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.  

Analyze the ways that the i and Daily mail attempt to establish a distinctive identity within this free market. To what extent has this been successful? 

Both Curran and Seaton published the book “Power without responsibility” , which was originally published in 1981 by Fontana, the book expresses the views and ideas of liberal theories such as press freedom. Curran and Seaton stated “The free market makes the press a representative institution, newspapers and magazines are to respond to the concerns of their readers if they are to stay in business” this means that both believed that a good media business can only function fully if its main focus is the public, therefore a newspaper or magazine business will only do well if they highlight and include the concerns and opinions of its readers.  This can be seen in newspapers such as the I and The Daily Mail in the ways in which they distribute different political ideologies, because of their different political standpoints, both newspapers present ideas to audiences that share their views, The Daily Mail adopts a more right-wing stance in politics whereas the I presents a more liberalist and centrist view. 

The Daily Mail was first introduced in 1896, making it one of the oldest newspapers that continues to this day, because of this many of the Daily Mails attitudes are more traditionalist and right wing because of its older audience. The daily Mail has been criticized by many for its lack of factual evidence to support its articles which led to the online encyclopedia website Wikipedia banning The Daily Mail after Wikipedia’s editors voted it out for its general unreliability, the editors of Wikipedia publicly stated that their decision was “Centered on the Daily Mails reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat out fabrication” The Daily Mail can be related to Noam Chomsky’s theory of the five filters within media. Chomsky five filter theory suggests that media is operated through five filters: Ownership, advertising, the media elite, flak and the common enemy. The Daily Mail is a mass media corporation and can be related to ownership in the way in which it is owned by a larger conglomerate known as General Trust (TMG) which produce revenue totals of $2 billion, the General trust also owns the I which allows the General trust to control and oversee the media being released to the public, large conglomerates such as the general trust are driven by profit which means that the media they produce must generate revenue which can lead in a lack of factual evidence as seen in the Daily Mail. In the Daily Mail advertising is evidently seen in most pages of their newspapers, advertising strategies used by Daily Mail include full or half page advertisements to catch readers attention and bold titles that interest readers, this is done as advertising is The Daily Mails primary source of income so the adverts included in their papers must catch readers attention, the benefits of this can be seen in 2019 when The Daily Mail grew its revenues by 25% making the company a total of £76 million in 6 months. Governments, conglomerates and large institutions referred to as the media elite by Chomsky are the story tellers in media, they control the narrative of stories included in their forms of media which in this case is through the Daily Mail, in times of political or social controversy the media elite are able influence the public by including narratives that follow their own political agendas rather than the publics which in the daily Mails case is usually to support right wing representatives, by doing this the Daily Mails is able to manipulate readers by influencing them to support right wing ideologies. The flak can be seen as a way that corporations diminish and disregard ideas that challenge their traditional beliefs, an example of this can be seen when Erin Molan attempted to sue the Daily Mail for defamation over a report that portrayed her as racist, because Molans claims could have damaged the Daily Mails freedom of publishsing, the Daily mail denied her claims and aggressively defended its reporting by providing further evidence of Erin Molans controversial comments therefore damaging her reputation making her unable to win the court trial. The final filter of Chomsky’s five filter theory is the common enemy, the common enemy is the target or enemy portrayed in a certain article which in most cases is terrorists, communists or immigrants. This portrayal of the common enemy can be seen in the Daily Mail in its article “Sickly Immigrants add £1bn to NHS bill”, in this article the capitalist media Daily Mail portrayed immigrants as the common enemy by suggesting that “tax payers are likely to face a huge and ever- increasing burden because of the flow of migrants” which clearly implies that immigrants are at fault for the NHS bill when in reality this sum may be exaggerated to further add to the common enemy portrayal.  

The I is a much more liberalist and centralist newspaper despite being owned by the same conglomerate as The Daily Mail, because the I is a more politically left-wing media publisher its articles follow a more modernist standpoint. The I’s more left wing approach can be seen in the article “Boris Johnson is ready to address Joe Bidens concerns over Irish border as Government reaches out”  from the title alone, readers are able to make assumptions that Boris Johnson has made some type of mistake or misjudgment which portrays him negatively before the reader has seen the article, this is done as Boris Johnson is a right-wing representative and the majority of the I’s readers will have more politically left-wing views therefore this article attracts their focus. When reading the article, a segment states “Biden added that he would not approve a US-UK trade deal as president if the UK Government pressed ahead with the controversial step” this quote implies that Boris Johnson is the sole reason for the worsening of UK and US trade relations, which is done to paint Johnson as an unreliable prime minister which is included to further the negative views readers already have of Boris Johnson. This can be related to Skinners theory in the way in which repeated negative comments on Johnson result in the reader inheriting these negative views aswell, By publishing an adverse title the I are able to influence the reader before they have began reading the article, the reader is then influenced by the continuous reinforcement of worsening relations between the countries because of Boris Johnson’s actions and new plans therefore manipulating the reader into taking a more liberalist stance that opposes Boris rather than supporting him, this is a technique used by publishers to convert or influence the publics views and opinions on certain subjects. 

