mocked for geographically wrong election prediction map” the media can present a statement, but the audience can read it in a different way (if you don’t agree with the statements, you can reject the reading. Stuart hall says that there are three ways of reading a message. A dominant position accepts the dominant message, a negotiated position both accepts and rejects the dominant reading and an oppositional position rejects the dominant reading. So through the method of persuasion, the audience can decode the message in any way they want to.

In conclusion, The i and the Daily Mail attempt to establish a distinctive identity within this free market in different ways. As two competing newspapers, with the I having a daily circulation of 221,083, and the daily mail with 1,134,184, both papers are successfully of creating an individually identity.

Curran and Seaton present the view that a free press relies on a free market where individual newspapers can compete through their political stances and points of view. 

Analyse the ways that The i and the Daily Mail attempt to establish a distinctive identity within this free market.  To what extent has this been successful? Refer to the specific edition of your case study – for both papers – as well as, on-line versions of these publications.

Curran and Seaton are two theorists who developed the theory of The Liberal Free Press. Free press is the idea that anyone is entitled to starting a newspaper and informing the public of news. However, it is recognised that not everyone has the money to do this. Due to this, there are only a limited amount of people and organisations able to feed news to the public and as a result, society are only being given a small amount of opinions. Gramsci is an American theorist who talks about interpellation and tells us that those in power such as the state and the ruling classes, maintain power within capitalist societies through the media and the gradual implantation of dominant ideologies to people of a lower class. This is a form of persuasion that helps the media infect people with specific ideas. When online news was first developed, it was believed that there could possibly be more chance for people with less money to begin broadcasting news, ‘the internet has enhanced the freedom to publish by lowering entry costs.’. However, Curran and Seaton dispute this and claim that despite these facts, the majority of online news is still controlled by large companies and make this clear in the book The Liberal Theory of Press Freedom, ‘the list of the ten most-visited news sites is dominated by large news organizations like BBC News’.

The Daily Mail is a British national newspaper, founded in 1896, which tends to lean in favour of the right wing. The paper is owned by Jonathon Harmsworth who has a current net worth of £1.9 billion. With a target audience of lower middle-class women forming up to 55% of readers, the paper is successful in maintaining a distinctive identity by tailoring their stories to please these readers. As The Daily Mail is a predominantly right wing newspaper, they generally hint their favour towards the Conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in American News, however this is not always explicitly seen. In an article on page 5 of the paper in the close study product from the 5^th of November 2020 reads, ‘Ultimately, Biden may owe a victory to the single electoral college vote he gained against the presidents five in Nebraska’. This is an example of persuasion as the writer subtly hints toward the idea that Biden is only leading the race due to chance and are presenting him with a backhanded compliment on his success. This relates to the Cultivation Theory from George Gerbner, which states that over time, our perception of the world we live in can be morphed. We believe we are in control of what we consume when in fact structure (organisations and big corporations) have more power than us; the individual. Information is subtly dropped into the news we read without us realising, with the intention of the reader eventually coming to a conclusion that they believed to be their own, when in fact they have been persuaded to think this way. The writer in this Daily Mail article is attempting to persuade the readers that the right wing is superior, by making Biden look bad. B.F Skinner talks about ‘The Fiction of Free Will’ which states that we believe we are in control when in fact we are being manipulated to believe certain things. This theory links clearly to this article for the same reasons previously stated. The Daily Mail created an online version of the paper in 2003 which now achieves 11.34 million visitors every day. This free version of the paper appeals to a wider audience range. Due to this online version’s accessibility, they have been very successful at reaching a younger demographic and in 2017 were voted ‘Newspaper of the Year’, a title they still publish on the front of their newspaper every day.

The i newspaper was launched in 2010 as a sister newspaper to The Independent and as of November 2019, is owned by The Daily Mail. The paper and its website were bought by the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) on the 29^th of November 2019, for £49.6 million, 3 years after The Independent Newspaper went completely digital. The paper was originally targeted at commuters of all ages and political viewpoints as a convenience paper; easy to grab whilst travelling to or from work. In December 2017, the owners of The i announced that they were bringing in a monthly profit of around £1 million and as of October 2019 achieve a daily circulation of 221,083.Despite its ownership, the newspaper maintains its liberal viewpoint and claims to be politically neutral. In order to achieve their distinctive identity within the free market, they aim to focus their stories on social issues rather than politics. They report on political events but do not take a specific side. In the Close Study Product from the 5^th of November 2020, the paper has used a headline reading ‘Biden edges closer to the White House’, and below, a photo of now President elect Joe Biden. This headline does not include any puns or sarcasm. Instead the headline discusses the information without being biased, they are simply reporting on information. Katz, Gurevitch and Haas talk about the Uses and Gratification theory. This theory tells us that we use the media for personal needs, social needs or a mixture of the two. The i could be considered as a newspaper that audiences read as a form of escapism. The stories in the paper are not slanderous to any particular people and are therefore simply informative. Regular readers of The i therefore may read their stories to escape the rivalries displayed in other newspapers. 

