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 26th 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.
