All media serves a purpose… to entertain, educate, and first and foremost, inform. The way in which media products inform is heavily influenced by their ideology, which is defined as ‘a system of ideas and ideals, especially ones which form the basis of economic or political theory and policy.’ The two media products which I will be talking about in this essay, the Daily mail and The I have opposing ideologies, which can be seen through the content of their newspapers. Wording, and in general, the language used in the paper (positive / negative) both influence readers and create a distinctive ideology. Plus, the marleting techniques used detetermine what type of audience the paper wants to sell too. The Daily Mail is a right-wing, authoritarian paper, which appeals to brexit-supposrting, patriotic, conservative readers. Whereas, The I is a left-wing, libetarian paper, which appeals to young, progressive, fact-seeking liberals. Even though, The I is actually owned by the same owner as the The Daily Mail, The Daily Mail General Trust, the two newspapers political views couldn’t be any more different.

The Daily Mail uses emotive language to target right-wing audiences. An example of this can be found in the quote ‘Think Britain has a vaccine problem? You should see the mess we’ve made of it here in the EU”. The use of the word ‘mess’ reinforces an anti-EU agenda, and turns readers against the EU. Additionally, statements such as, “We are strongest when united” appeal to patriotic, imperialist-yearning readers, because it presents England as a nation, which is united against the rest of the world. In the Editorial section, which houses the majority of the papers political views. Language such as “deluded and dangerous” is used to describe the left. The repeated negative representation of the left, as well as, the EU, is an example of Gerbener’s cultivation theory` (Cultivation theory is a sociological and communications framework to examine the lasting effects of media, primarily television), and it leads to a prefered reading of the text, which suits the ideologies of the paper. Whether it’s the paper’s influence on its readers, or the type of audience the paper attracts, the majority of the Daily Mail’s readers are conservative. According to a December 2004 survey, 53% of Daily Mail readers voted for the Conservative Party, compared to 21% for Labour and 17% for the Liberal Democrats. Additionally, the Daily Mail contains a number of semiotic signs, theorised by Roland Barthes. Most of these signs are percievable as soon as you look at the paper, for instance, the font used for the title of the newspaper is extremely traditonal, which gives the newspaper an old-timey feel, and appeals to their target audience of right-wing, authoritrians aged between 40-80.

The I is a largely fact-orientated newspaper which sits on the left, libetarian side of the political compass. Statements such as, “men as mosnters: is that really radical?” and ‘proof that the poorest people get hit worse by inflation’ make their leftist political stance incredibly clear. However, according to a study done by a uni student in 2020, The I has a bias rating of just -8.80 (Bias scores for articles and shows are on a scale of -42 to +42, with higher negative scores being more left, higher positive scores being more right) which suggests that the paper is far less opinionated than the Daily Mail, which had one of the highest bias scores, with around -41. Additionally, the paper’s high reliability score, 42.46 (scores above 40 are excellent according to the uni student) insinuiates that it is largely fact based, and doesn’t push agenda’s built on false information. The I has targeted poorer audiences through their lower price, 85p (the Daily Mail’s price of £1.35 appeals to middle class conservative readers), and this will likely bring in readers who are more progressive, because people in poorer area’s are arguably more aware of social problems surrounding race and wealth, sue to experaincing those issues first hand. Additionally, the modern looking layout and bold, red colours are stark contrast to the Daily Mail’s dimly coloured, traditionally layed out paper, and this suggests that The I is more progreessive and for younger readers. The way that the two paers are distributed (The I was originally made as a cheap paper for workers commuting on the tube, whereas the Daily mail is often posted to houses) further reinforces this idea.