Source A Tabloid Web Article + Source B A Broadsheet Web Article
How far have media conventions been used to construct viewpoints and ideologies in Sources A and B?
In your answer you must:
- outline the conventions of the tabloid vs broadsheet Web articles, including use and style of headlines and images
Mainstream online newspapers (both tabloid and broadsheet) use recognisable digital conventions but adapt them differently to suit their audiences. Tabloid sites often echo their print style with punchy, emotive headlines, bold images, and attention-grabbing thumbnails, while broadsheet sites prioritise clarity, neutrality, and more restrained visuals. However, both rely on search-optimised headlines, short standfirsts, and prominent images to compete for clicks. Broadsheets typically emphasise depth through longer articles, data visualisations, and contextual links, whereas tabloids favour shorter, faster-paced stories with stronger emotional hooks. Despite these contrasts, both formats use multimedia, hyperlinks, and structured navigation to maintain engagement across devices. In essence, online tabloids and broadsheets share core digital conventions but diverge in tone, visual style, and story selection, reflecting their different purposes: tabloids aim to entertain and provoke instant reactions, while broadsheets focus on informing readers through authority and depth.
- analyse the contrasting use of symbolic, technical and written conventions in the sources
- make judgements and reach conclusions on the way in which media conventions construct viewpoints on ideologies.
SOURCE A - Mail Online
SOURCE B - Guardian Online
EXAMPLE
Both articles feature use of images and anchoring text that is in keeping with the conventions of their respective type: The MailOnline is more obviously politically biased and uses an image charged with right-wing messaging, while the Guardian is gently left wing in its messaging while maintaining a level of political neutrality expected of a broadsheet publication. The MailOnline use a tabloid convention of reinforcing their stories with images, they feature an image of Starmer and the anchoring text reiterates their headline. The selected image shows Starmer with an open collar, perhaps indicating his lack of seriousness in the light of what they have already constructed as a crisis in need of "counter-terrorism style tactics." Directly below, the image of the migrants shows a range of non-white 'fighting age' men. The central figure is triumphant, hand in the air, connoting a sense of victory with a gesture that many right wing readers will see as co-opting Churchill's familiar symbol of victory against Nazi invasion. The chaos of the scene and the clear indication of the ethnic diversity of the group all combine to encode a sense of invasion by foreign migrants, eliciting anger in the right wing readership. By contrast, the image selected by the Guardian does not shy away from presenting the gender of the migrants, but the image connotes a far more orderly and encodes a message of control, symbolising the success of the UK border force. The fact that they are "brought into Dover" clearly constructs a very different preferred reading of the situation to the Mail as they are encodes more like guests than invaders; this is very much in keeping with the Guardian's more liberal messaging around immigration and small boat crossings.
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