Media Studies Exam

Types of Newspapers:

• Local -- Local context and Town.
• Regional -- Region and County.
• National -- United Kingdom and UK and important International news.
• International -- Global (world) and Distributed Internationally which contains worldwide news.

• Broadsheet (Social Classes A, B and C1) = The Daily Telegraph, Financial Times and The Sunday Times/Telegraph.
• Middle-Market (Social Classes B, C1 and C2) = Daily Mail, Daily Express and The Mail on Sunday.
• Tabloid (Social Classes C2, D and E) = The Sun, Daily Mirror, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Sun on Sunday and Sunday Mirror.

Anchor - This is the term for using a caption to determine the implies meaning of an image. Images can have a different meaning, depending upon the caption included.

Byline - The name of the person who has written the news article.

Earpiece - A teaser image and words, used to attract the audience to look further into the newspaper.

Splash - The main and leading story of the newspaper.

Jump line - If an article continues on another page, the page to go to is called this.

Pull quote - This is the quote, in bold larger text, which has been pulled from the article to make it stand out.

Copy - The content of the article, which journalists refer to as the 'copy'.

Hard and Soft News:

• Hard News -- This type of news is 'up-to-the-minute' news and events. Subject matter may be economics, politics, war and crime. This news is serious, urgent and factual.
• Soft News -- This type of news is intended to entertain the reader. Subject matter may be celebrity gossip, fashion tips, technology, and funny/feel-good stories.

• WHO - Informs the audience 'who' the article is about.
• WHAT - Explains to the audience 'what' event the article is about.
• WHERE - Informs the audience 'where' it happened.
• WHY - Explains to the audience 'why' the event has happened.
• WHEN - Tells the audience 'when' it happened.

Sources of News:

• News Agencies -- Gathers news, sport, entertainment and images. It acts as a central point for news.
• News Aggregators -- These are generally internet-based or application-based on mobile technology.
• People/Eyewitness -- Someone may be at the centre of the news.
• Files -- Leaked documents where the publisher remains anonymous.
• Tip-off -- May be a telephone call or letter from someone who has information about an issue or event.
• Press Release -- This may be a formal statement issued by an organisation or a peron who wished to make a public announcement.
• Official Website -- Depending upon the news to be announced.
• Social Media -- It is freely accessible and very useful for sourcing local news.

 Galtung and Ruge did research into how news has a set of values and must fit a specific ideal before it is considered newsworthy. These values are used as a form of 'gatekeeping'.

• Frequency - Short-term events (e.g. murders or robberies), that occur frequently. Politics, economics and education are also examples.
• Threshold - Events that have an impact (e.g. large numbers involved).
• Unambiguity - Immediate meaning so they can be easily understood.
• Proximity - Must be about the people it is targeted at and relevent to them.
• Predictability - Hinted at, and then becomes real as expected by the media.
• Unexpectedness - Events that are unexpected are considered newsworthy.
• Continuity - News stories, once reported, must continue to be reported on.
• Composition - Balanced at the time of broadcast, consisting of relevant news.
• Reference to elite nations - News which relates culturally to our own and which is relevant to us.
• Reference to elite person - News about our monarchy.
• Personalisation - Personal; someone is accountable for their actions rather than an organisation (e.g. celebrity or human interest).
• Negativity - 'Bad news is good news'.
• Visual imperative - Footage or photos of an event.

Headlines:

 Headlines are made very eye-catching by using sensationalist techniqes. The news stories are over dramatised or exaggerated and aimed at making the audience but the newspaper to read the story.

Sensationalism:

 This is the way in which a story is made to be provocative, extremely controversial or attention-grabbing. It is intended to engage the audience, sometimes at the expense of accuracy.

Personalisation:

 Quite often, especially where a celebrity is involved, first names and nicknames are included in the headline. This makes the audience feel they have some personal involvement with the celebrity.

Representation:

 Representation is the study of how people, places and objects are represented or presented to us by the producers of the media texts we consume.