In conclusion, I believe that both The Daily Mail and The I have similar identities in the way that both newspapers are owned by the same conglomerate, The General Trust, which monitor and oversee all the publishing, editing and journalism done by media publishers in both corporations. In addition, both the Daily Mail and the I use similar tactics and strategies to engage their target audiences and influence them to follow certain social and political views based off the larger conglomerate’s agendas. Furthermore, The I also expresses right-wing views because of its centrist views, this means that both the Daily Mail and The I support right wing views at times usually due to the political stance of its larger conglomerate. 

Jean Kilbourne – feminist critical thinker

“[adverts] use sex… to sell everything.”

“Women’s bodies continue to be dismembered in advertising.”

“Children growing up today are bombarded from a very early age with graphic messages about sex and sexiness in the media and popular culture.”

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’s theory of The Liberal Free Press suggests that the public should be entitled to their own opinions and views. Newspapers should reflect a wide range of interests and options in society. “The freedom to publish in the free market ensures that the press reflects a wide range of opinions in society.” This quote by Curran and Seaton explains how diversity will cater to everyone’s needs in terms of the media and being able to see what they want. Curran and Seaton suggest that newspapers in a free market stay successful by being diverse as they are in the public’s interest. Curren also states, “the press is the people’s watchdog, scrutinizing the actions of the government and holding the countries rulers to account.” This idea suggests that the press is providing information to the public in regards to what is happening in the world without being told what to write by the government. Curran and Seaton’s theory also links to habermas’s theory of the public sphere. The 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. This links to the theory of the liberal free press because both theories are about the peoples own ideas and views that aren’t inflicted by the government and what the government wants people to think. 

The Daily Mail, which was founded in1896, is a right wing British newspaper. The Daily Mails target audience is lower middle-class women which is 55% of its readers. Since the newspaper is leaning to the right wing they generally hint their favour towards the Conservatives in the UK and the Republicans in American News. The daily Mail is a successful newspaper in terms as a profitable newspaper earning £140 million per year as it provides its readers news and information for the public’s interests. This can be linked to Habermas who thought of the theory of the public sphere which is similar to the concept of free press. The public sphere suggests how people can freely be connected to others horizontally rather than vertically, However, since a lot of articles are in there for the public’s interest it has been proven that a lot of what the Daily Mail is publishing isn’t as true as they’re letting on. A quote from Wikipedia reads,”The Daily Mail has been noted for its unreliability and widely criticised for its printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories of science and medical research, and for instances of plagiarism and copyright infringement.” By publishing fake news suggests to the reader that the Daily Mail newspaper is primarily driven by its profits rather than the truth to the public. 

The i is a British national morning paper published in London by Daily Mail and General Trust and distributed across the United Kingdom. It is aimed at “readers and lapsed readers” of all ages and commuters with limited time, and was originally launched in 2010 as a sister paper to The Independent. The I has been seen as leaning to the left wing of the political spectrum, making it more a competitor to The Guardian. However, The Independent tends to take a liberal, pro-market stance on economic issues. The Independent on Sunday referred to itself as a “proudly liberal newspaper”. An article in the i, “Biden vows to ‘heal America’ as armed trump supporters warn ‘this isn’t over’. This article presents to its viewers and readers that it is a liberal newspaper like it claims to be neither favoring the left or right wing political stance. However connotations in this quote can be seen as favouring the centre left wing like claims say the I favours. This is because of the connotations against Trump in the quote such as “armed” could suggest that these are dangerous people, however nothing remotely bad is said about Biden this could suggest the i is centre left wing because Biden is as well. 

In conclusion, the i and the Daily Mail are both successful newspapers in the free market due to the fact one newspaper is influenced by the need to only make profit out of the papers and feed false information to their readers and to either gain political readers. However the two competing newspapers know how to appeal to their individual audiences whilst still maintaining their individual identities.