Question Two

Explain how the political context in which newspapers are produced, influences their ownership and regulation. Refer to The Guardian and The Daily Mail newspapers you have studied. (10 marks)

Explain the political significance of the concept of 'press freedom' and its relationship to representative democracy. Why do you think freedom of the press is important? How much influence top you think the government should have about the things reported in the UK press?

Press freedom is significant as it gives media institutions the ability to produce stories in any political alignment that they want and also publish any stories they feel are in the public interest. This is important as it means the public can receive news stories that they need to hear, even if they damage the people's reputations. It allows all news to be given to the public so that we have all the information we might need about politics and economics as well as some celebrity stories in tabloids. Without press freedom we would live in  country with state censorship where the government controls what new we receive. This means that they could, if they wanted, only allow stories in their favour to be published. This links to representative democracy as we can see different political ideas that may not favour the government, if we had state censorship we would only see news in favour of them. The government should have no control over what is reported in the UK press as we have a right to know what is going on in our country and the world.

How are newspapers regulated and why do you think this is necessary?

The Government has a say of what media can be produced and media outlets have to follow a set of rules to pass through this regulation. This is necessary because some media outlets might publish content that could offend a group/individual or could scare the nation into a particular belief or ideology. A theory to support this idea is the 'Livingstone and Lunt Theory'. This is requiring regulations to protect against detriment; citizens have needs, are social, seek public or social benefits from the media.This in turn promotes public interest.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

What examples of editorialised content would not fit 'impartial' television new (e.g. social or political opinion) from The Guardian and The Daily Mail print or online editions.

An example of editorialised content that wouldn't fit impartial news would be the Paradise Papers Story due to the contrasting headlines which clearly show their political affiliations. The Daily Mail shows their right wing ideology proposing that the queen has been 'dragged' into off-shore tax audiences, claiming her innocence. Whereas The Guardian used negative language such as 'controversial' and 'exploiting' contorting that the Queen was full aware, this therefore shows their left wing ideology.

What examples of ownerships models, e.g. The Guardian's trust ownership and The Daily Mail proprietor model, could show the opportunities offered by the latter model for the control by 'press barons'

ownerships models like The Daily Mail's proprietor model offer a prime example of ow media can be controlled to influence public political views. Press barons like Rupert Murdoch, who controls most
UK tabloids, can be seen to share his political opinions in each of his newspapers; this allows for an unfair opinion to be shared with the UK.

How much power does the press have to shape political debates, e.g. the influence of proprietors on politicians to support polices promoting cross-media ownership or holding back from regulation?

The press can develop power through ownership of newspapers which consequently can shape political stances due to their ideologies and therefore political debate through the widespread circulation which has power to influence politicians in their debate. The owners of newspapers can influence the editorial stance of a newspaper. Newspapers will also attempt to influence how the public cote in elections. It is important that newspapers stick to a code of conduct or rules set out by independent organisations in order to avoid this. If one large business or one singular man owns a company their ideologies can filter down into the papers. This relates to Hesmondhalgh's theory. This therefore hows the integrations and conglomeration of cultural industries which follows the normal capitalist patterns seen in his theory. The newspapers can create pressure towards political groups through this as their stories can be critical of certain elements( for example The Sun criticises Brexit however The Daily Mail avoids the stories on it due to their ideologies).This therefore puts pressure on the Government to change as the papers are so widely broadcasted the negativity has to be controlled to ensure political stability, hence why typically the government and the press have a symbiotic relationship.

Explain the political affiliation of two newspapers 

To begin with, The daily Mail is a clear right wing (capitalist) newspaper, which evidently portrays these views through its conservative stories an layout. The Daily Mail always tends to have focus on money an prices in modern life- even when not especially relevant to the story. The Mail does this because of its political affiliation, due to the wealthy being interested in the price of things. Another point, is that the mail favours right wing people an the wealthy, which is clearly shown in their bias to some stories. An example of this, was the paradise papers coverage, which involved the queen being under fire for not paying taxes and also for the elites dodging tax. In this, the mail back up the queen an made it as if those lesser off were wrong an the queen was simply a victim. In contrast to The Mail, we see The Guardian adopts the left wing (socialist) ideologies because of it support for labour. The Guardian is very much a hard newspaper an so what it conveys tends to be less biased and more factual. spit this though, there is a slight lean in what it has written towers the socialist is of things an so the rich ten to look worse. Interestingly, The Guardian also says a lot about tax at the minute, though what it says is how rich should really help poor an so they should be taxed a greater amount.

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