Newspapers -- genre and institution
In the same way as you can analyse the horror genre in films, you should be able to make points in your long Essay about broadsheets and tabloids as different genres of newspaper.
Tabloids newspapers have fairly clearly defined visual features -- big headlines and large pictures, scandalous and gossipy stories, simple and chatty language. You should also comment about themes that are typical of tabloids and also be able to show how the visual features work to produce stereotyped representations [simple visual presentation links with simplistic representations.]
Tabloids newspapers follow these kinds of generic rules because of the institutions that produce them. You need to think of newspaper producers as businesses desperate to make profits. The newspaper industry is notoriously insecure and the tabloid newspapers in particular are always worried about circulation. This is partly to do with the way they are sold -- a large proportion of the readers of broadsheet newspapers will buy the same paper everyday. In fact, they will have it delivered to their door. This means that broadsheet editors are interested in producing a product which will generate long-term loyalty -- it doesn't matter so much what is in one days' edition, more that they can keep their readers happy in the long-term by maintaining high standards of reporting. Tabloids, on the other hand are much more often bought at News stands where they are found lying next to their rivals. This means that they have to have the best front cover if they are to sell -- tabloid newspapers have quite a high proportion of what is known as floating readers -- people who will choose a different paper on different days depending on what is on the front page. You need to include this in your analysis of the newspapers. You could compare the front page of the one that you are analysing with others that appear on the same day. You certainly need to think about how the generic features I mentioned earlier are used in order to capture readers from other papers.
The two ideas of genre and institution can be quite naturally linked together. The same man Rupert Murdoch owns the Times newspaper and the Sun -- both of different genre. He has chosen these very different genres of newspaper not because either of them is necessarily the kind of newspaper that he enjoys or would like to read himself, but because he feels that in each case they make sound business sense. He and his subordinates have studied the different audiences -- his potential markets, and have developed the two different genres in order to attract them to buy his papers.
Everything that you see in these newspapers results from this: Rupert Murdoch himself is a conservative who disapproves of pictures of naked women and yet for business reasons he has made the Sun support the Labour Party and has kept page 3.Steve Baker 14/10/97
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