 Images in newspaper reports help to illustrate the news that is being presented but images are open to manipulation.

• Immigrant - This is a person arriving in a country where they were not born, with the intention of living there.
• Migrant - This is someone who moves from place to place in order to improve their life, by working or seeking education. It is a planned move.
• Asylum Seeker - This is someone who has had to flee from his or her own country as a result of an oppressive government, persecution, religious or political belief.
• Refugee - Once an asylum seeker is granted asylum, they are then referred to as a refugee.

Hypodermic Needle Theory:

 This theory states that people watch/read media texts and they believe every part of every media message they are told.

 Celebrities can be manufactured by their producers and, in fact, some news may be released by their PR representative in order to create a 'buzz' about them.

 The tabloids in particular will report on 'gossip', as well as unflattering photographs of celebrities.

 Celebrities can also be represented to us as figureheads of charity.

Uses and Gratifications Audience Theory:

 Jay Blumler and Elihu Katz developed an audience theory that allows us to see what people 'do' with their media rather than what the media does to them. There are four gratifications:

• Identity,
• Relationships,
• Entertainment and,
• Information.

Demographics:

 This is the study of the population. Studies look at gender, ethnicity, age, education, income level and employment, among others.

NS-SEC (National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification):

 This is the system used for categorising demographical information used for audience targeting and market research by advertising sectors.

• A - Upper middle class.
• B - Middle class.
• C1 - Lower middle class.
• C2 - Skilled working class.
• D - Working class.
• E - Lowest level of subsistence.

NRS - National Readership Survey:

The NRS is an organisation that conducts research into who is reading newspapers.

 Convergence means the coming together of elements to form one element. This can be linked to:

• Technological convergence,
• Cross-media convergence and,
• Synergy

Technological Convergence:

 Mobile phones, tablets, and even computers are examples of how technology has converged, whereby you can do multiple things on one device.

Cross-Media Convergence:

Newspapers are now provising an online platform, albeit on a website or via an application on a mobile device.

Synergy:

Synergy is another form of convergence and relates to how organisations work together to produce a product which will have a greater income than if they worked individually.

Distribution of Newspapers:

 In order for consumers to recieve their newspapers, the newspaper have to be distributed. In the case of the printed newspaper, they obviously have to be printed first. They are then sent for distribution.

Audit Bureau of Circluation (ABC):

 We recieve our newspapers by either having them delivered or physically going to get them.

 Newspaper circulation has fallen over 14 years from 12.06 million copies to 6.89 million. This shows a decline of 42.84%.

Owner of Organisation --> Editorial Department --> Advertising Department (L) / Sales Department (R) / Prouction Department (B) --> Distribution Department.

Newspaper Publishing Companies:

 News Corp UK and Ireland Limited has the highest circulation figures and market shair in the newspaper publishing sector.

Newspapers and Political Allegiance:

Most of the publishing companies tend to have a political party that they have an allegiance to. The easiest way to look at the politial allegiance is to consider it as left-wing and right-wing.

• Left-Wing - Politics believes in social equality and the belief that inequality needs to be reduced. They believe in the NHS and want to help people who have nothing. (LABOUR PARTY)
• Right-Wing - Politics believes that social inequality is inevitable and actually natural and desirable. Right-wingers believe in the right to be successful. (CONSERVATIVE PARTY and UKIP)

UKIP:

• Daily Express.

Conservative:

• Daily Mail.
• The Daily Telegraph.
• Metro.
• The Sun.
• The Times.

Labour:

• Daily Mirror.
• The Guardian.

No Particular Allegiance:

• i

• Defamation - A false statement which harms the reputation of an individual or organisation.
• Slander - Spoken words which can harm the reputation of an individual or organisation.
• Libel - Written words which can harm the reputation of an individual or organisation.

Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO):

 This was brought about after the phone hacking scandal. The PCC (Press Complaints Commission) was dissolved and replaced by IPSO. The new organisation was set up in September 2014.

