The Guardian newspaper and website analysis
Use your own purchased copy plus the notable front pages above to answer the following questions - bullet points/note form is fine.
1) What are the most significant front page headlines seen in the Guardian in recent years?
- Stories about putting pressure on the government
- Israel and Palestine war
- A lot of US politics
2) Ideology and audience: What ideologies are present in the Guardian? Is the audience positioned to respond to stories in a certain way?
The ideologies present are left-wing, liberal and progressive. The audience is positioned to show that there is a divide showing how there are poor people and how we should help them. It talks proudly of the labour party and other left parties telling the audiences to vote left to make the country great whilst constructing the Conservative party as enemies. It also glamorises the NHS suggesting how tax should be increased for their benefit.
3) How do the Guardian editions/stories you have studied reflect British culture and society?
A lot of the stories are to do with the British politics and the left vs right debate between the Labour and Conservatives. There are many stories to do with the NHS which looks like they are idolising them. There are also sports stories which focus on the England Rugby team and the Premier League, something the the British people are proud of.
1) What are the top stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?
The top story is about the terrorist attack at the Moscow concert. This is an example of hard news as it is to do with terrorism which is like war and involves elite nations and people.
2) To what extent do the stories you have found on the website reflect the values and ideologies of the Guardian?
The values and ideologies is left-wing, liberal and progressive. Having stories about the Ukraine and Russia war and focusing on Ukraine would be liberal, and focusing on women's sports would also bee seen as progressive.
3) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: what would an audience enjoy about the Guardian newspaper website?
A lot of the stories are to do with the Ukraine and Russia war, economics politics which would appeal to the Guardian readers as they are higher class, AB audiences which enjoy reading these type of stories
The Guardian newspaper Factsheet
Read Media Factsheet #257 The Guardian Newspaper. You can access it from our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive or download it here via Google using your school login details. Answer the following questions:
1) Who owns the Guardian and what is their ownership designed to achieve?
Owned by The Guardian Media Group (GMG) which is a global media group whose parent company is the Scott Trust Limited. They are designed to achieve "to secure the financial and editorial independence of The Guardian" and "safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values" of the paper from "commercial or political interference".
2) How is the Guardian regulated? Note its very unusual regulatory approach and give examples where you can.
They teamed up with the financial times to form their own regulatory board, and not regulated by IPSO. They have an external auditor which makes sure they don't tell lies or make fabrications. They have been scrutiny when covering the Israel-Palestine.
3) Pick out some key statistics on the Guardian's audience (see beginning of page 2).
Demographic:
- 86% ABC1
- 54% male
- Average age 54
- Circulation: 3.2 million daily
- Digital readership: 18.4 million
- 3rd individual newspaper website in the world
- 62 million unique browsers worldwide every month - 2/3rds coming from outside of UK
4) What are the institutional values of the Guardian? What does it stand for?
Have a critical friend relationship with political parties which are centre-left, as the Guardian have centre-left values. They provide a more oppositional view to right-wing newspapers like The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, and The Times.
5) How is the Guardian's international audience described? See the end of page 2 and pick out some more useful statistics here about their audience .
- 79% male
- 89% degree level educated+
- 66% daily visitors on website
- More than 1/4 earn 58k euros/$100k
6) Now look at page 3 of the factsheet and the Guardian online. Select a few examples of the different sections of the website and copy them here.
- Headlines
- Culture
- Climate Crisis
- Lifestyle
- Sport
- Video
7) What different international editions of the Guardian's website are available and what example stories are provided as examples of this?
- UK edition - April 29th - story to do with BBC chairman resigning who provided a secret £800,000 to PM Boris Johnson - hard news as BBC is meant to remain impartial. BBC free model directly competes with The Guardian.
- US edition - April 29th - story on Florida lawyer who imprisoned suspected terrorists. The article had researchers which created bias and didn't accuse him directly of anything. Article was positioned as centre-right.
8) What is the Guardian's funding model? Do you think it is sustainable?
Funded through several ways:
- Through sale of print newspaper even though it is declining.
- Digital subscriptions.
- Patron support with exclusive offers.
- Traditional advertising.
- Philanthropic partnerships such as with The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.
I think all of these are sustainable (apart from selling print as this is declining) as this attracts the audiences to buy and spend their money on those products and bring hybrids.
9) What is the Cotton Capital Commission and how does it link to the Guardian's values and ideologies?
Investigative journalism, coupled with what amounts to a historical autobiography of the newspaper. Utilises a range of literary techniques to tell the story of the newspapers past. As the Guardian is left-wing, liberal and progressive, so by talking about the past of the newspapers stating their apology for their involvement in the slave trade, it shows how they accepted their mistake and what to move on.
10) What audience and industry theories could be applied to the Guardian? How?
Blumler and Katz: Uses and Gratifications theory
- Provides surveillance as it gives out news.
- Some groups may be able to have personal identity with some of the stories.
- Personal relationships can be built with some of the subjects in the story.
- Diversion
The Guardian encourages its audience to be active with the newspaper, making them get involved in news-making.
Pleasures by seeing the values you may side with being reflected in the newspaper. However this could have negative side effects as it creates echo chambers. But audiences are free to oppose or accept these ideas.
