The Voice, founded in 1982, is a British national African-Caribbean newspaper operating in the United Kingdom.
The paper is based in London and was published every Thursday until 2019 when it became monthly.
It is available in a paper version by subscription and also online.
It is aimed at the British African-Caribbean community.
The only British national black newspaper operating in the United Kingdom.
An early statistic claims that the paper circulation peeked at 55,000 in the early 1990s, with young woman being the main demographic.
Linked theories/Theorists:
David Hesmondhalgh – Theory that companies were motivated by profit rather than a duty to public service. However, “The Voice” targeted such a niche audience that no one invested into it, this led to the founder “Val McCalla” to taking advantage of the social and political context at the time, to raise just enough to start his “risky adventure”.
Clay Shirkys representation of new media can be seen here, with The Voice moving from weekly copies to monthly copies due to the rise of online media. Clay Shirky’s “Newspapers and Thinking he Unthinkable” is a great summary of the threat the newspaper industry faced from online competition.
Paul Lazarfeld theory of Two-step flow of communication and the use of opinion leaders within the media can be seen within the story “Lammy Backs report which finds over half of the UK’s Judges to act in a racially bias way” This displays the opinion leader “Lammy” who is a “Shadow secretary for the foreign state” of the UK government and a Member of parliament, this further links to Chomsky’s 5 filters of mass media 1. which is the ownership filter, in this case its the media leader (government) passing their information down to “Lammy” the opinion leader to spread to the public.
Representation:
Newspapers, such as The Caribbean Times and West Africa, kept the diaspora up to date about news about the old countries. The Voice was different. It wanted to publish stories which were relevant to the second generation who were born and raised in Britain.
This was the opposite to a newspaper like the sun where they made a front page depict the negative stereotypes of the black immigrant community within England
The headline re-enforces the “sympathy” with the police officers within the riots.
