Assessment Task Autumn

Assessment Task Autumn

1. Look at the front page of the Guardian. What is the main article about and what other stories exist on each page?

The front page of the Guardian features a main article covering the Queen’s relation to the Paradise Paper controversy.  This story dominates the Guardian. It is a concise and factual headline that outlines how the Queen’s money is being invested in islands and details that the investment is being made into a place with a history of exploiting the poor. The front cover also features small titles of other stories in the paper, including; a story informing the reader about how ‘Silicon Valley was funded by Russia’, and also Justin Trudeau’s adviser helped move money offshore.  

2. How is this information included on the front page - comment on combination of image and text sizes. Consider what hasn’t been shown as well as what has.

The Guardian’s front cover features a large image of the Queen’s face, taken from a coin, attracting attention to the topic of the story as it relates to both her and also money. This automatically informs the reader of a rough idea of what the story is about. I believe they didn’t directly use a photo of the queen as it creates a more formal composition. The main story also is titled using the largest font, similarly drawing the reader towards the title of the story. Similarly, The Daily Mail’s main story title uses an extremely large font, filling almost half the page, to catch the reader’s eye. The text underneath is a snippet of what is written in the main article and it brings the reader to page 6, engulfing the reader in the other articles the paper has to offer.

3. How is the queen represented - consider language and image? Use examples to support your point.

The Queen is depicted quite negatively as she has saved money whilst others are being exploited from it. The image they used of the queen seems formal, yet quite impersonal, suggesting a darker side to the monarchy. They use a pound coin image to illustrate that the most powerful member of British society is using legal loopholes to save money of which she ironically is on the face of in terms of the pound coin. The pound could also suggests the different sides to her, similarly as to how a coin has two sides. The front page uses a lot of yellow as the islands in which the Queen invested her money are tropically and very sunny unlike the British weather, the country she moved her money out of. This is continued as their is a tree in the bottom right continues to paint the tropical island image.

4. How is the institution invested in the story - what involvement do they have? (The Guardian was directly involved in this investigation, how does their coverage differ from the Daily Mail who are reporting second hand on this?)

The Guardian is known for being politically left wing, whereas the Daily Mail is known as a right wing paper. The political views of the paper plays a large role in what content and opinions they include The Guardian page has so much more information whereas the Daily Mail is just reporting on the main story about the Queen’s involvement. The majority of their page is taken up by the big bold headline, and a lot of the remaining space is talking about other unrelated stories. This may however, been a conscious choice based on their political views on the situation.

5. How does the media language used incorporate these viewpoints and ideologies?

The Queen is depicted quite negatively as she has saved money whilst others are being exploited from it. The image they used of the queen seems formal, yet quite impersonal, suggesting a darker side to the monarchy. The pound could also suggests the different sides to her, similarly as to how a coin has two sides. These views are typical to the left-wing views of the Guardian. Alternatively, the front page the Daily Mail has minimal imagery, possibly out of respect for the Queen and also as support for her. The verb ‘dragged’ suggests that she did not want to be involved in the actions.

6. How factual/sensationalized is the story in each paper? Use examples to support your point.

There is a clear contrast between the two papers in the context of the style of writing. At a glance it is clear that the Guardian’s front page features more factual content in comparison to the Daily Mail. The composition of the page includes a larger amount of text, allowing the reader to skim through the front page and be roughly informed about what the article is about. On the other hand, the Daily Mail includes more sensationalized text. An example of this is the title which includes the phrase, ‘Exploiting the poor’. This bit of text exaggerates the situation and antagonizes the Queen.

7. Discuss the positive and negative use of stereotypes and the effect on audience (Think about readership - what would their opinion be on the wealthy elite within the article as well as the working classes?)

The main stereotype here is that of the upper class greedy snob. Mainly depicted in the Guardian, the people involved in this situation are the rich and powerful who are avoiding their taxes whilst the poor people suffer and are exploited. Another stereotype that is broken here is that of the benevolent Queen. The Queen is the face of Britain, and everyone loves her, but here she is portrayed avoiding taxes and scheming.

9. What is the impact of technology on media language? (eg post production editing of photos)

With the impact of new technology, papers have more of a variety of tools to use in their production. One of the influences that technology has created is the doctoring and editing of photos. This creates a lot of controversy in the media as the papers can often adjust photos of celebrities to make the photo a certain way, making them more interesting for the reader. Other uses of technology is the software in which they can compose the pages and also the new age of social media. The growing use of social media has impacted the news incredibly as we are now able to share stories via the internet. It is now very common for pages to  have the option to share it on social media or suggest hashtags that you can search for.