Participatory Online News Task

For this task, I chose to comment on a news about 'slavery' by The Daily Telegraph. Slavery is a very controversial human rights topic and I believe everyone should have their voices heard regarding their opinions over this inhumane topic. This article discusses how African people are being forced to move out of their countries illegally in order to run away from being held slaves and to survive. This is not just an issue for Africa but a global crises. Slavery is a way of limiting the human progression and this should not be left unseen.

Represenation & Reception Theory

Representation is a key concept in Media Studies. It refers to the 'construction' of media texts; what we see is re-presentation of events, people or ideas. This is also known as mediation.
Representation comes in many forms e.g. radio, newspapers etc. It may seem realistic but is constructed.

Stuart Hall

• People interpret media texts in different ways, depending on their background, economic standings and personal experiences.
• Audience members can play an active role in decoding messages of the text which has been encoded by the producer.

Dominant – The hegemonic response, people share the code and preferred meaning

Negotiated – they accept what the text is saying and adapt it according to their social background

Oppositional – They understand, but reject the message.

• Meaning is established by representation, by what is present, absent or different.
• A representation implicates the audience is creating its meaning.
• Power – through ideology or by stereotyping – tries to fix the meaning of a representation in a ‘preferred meaning’.

Journalism

5Ws of Journalism

1. Who is the story about?
2. What is the story about?
3. Where did the story happen?
4. When did the story take place?
5. Why did it happen?

Structure of a News Story

The 5 Ws

Further Details

Quotes

Background

Opinion

Future

Newspaper Front Cover Conventions

1. Masthead- Title of the newspaper 
2. Caption- Brief text underneath an image describing the photograph or graphic
3. Headline- A phrase that summarises the main point of the article
4. Main Image- Dominant picture 
5. Stand First- Block of text that introduces the story
6. Byline- Where the name of the reporter is included
7. Standalone- Picture story that can exist on its own 
8. Splash- The main story
9. Cross-head- Subheadings
10. Plug- Displays promotions, special offers or price of newspapers

Newspaper Front Cover Functions

• attract readers
• reinforce the newspaper's identity through easily recognisable style
• demonstrate the attitude of newspaper clearly

Analytical Toolkit

• Technical Codes- layout, design, positioning, house style, font, cropping
• Visual Codes- images, mise-en-scene, costume, masthead, colours
• Genre- what type of newspaper it is, narrative, mode of address, headlines
• House Style- a company's preferred manner of presenation and layout of written material.

Mode of Address

The way a media product communicates with an audience.

1. Direct
2. Indirect
3. Fomal- presentable
4. Informal- contains a little bit of slang
5. Colloquia- slangs
6. Inclusive- applies to everyone
7. Exclusive- applies to certain groups

Tabloids Vs Broadsheets- Language/ Techniques

Tabloid

• Informal
• Use of puns
• Alliteration
• Exaggeration
• Slangs
• Colloquial language
• Short and snappy
• Heightened language
• Brand names
• Sexual overtones
• Focus upon appearance

Broadsheets

• Formal
• Metaphors
• Complexed sentences
• Quotes
• Rhetorical questions
• Statistics
• Descriptions of people tends to relate to personality or position in society

Tabloids Vs Broadsheets

Newspaper is a publication containing news, information and advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called newsprint. It may be general or special, most often published daily or weekly.

There are two types of Newspapers;

• Tabloids- targets lower-class and less educated people, e.g. The Sun, Daily Mirror, Metro, Evening Standard.                                                
• Broadsheets- targets high class and more educated people, e.g. The Times, Guardian, The Economist, The Daily Telegraph.