Q7 Media Paper 1: Ideology can be defined as a collection of values and beliefs. To what extent do media products target audiences by constructing an ideological view of the world?
You should refer to your newspaper Close Study Products, The i and The Daily Mail.

Intro

Chomsky explains how propaganda and systemic biases function in corporate mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social, and political policies, both foreign and domestic, is “manufactured” in the public mind due to this propaganda, the printing press- created in Germany in 1440 by Gutenberg – made it much easier for the public to express their different views and ideologies, through study this was known as the development of the public sphere, to which Chomsky shows the mass production of media forms closed that sphere and became a tactical output to manipulate the publics consent and beliefs.

Stereotypically there are two ends of a political spectrum, authoritarianism in countries such as China, and libertarianism in countries such as the US, however Chomsky says that we are being controlled by the mass media (because people in power produce their ideologies and distribute it through mass media) to manufacture the general publics consent- in addition to big conglomerates owning most mass media; heavily reducing the public sphere by narrowing the beliefs of other companies and people, since people are being told “facts” from media without comprehending the idea that media will also have a political compass. The I for example might seem more leftist however it is still right winged just less right winged from the daily mail – both are owned by DMGT which the 4th Viscount Rothermere is the chairman for (70% of newspapers are owned by just three companies which breaks Habermas’ theory of the public sphere)

Livingstone and Lunt argue that the interests of citizens and those of consumers cannot be easily merged, that there is an increasing tendency in recent UK regulation policy to place the interests of consumers above those of citizens, perhaps giving newspapers are role in entertainment and advertising over education for the general public. Curran expands in his studies that the primary democratic role of the media is to act as a watch dog, big rich companies have more power and giant conglomerates all own the newspapers and enforce a political compass/ viewpoint onto the newspapers, breaking the theory by Habermas public sphere and reducing the expression between people of our own ideas and opinions: Curran writes that “Instead of providing conduit for rational critical debate, the media manipulated mass opinion”. A political economical approach to the media argues that, patterns of ownership and control are the most significant factors, in how the media operates, such as in Chomsky’s 5 filters of the mass media machine theory, this is showing how links to the establishment such as media representors or distributers are in debt and work with the people in power, those who go against them are pushed to the margins and not seen as much as a divisionary tactic, to keep the political compass presented on the news in a fixed position. This also gives the impressions there are newspapers and media products that have different viewpoints and ideologies however i am going to be arguing with both of those newspapers who are both owned by the same company, how the difference in content can trick people in to thinking they have different ideologies.

The daily mail:

The daily mail uses a handful of Roland Barthes theory on semiotic signs to represent subtly their ideas and political viewpoint without making it blatantly obvious towards the public. For instance, on the front page “Joyous Jubilee” with a picture of the queen smiling, this syntagm of signs show their support for the royal family, the queen smiling is indexical to joyfulness surrounding there royal family and the word joyous in the tagline furthermore supports the statement, this is a more right winged compass as someone on the more left side would be questioning about things such as the tax pay towards the celebration, and by looking at institutional evidence against the daily mail, I have been able to infer that The Daily Mail’s ownership supports the UK conservative party, and the paper prominently supports Brexit. For example, according to a Reuters Article, the Daily Mail blatantly labelled judges ruling against the Brexit decision as “enemies of the people.” This is furthermore enhanced by the font used in the banner of the newspaper being an olden fashioned calligraphy styled font, almost like chainmail which indexically signifies the imagery of knights, royalty and monarchy- or an olden fashioned view point which reflects affectively on the papers political compass. This points out their views on the conservative party (right) which sets the political compass for the rest of the newspaper. Another piece of institutional evidence shows that Daily Mail scored an average Factual Grade of 39.7%. This is well below the average of 61.9%, and shows the inaccuracy of “facts” and “news” the public are consuming and believing everyday, being subtly manipulated into believing news that benefit the conservative party. The Daily mail also has a more authoritarian stance, by using an editorial (one voice over other voices) can be a represented of an authoritarian society however in general narrows the views of other people and the public sphere by only allowing one belief to be represented throughout the newspaper and furthermore, institutional evidence can show their authoritarian and right winged viewpoint such as third-party assessments from media bias organizations such as AllSides and Media Bias/Fact Check. Based on this data, The Factual assigns Daily Mail a “Right” bias.

Chomsky says to keep an eye out for the five filters of the mass media machine that are trying to manufacture consent, I believe that the most prominent filter one is links to the establishment, Lord Rothermere was also friends with Adolf Hitler which we can say is a link to the establishment regarding Chomsky’s theory of the 5 mass filters of media. As the public gains knowledge from the media- they are also being programmed through advertisement and media exhibition (Laswell’s passive consumption model- hypodermic model) to view the world through the political compass of the media product. Building on Lasswell consumption model Shannon and Weaver adapted the model and introduced the idea of noise and error disrupting the passive model, active consumption can be enabled by educating yourself about the tactics of the media and start thinking your own thoughts and to keep an eye out on the Chomsky theory of 5 Filters on the mass media machine- and how those filters prevent media from representing all sides of the political compass and how they are mostly right winged authoritarian. Through vertical and horizontal integration (structure of ownership) we can see that the Daily Mails owners (DMGT) also control the next CSP and therefore is showing the control that mass conglomerates have over the ideologies presented to the public, which i will expand on in the I analysis.

The I:

The I presents are more leftist/libertarianism view in comparison to the daily mail, and overall has less right-authoritarianism representation throughout the newspaper, however this doesn’t make it completely left. Chomsky describes through links with the establishment (media representors or distributers are in debt and work with the people in power, those who go against them are pushed to the margins and not seen as much.) and divisionary tactics (People and other media sources who aren’t helping the people in power are divided away by flack, other sources discredit their views and divert the story onto something else to make the opposing media seem unreliable.) how dangerous it is to work against the people in power, if you want to sell newspapers or any media it is already described by hesmondhalgh as a risky business but is furthermore enhanced when you go against someone in power and then get discredited as a reliable source, as well as the I being ran by the same company, there isn’t a reason for the same company to produce two newspapers on different ends of the political spectrum.

The front cover of the I shows beliefs against the conservative party. ‘Johnson future turning toxic for Tories’ seems to be against Conservative / Boris Johnson which is a more leftist view, in addition to the huge institutional evidence that the i represents beliefs that go against the conservative party: Nick Clegg, former UK Deputy Prime Minister and former leader of the Liberal democrats , a centrist party, is a fortnightly columnist for the i. His column usually features in the “My View” comment section of the paper. Secondly, during an interview for the i in December 2017, then Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn declared himself to be a dedicated reader of the i, saying that its compact size and concise articles suited his busy lifestyle as Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition. The i does not have voice of editor like the daily mail, but an ‘Opinion Matrix’ instead, basically a range of different voices and opinion – creating so much more freedom in voice and thought and enhancing Habermas theory on the public sphere. This clearly benefited the newspaper as institutional evidence suggests In March 2019, the i overtook The Guardian to become the most trusted digital news brand on-line, and third in print. Overall i do think the i has a more left libertarian political compass however they wouldn’t ever promote an extreme left belief that would harm their link to the establishmen.