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 5th 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 29th 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 5th 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.