The Daily Telegraph Front Cover

The Daily Telegraph font page expresses a formal tone as the majority of the front page is taken up by text. The three main articles are neatly balanced between the equal vertical columns. The headline of the Daily Telegraph is more complex than the monosyllabic headlines of a tabloid. The intellectual language used in a broad sheet attracts a niche older well educated audience attracted by the in depth details of the articles and formal tone of the text. The minimalistic house style of a broadsheet continues throughout to maintain the broadsheet’s high status.

The mast head is shown in a serif old English font to declare the newspapers aim to attract a respectable niche audience. The masthead is located in the main focus area of the cover so that the reader will acknowledge the memorable masthead acknowledging the rest of the front cover.

On this particular cover there is a picture of a missing school girl enlarged at the centre of the page. This image is used to apply Bulmer and Katz’s uses and gratification theory through personal relationships as the audience would want to know what is being done to find the missing teenager. The image provokes and emotive response from the audience as the older readers would consider how they’d feel if it had happened to their child.

At the bottom of the cover there is an advertisement for an airline, attracting the newspapers wealthier audience. There is also a free giveaway voucher that offers the reader a free cup of coffee; this would attract new readers to purchase the newspaper. Convention of traditional newspapers offer free give away and advertisements to promote local businesses in the area. I will include these techniques in my final piece.

A website if referenced to underneath the masthead so that readers can also catch up on their local news online using web 2 technology. The issue number, price and date also appear in a small san serif text in the same banner across the top of the articles. The issue number is used to state how many newspapers have been produced prior to this addition. The price is printer on the newspaper so that different shops are unable to make profit on the product.

At the bottom of each article the page number states where the story continues allowing readers to relocate through the newspaper if they were only interested in a specific story. Halls theory of encoding and decoding allows the audience to naturally relate the media text to a newspaper. I will be including the traditional conventions like the Daily Telegraph has in my final piece.

The Salford Advertiser Front Cover

The Salford Advertiser uses a verity of colours to attract a wide audience. The simple sentences and monosyllabic wording throughout the newspaper attract a wider audience as the text is easy to understand. The casual approach at reporting the local news also allows the reader to enjoy and engage in the newspaper without the confusion of technical language.

Similar to the Daily telegraph there is a advertisement along the bottom strip of the newspaper to advertise a local door business. The bright and colourful advertisement would attract readers to the newspaper as well as the business. Like The Daily Telegraph, the masthead for Salford Advertiser is located across the top section of the cover highlighted in red to attract the reader to remember the highlighted masthead. Tabloids are regularly referred to as ‘red label’ newspapers, reflecting the casual reputation of the newspaper.

The main story photograph has been manipulated to emphasise the pet owner’s cold white face. As the headlines describes how the woman ‘starved dogs til they were barely alive’. The cold white complexion of her face is exaggerated by editing techniques encourages the audience to relate her pale face to her cold careless actions. The suspect’s dark symbolises the dark deeds she is accused of committing. An image of a dog expressing an upset emotion creates sympathy in the audience, creating the opposing effect on the pet owner as the reader is provoked to judge her.

Other stories are referred to on the front cover marked by page numbers. The reader would be able to read the sub headlines and locate the story in the newspaper by the page number in order to read the article. There is an advertisement down the right side of the newspaper encouraging the reader to take part and apply for ‘free council tax’. The less wealthy audience would purchase the newspaper so that they would be able to take advantage of the competition. The competition advertisement is highlighted I yellow to attract the audience attention in a shop.

The Salford advertiser uses the same traditional conventions of a newspaper as the Daily Telegraph. Both newspapers encode the same conventions to establish the media texts are newspaper s. The similar techniques are exposed in different in each of the newspapers to attract a different target audience. However both newspapers follow the same purpose to inform and persuade the reader.

Daily Telegraph Page 2

The Daily Telegraph is a broadsheet shown by the compressed columns, small text and formal tone of the article following the conventions of a news paper. Intellectual language attracts the niche older audience to explain the content of the article documenting on current affairs internationally. This newspaper would be aimed at the older affluent audience interested in world current affairs. A bigger bold font has been used to highlight the main storyline. The double page document six different stories, allowing the reader to choose a certain story they would prefer. The multiple genres available such as crime, local events and sport encode the traditional conventions of a 2nd page. Offering a wider variety of articles is illustrated by a portrait, usually of a member of parliament or a professional in the field. The use of close up portraits allows the readers to acknowledge the person featured.

The broadsheet layout reports news on a national level which will attract the more knowledgeable audience who take an interest in current affairs and politics. The CCTV styled main image is used to create realism, exaggerating the ‘yobs’ to be the course of the ‘war’. The image shows reckless rioters trying to barge threw a police wall, representing the police to have authority over the ‘yobs’. The dysphemistic adjective ‘yobs’ is used to describe the protesters attempts to sway the reader’s opinion to the journalist biased view. Uses and Gratifications are applied through personal relationship as the audience would wonder if any of the local ‘yobs’ were people they would know.

However the newspaper uses a contrasting head line for a sub article ‘Teenage win legal battle’ praising a young man for successfully challenging the PSNI for the publication of his appearance during the riots. Contradicting the main story the use of opposing opinions from the two journalists express a balanced argument so that the newspaper would not face claims of being bias. Traditionally newspapers show both sides of a debate so that readers from opposing arguments aren’t offended. This writing technique is a convention of newspapers encoding the balanced report.

The layout for the Telegraph second page follows the conventions of a newspaper using closely condensed articles illustrated by photographs to report on local news.

The Sun Page 2

The Sun second page is more casual tabloid compared to the Telegraph broadsheet. The simple sentences and monosyllabic headline helps the tabloid attract a wider audience making the articles easier to understand. Big Bold headlines highlight what the article is about summaries in just a few words. The headline ‘OLD AGE TAX’ is summarised ‘Elderly face cash squeeze to fin care’ the articles are summarised so that audiences are introduced to the article without having to read the whole article. Condensed articles and photographs illustrating the article follow the conventional traditions of news papers. Colours are used to highlight the weather report and other articles to make the page more attractive towards a younger audience, as the tabloid has a wide target audience.

The weather forecast takes up a third of the page to express a separate subject matter to the articles. The weather would be a popular subject for the variety of readers throughout the UK shown by the large area used to exhibit the weather forecast information. The weather forecast names all the major cities in the UK applying uses and gratifications as readers would look at the weather to see how it would affect their plans. A contact number appears on the page to provide further details for the weather report if readers would like to query the weather in their local area. The main story on the second page is highlight by a black border to emphasise the importance of the article.

I will be focussing on the conventions of tabloid newspapers rather than tabloids as the casual tone would attract a wider audience. The layout of a tabloid is much more attractive and simple compared to the crowded column formal set out of a broadsheet.