Working title
'How significant were the tabloid newspapers pre and post EU referendum, in influencing peoples vote and opinion'
' How significant have british newspapers (front pages) been in influencing public opinion during the EU referendum campaign.
I will be looking at different newspaper front pages and analysing them to see how the techniques they have used may have influenced the public and how the institutions behind them control this.
Angle
This investigation will explore the power of institutions and whether or not print is as influential as it once used to be. For instance the hate crimes stemming from the result of the EU referendum. Despite newspapers having to 'proof read' text before publishing why are so many misleading front pages published without consequence.
Hypothesis
The tabloid newspapers are still influential but not directly...content is always spread around online and on tv news where it gains more attention.
Linked production piece
Newsnight style documentary/ news report on the issue of the tabloid influence during and after the EU referendum. Film short segment outside parliament with interviews possibly.
MIGRAIN
- What are the dominant images and iconography, and what is their relevance to the major themes of the text?
The dominant images featured on most front covers is the union jack and colours. this evokes patriotism in the readers especially those reading less intellectual newspapers such as 'The Sun'. Also, pictures of the queen are examples of iconography as this is relevant to themes including; Europe, UK, and patriotism.
- To what extent are the audience’s generic expectations of the text fulfilled or cheated by the text? Does the text conform to the characteristics of the genre, or does it treat them playfully or ironically?
Expectations are generally fulfilled as the political opinion of newspapers dosent really change and their audience would typically stay the same. Although the sun is known to change its opinion from time to time but always produces the same material for its demographic groups.
- In what ways has the text been influenced or shaped by the institution which produced it?
Newspapers in Britian are largely shaped by the institutions that own them, for instance the sun newspaper reflects the views of its owner 'Rupert Murdoch' as it is arguably a right wing paper. Also with the independent-Lebdev is further left wing and the paper reflects this. I dont believe a newspaper can be politically neutral...
- What are the major values, ideologies and assumptions underpinning the text or naturalised within it?
This referendum revealed how(possibly) xenophobic the British public are as right wing newsapapers discusssed how they didnt want immigrants in the country and to send the refugees somewhere else.
- How do you, as an audience member, read and evaluate the text? To what extent is your reading and evaluation influenced by your age, gender, background etc?
As a 17 year old student of mixed race background I believe that the European union has and will continue to be a great thing, not having known anything esle. If given the opportunity to vote and having seen front pages from papers supporting brexit this would have made me want to vote remian even more as the audience category that I would fall into read more intellectual papers with meaningful debates, however many people like me in this audience type are young and might not be able to vote.
SOCIAL:
Newspaper readership loyalty...growing up with parents reading the sun influencing at younger age.
Influence that newspapers have on audiences of different ages.
HISTORICAL:
Comparing modern day newspaper front covers during and after the referendum to those during previous political votes .
1975 EC referendum
ECONOMIC
Vote Leave and Britain Stronger In Europe, to a spending total of £7m, while the spending limit for other registered campaigners (excluding political parties) has been set at £700,000.
Leave finances have come under intense scrutiny in the final days of the campaign after it was revealed that a former BNP member had donated £600,000.
Away from the campaigns, the total cost of conducting the referendum – which includes "the expenses incurred by counting officers in running the poll, the delivery by Royal Mail of campaign mailings and the cost of the central count" – has been estimated at £142.4m by the Cabinet Office.
POLITICAL
(is a political debate)
Issues/Debates
Hate crimes stemming from result of EU referendum, the sun not making obvious link to brexit as a supporter of it.
Lack of censorship because of freedom of speech meant newspapers could lie on their front pages.
70% of the UK national market is controlled by just three companies (News UK, Daily Mail and General Trust, and Trinity Mirror), with Rupert Murdoch’s News UK fully holding a third of the entire market share.
News Corp. controls 20% of the market share across all UK media outlets, almost twice that of the public service news services provided by the BBC.
http://www.mediareform.org.uk/media-ownership/the-elephant-in-the-room
Theories
Semiotics
Enigma codes and action codes difficult to take out of print text
Marxism and hegemony
Marxist or Liberal pluralist approach would involve the media acting without outside influence from the government, it is also suggesting that the media to the best they can to give a fair and balanced approach to ongoing and past events.
The term hegemony refers to the dominance of social classes over other.
Audience theories
Blumler&Katz- people use newspapers for surveillance/information also for integration/social interaction as what people have seen in the newspaper is a topic for people to talk about though this isnt as common anymore when things like forums and comment sections exist online.
Demographics, groups
for the newspapers in question it ranges from ABCDE-1234 and of all ages but readership is most heavily concentrated among older people 55+
Research plan (media texts, academic texts and websites)
Media texts
The main texts i will be focusing on will be two left wing papers and two right wing papers, this will include 'The Guardian and the independent' and also 'The sun and the mail or the express' also data from the government website.
Other media texts
itv news
good morning britain
other newspapers
youtube comments
online newspaper website comments
TV documentaries
New topic need to research if there are documentaries on the issue
Academic texts/books
New topic, probably wont be any books on the issue but possibly some relating to it.
Internet Links
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/feb/16/why-print-newspapers-remain-the-dominant-media-power-in-britain
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/feb/26/a-largely-pro-brexit-press-could-be-significant-if-polls-are-close
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jun/08/newspaper-reader-election-ukip-express-sun-mail-telegraph
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2016/jun/14/the-suns-brexit-call-is-unsurprising-but-it-has-symbolic-significance
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/20/pro-brexit-articles-dominated-newspaper-referendum-coverage-study-shows
