Question 1:
Analyse the use of media language to construct social and
cultural representations in Sources A and B.
Apply Hall’s theory of representation.
Look carefully at the response below.
- Highlight the points where it references the theorist.
- Highlight words or phrases that you would only expect a Media Studies student to know.
- Highlight points where it has use specific and detailed examples.
- Look carefully at the elements that have been selected as examples.
- Highlight points where it analyses the examples.
- Finally, look at your own response. What is different?
RESPONSE
Hall theorises that stereotypes are constructed by what
is present, absent, and different. He postulates, that producers intend to fix
a preferred meaning, but that the audience have the power to contest this
meaning and construct their own. While these two sources cover the same event, the differences in messaging reveal a great deal about
the diverse social and cultural values present in Britain.
The most obvious representation in both sources is the use
of the image of the couple. The use of mise en scene in
this candid image (smiling faces, her looking
happily at him) connote a conservative stereotype of a nuclear family,
built around the marriage between a man and woman, which is familiar to all of
British society. The anchoring text in
both sources is used to construct a very different preferred meaning. The pull
quote in Source A, “We intend…to work to become financially independent, while
continuing to full support the Queen” constructs a preferred meaning of support
for the couple, by appealing to British cultural values of hard work, independence,
and family. The Guardian have referenced the Queen, but she is absent
in terms of visual representation, while The MailOnline have chosen to present
the Queen. In Source B, the queen’s advanced age is evident; moreover, she is pictured alone, without family. Clearly, this combination of images
is polysemic, and a reader might contest a negative reading, that the couples’
smiles appear callous in the circumstances, but given the conservative ideology
of Daily Mail readers, it seems likely that they have encoded a preferred
reading of condemnation for their failure to place family and nation above
their own freedom.
The headlines construct different socio-cultural representations,
which speaks to the ideology of their target audiences. Daily Mail readers are largely
right-wing, so the hyperbolic use of the phrase ‘nuclear button’ and the
intimation that the couple are irresponsible and narcissistic (wanting
to have your cake and eat it) constructs a binary opposition (Levi-Strauss) between
the progressive couple and the traditionalist royal family. This is further
reinforced by the personification of Buckingham Palace as ‘furious’; it is
almost as if they are in opposition to the royal tradition that is symbolised
by the palace itself. Guardian readers are likely to be left-wing and
progressive, hence their sub-headline about “Media bullying and smears.” Hall
may draw attention to the conspicuous absence of any reference to the racial
makeup of the couple, but readers will undoubtedly be aware of allegations of racism in the British press, and progressive Guardian readers would
no doubt contest the representation of Meghan and Harry as villains in opposition
to traditional British culture (Source B), instead seeing them as multi-cultural
heroes.
450ish WORDS
Question 2:
Source A and Source B cover the same news event from two different newspapers, one print and one online.
How far do the sources use or challenge the genre conventions of print and online newspapers?
In your answer you must:
- explain the genre conventions of print and online newspapers
- analyse the use of genre conventions in the sources
- make judgements and reach conclusions about how far the sources use or challenge genre conventions to construct meaning
Look carefully at the response below.
- Highlight the points where it covers the bullet points.
- Highlight words or phrases that you would only expect a Media Studies student to know.
- Highlight points where it has use specific and detailed examples.
- Highlight points where it analyses the examples.
- Finally, look at your own response. What is different?
RESPONSE
Source A uses many conventions of broadsheet newspapers; moreover, the layout and design is in keeping with The Guardian’s conventional layout, messaging and news agenda. The headline of the splash has a neutral tone, indicating the objective epistemology, which is also a convention of the Guardian’s output, and one of the elements that attracts their largely ABC1 readership. The ratio is in favour of copy over image, the off-lead is both international and political and the teaser in the right bottom corner is a hard news story that uses the news value of negativity to promote audience engagement. Each of the front cover stories features a call to action (a small red arrow indicating to the reader to look inside the newspaper) and a page number to aid navigation. This is because the cover uses the convention of acting as a “shop window” for the newspaper, offering a range of stories, from culture (plug in the top left), to social commentary (splash), to political news (off-lead) and finally to teasing the news around the plane crash. One challenge to the conventions of a broadsheet newspaper is that the splash is arguably a soft news story and features an image of the royal couple that seems to challenge the conventions of a broadsheet newspapers; the same image even finds its way into the reporting in an online tabloid (Source B). But there may be some justification for this supposedly soft news choice as the sub-headline references: “media bullying and smears.” We might therefore argue that the subject of the story is not the soft news, but rather a sober presentation of the victimisation of a prominent mixed-race couple. It is clear to see how this story would be of interest to the left-wing audience, whose ideological perspective is biased toward multi-culturalism.
Source B is an online article from the Daily Mail, which challenges conventions of the newspaper’s print form, but is largely conventional in online terms. A convention of the Daily Mail newspaper is to use banner headlines, that are short, often use sensationalist language and are clearly aligned with the right wing socio-political perspective of their readership. While the language of this header is every bit as incendiary as we might find on a Daily Mail cover (e.g. pressing the nuclear button) it is far longer. This is likely because the article is a featured story in the Royal substantial info hub of the MailOnline; as such, the header acts more as a summary of the story as online readers have already stepped beyond the homepage (equivalent of the “shop front” cover in print). It is also possible that readers have navigated to the page from an external source (like Twitter, Snapchat etc.) attracted by a “clickbait” headline that is not featured in the source itself. We might assume that such readers are attracted to short, snappy pieces of information, hence the use of bullet points. Also, that their relationship to online news is in keeping with Shirky’s (End of Audience) Theory in that they are likely to interact with news sources and to share, like, comment etc, which is why the convergent social media links feature so prominently on the page. While the audience for the MailOnline, is not entirely socio-politically aligned with its more right-wing middle class print readership, the messaging of this particular story is clearly royalist and traditionalist, which is why the use of images sets up a clear binary opposition between the traditionalist queen and the progressive royal couple. The anchoring text emphasises this oppositional messaging using the word “furious” to describe the queen’s attitude to the situation. The images themselves are not entirely unusual, but they challenge the convention of using embedded videos on websites. This may be due to availability, or perhaps because of a co-promotional approach to the MailOnline’s relationship with Getty Images.
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