Editors' Code of Practice:

• Accuracy -- No inaccurate, misleading, or distorted information or images must be published.
• Privacy -- All are entitled to respect for their privacy. Any intrusion into privacy must be justified. No photography without consent.
• Harassment -- Journalists must not intimidate, pursue or harass individuals in any form.

• National -- Broadcasts over the whole of the UK (BBC Radios 1-5 etc.)
• Regional -- Broadcasts over specific UK regions (KISS and Capital etc.)
• Local -- Local stations broadcast over specific countries (BBC Radio Suffolk etc.)

News Bulletins:

 The majority of news bulletins heard on over 300 commercial radio stations are distributed by Sky News Radio. They are produced by Independent Radio News (IRN).

 IRN has four main shareholders:

• Global Radio -- 54.6%
• Bauer Radio -- 22.3%
• ITN -- 19.7%
• The Wireless Group -- 3.4%

 A newsreader will read a news bulletin at around 3 words per second. This means that a 30-second news bulletin would contain around 90 words.

How many news stories in a bulletin?:

• 1 Minute - At least 5 items.
• 2 Minutes - At least 5 items, together with an audio clip from a correspondent.
• 3 Minutes - At least 6 items, with two other audio clips.
• 4 Minutes - At least 9 items, with three other audio clips.

Adding an Audio Clip to The Script:

• It must be punctuacted correctly.
• Avoid using the same words.
• Tricky words to pronounce should be spelt phonetically.

Expected Format for an Audio Clip: (// = next line)

Audio insert NAME: ___ // IN WORDS: ___.. // OUT WORDS: ..___ // DURATION: 0'00"

• BBC Radio 1- 15-29 ~ Young and trendy, up-to-date music.
• BBC Radio 2 - 35+.
• BBC Radio 4 - All ages ~ Intellectual features, news and drama.
• Heart - 25-44.
• Absolute Radio - 35-44.
• KISS - 18-34 ~ Dance, hip-hop music.

 RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) is the organisation that is in charge of measuring who is listening to the radio in the UK. Just like the NRS (Newspaper Readership Survey), RAJAR carries out the same kind of surveys to determine who is listening by demographical inforamtion.

 90% of the population listen to the radio every week. 39% of 15-24 year-olds are listening to the radio on mobile devices.

 It would seem that most people are listening to the radio around breakfast time but it also spikes again at teatime, possible due to people listening to the radio while driving home from work.

 Radio is the oldest method of broadcasting. It has gone through various technical changes. 90% of the population is listening to the radio each week.

Analogue Platform:

• AM - Amplitude modulation (original way in which radio was broadcast.
• FM - Frequency modulation (enabled stereo broadcasts to be transmitted and recieved.

DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast):

• Converts analogue signal into a digital signal.
• Quality is high definition.
• More choice of stations.

Social Media:

• BBC Radio 1 - Facebook (2,417,795 likes) and Twitter (2,815,008 followers).
• BBC Radio 4 - Facebook (484,178 likes) and Twitter (371,360 followers).

 OFCOM (The Office of Communications) regulates radio broadcasters. BBC Trust regulates the BBC however.

 The rule is to protect the public from harmful or offesnive material.

• Defamation (Slander).
• Due Impartiality and Accuracy - When putting together news bulletins, broadcasters must ensure that they are impartial and do not take sides.
• Contempt of Court - They must not say anything which could lead to bias of a criminal case, otherwise they would be in contempt of court.
• Protecting Under 18s - Children must be protected from harmful or offensive content.
• Incitement to Violence or Crime - News bulletins must not incite criminal activity or public disorder.
• Privacy - No personal details must be broadcast, and children under the age of 16 must also be protected.
• No Sponsorship or Reference to Commercial Products - Broadcast news must not be sponsered by any commercial products.
• Record of Transmission - The news bulletin and any other content which is broadcast must be recorded.