In ‘The Liberal Theory of Press Freedom’, Curran claims that ‘newspapers and magazines must respond to the concerns of their readers if they are to stay in business’. This can be seen in both The Daily Mail and The i in individual ways. The Daily Mail dedicates a whole segment of their paper to a women’s category entitled ‘Femail’. In this segment, topics such as fashion, relationships, manicures and Botox are discussed. As the general reader demographic of The Daily Mail are middle aged women, this segment has been tailored to appeal to their interests. From this segment we can also see examples of persuasion and cultivation theory as the paper uses predominantly feminine characteristics to the articles. The use of pink fonts and trivial topics could link to Shoshana Zuboff and some ideas in her book ‘Surveillance Capitalism’. In the book, Zuboff writes ‘various forms of persuasion are used to stimulate certain types of behaviour’. In the ‘femail’ segment of the paper, the writers are demonstrating what the right wing believes a woman should be. The dumbing down of women in this section can have an effect on women over time as they are persuaded these are the ‘normal’ characteristics of a woman, when in fact they are being carefully manipulated by the bourgeoise into conforming to the dominant ideology. 

To conclude, it is made clear that the free market that Curran and Seaton describe, is not in fact as free as is said. The Daily Mail and The i are two competing newspapers that have developed their strategies through the years in order to appeal to their readers and have both maintained their own individual identities. The competition between newspapers within the free market is always thriving, and consumers feed into this by purchasing the papers and visiting the websites. The Daily Mail has a daily circulation of 1,134,184 while The i has a much smaller circulation of 221,083. The Daily Mail is also much more widely available as it is easy to buy in almost every supermarket and convenience store in the UK, however, The i does very well on their digital platform and in March 2019, overtook The Guardian as the most trusted digital news brand. 

Both papers thrive in the free market for individual reasons and seem to be able to satisfy their reader demographic as they continue to publish and develop their identity as the media evolves. 

Curran and Seaton present the view that a free press relies on a free market where individual newspapers can compete through their political stances and points of view.  

Analyse the ways that The i and the Daily Mail attempt to establish a distinctive identity within this free market.  To what extent has this been successful? Refer to the specific edition of your case study – for both papers – as well as, on-line versions of these publications. 

Curran and Seaton are two theorist which researched the power of media by creating theories that look in free press. In their book Power Without Responsibility, they state “the freedom to publish in the free market ensures that the press reflects a wide range of opinions and interests in society” this shows that Curran and Seaton believe that the press should be free from interference or ownership without any political control. However, currently there are many large conglomerates which control large portions of the media which are able to change the views of the public. An example of this is the Murdoch family which own fox news, sky and many more large media corporations. “the claim that the free market renders the press diverse, representative and independent” this quote can be seen to contradict current media as not everyone can produce media and it apparently enables people to “scrutinize government” which links to Noam Chomsky’s 5 filters. Chomsky’s 5 filters which state that all media which opposes the government or power will receive flack and be discarded as fake. Another theory to link to free press is Habermas and the transformation of the public sphere. In the late 1700s people started to print media which changed how people thought and interacted as people use to speak to each other in coffee shops the print media was able to convey messages to people long distances away from the public interests. The public was a place where people could interact and communicate with others underneath the government “public control of media has often been advocated on the grounds of public interest”. 

My first case study is the Daily Mail which a form of media which can be seen using the internet or through newspapers which links to Habermas and how media has evolved to be seen while sitting at home compared how news use to spread through people talking at coffee shops. The Daily Mail is an English newspaper which has adapted into a North African edition called Continetial Daily and an edition in India called Mail Today. It is owned by parent company Daily Mail and General Trust which is owned by Rothermere Continuation Limited. In January 2020 the Daily Mail had the 3^rd most circulations with 1,134,000. The target audience of the are mainly women aged 35+ which live in London or the rest of Great Britain. While the newspaper has a decreasing circulation, the online website has more than 218 million unique visitors per month according to Wikipedia. Daily Mail is typically a right wing however, it has released articles which are left wing for example an article headlined “Tories in turmoil over Rashford’s free school meals” which could have been done to increase the range in their audience and people that will be willing to read the paper. This headline could be seen as making fun of conservatives but also to entice people to read their paper as they may like or know about Marcus Rashford as he’s seen as a celebrity. 

Another newspaper is the I it is also a British paper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust, its target audience is “readers and lapsed readers” of “quality” newspaper for those of all ages. The I is a sister paper to the independent and claims to be politically neutral. This can be seen in the I’s sister newspaper the independent when put into a survey most people believed it was central. One article on the I website is “Lib Dems move to block Brexit bill ‘threatening UK unity”. Lib Dems are said to be more left however they are more focused on liberal vs authorial, in this article the I say they are threatening which is negative against the Lib Dems showing that the I can be seen as right and authoritarian. However, this is only one article. In another article “Lib Dem leadership result” they praise the new leader of the party and but quotes from others congratulating the party. The I has had a decline in average daily circulation from just over 300,000 in March 2013 to just over 233,000 in February 2019 but it has had 28 million average monthly readers online. The I sell for £1 on Saturday and 65p every other day, it also has a Portuguese version which won a European award for best design but has only every had 16,000 circulation in one month 

In conclusion I believe the daily mail is a lot more successful having an operating profit of 63 million for nine months whereas the I make a million a month. However, both companies are on the decline along with nearly every other newspaper. This has caused each company adapt to making online forms of news and media which allows them to reach a larger audience but also allows them to collect data on each person that visits their website. Which can link to Noam Chomsky 5 filters, advertising allows big companies to sell consumers as a product so that advertisers can persuade large amounts of people to buy their product or service. I also think the newspapers use 2 step flow theory as they share their views on politics using statistics or facts which may not even be real, but consumers then talk to other people about it which allows the media to manipulate how consumers think. Overall, the daily mail and the I both share their views on politics and can manipulate the audience while receiving information and revenue off them.