Daily engagement with the newspaper could enhance the readers cultural capital (Bourdie).
Things like investigate journalism, Curran and Seaton agree with as they believe that it is an important civic duty as it challenges power.
Media Magazine articles
MM78 - The Guardian
1) What are the Pandora Papers and how does the story fit with the Guardian's ethos, values and ideologies?
Where secrets are released about the evil things in the world. This allowed The Guardian to be positioned as a serious news organisation, speaking the truth to the global world.
2) Pick out all the key statistics and quotes from the section on the Guardian's funding model. In particular, the fall in paper readership, the rise in digital readership and the number of contributors paying to support the journalism.
- July 2021 sales averaged 105,135 copies per day (down from 248,775 in 2010).
- 3.5 million readers per day online and 129 million monthly visits.
- From 1 million readers: 401,100 took digital subscriptions in 2020/21 and 506,00 made a recurring payment, 508,000 made one-off payments.
3) What does it mean when it says the Guardian frames regular payments from readers as a "philanthropic act".
That the people who pay are paying to make the press freely available for those who cannot pay for it.
4) What is the Scott Trust and do you think it is a sustainable model for newspaper ownership in the future?
The Scott Trust is a trust which operates for profit but all the money get back into the newspapers, and ensures that the editorial interests remain free from commercial pressure. I think it is a sustainable model for the future as it allows them to have a huge lump of money to fall back on if they go into financial problems.
5) Why is the Guardian criticised as hypocritical? Give some specific examples here.
They talk in their newspapers about how the capitalist ideologies are wrong but yet are backed by the Scott Trust and GMG which have a fund of £1 billion.
MM87 - The Daily Mail and the Guardian front page analysis
1) What are the stories featured on the Guardian and Daily Mail on November 10, 2023?
They are about Rishi Sunak in the process if he is going to be sacking Suella Braverman for her outspokenness on the Pro-Palestine marchers.
2) How do they reflect the values and ideologies of the two newspapers?
The Guardian is more left-wing liberal so talks about the Conservative government in a more negative light, suggesting that they are under "pressure" over a "clash". However, The Mail is much more capitalist and pro-conservative and it suggests how Rishi Sunak is doing what he can to bring justice, he is "in talks with his closest advisors", but still sides with the right-wing view as the masthead is "You come for Suella, you come for us all" suggesting how they are a united party and how they side with her.
3) Why does the writer suggest the front-page images on both papers might be exploitative? Do you agree?
The Guardian is said to be exploiting gender stereotypes, which is the very thing they shouldn't be doing as the pictures depicts a female in distress (Props character types - princess in distress) even though people of all ages and sexes are being kidnapped. However it could also be shown as female empowerment. The Mail however did not have an image of the protests but instead of a female victim of murder. The writer suggests that at least The Mail were honest about using a female victim rather than hiding it like The Guardian did.
4) What else does the writer suggest regarding the Daily Mail's front-page image of murdered teacher Ashling Murphy?
He suggests if it is any different to that if a victim of kidnapping. It feeds into a voyeuristic interest in female victimhood giving a warning to females of the dangers.
5) How does the rest of the Guardian's front page (features on Yoko Ono and Todd Haynes) reflect the values and ideologies of Guardian readers?
They reflect the ideologies progressiveness, left-wing and libertarianism as they were involved in anti-war protests and Haynes made films exploring gender identity, particularly female identity.
A/A* extension tasks
The Guardian's audiences mainly access the guardian through online digital copies and are also very heavy on cross-platform viewing. A typical guardian reader is a male who is 35+ in a class AB, earning more than £30k, from southeast London who shops regularly.
Take on the tasks at the end of the Guardian factsheet, including the exam question: “Media audiences do not simply consume media content anymore.” Focusing on the newspapers you have studied, to
what extent do you agree with this statement?
I agree with this statement to a certain extent as they still do consume it, but in different and non-traditional methods.
The readership of The Guardian is 26.7 million in the UK, 23.6 of them are digital users. So we can tell from this that that audience are still consuming media, but majority of them are consuming it in more newer ways. As the media is becoming more digitally convergent, audiences consume media this way as it is much more accessible and also can be cheaper. Jenkins suggests that convergence "involves both a change in the way the media is produced and a way the media is consumed". Therefore audiences don't consume it in its traditional way so newspaper is not consumed as it used to, instead, this news cooperation have used alternative methods by shifting towards online producing.
Audiences are not consuming newspapers as they were compared to 10 years ago. In the early 2000's, The Daily Mail's readership was 2 million. This overtime has decreased to 1.2 million. This is due to the rise of the digital age and social media. Audiences can now get their news for free on social platform like X or from places like the BBC. This has raised concerns in the past with other newspapers complaining, e.g. Rupert Murdoch complained about how he couldn't sell his newspapers as BBC was competing with free news, and he saw this as unfair. This cause competition for Newspapers, so they have to move with the times. Hesmondhalgh suggests that "the media is a risky business" therefore as social and cultural habits shift, so do the cultural industry to provide for those new audiences.
In conclusion, I partially agree with the statement made as audiences habits haven't stopped them from consuming media, but changing the way they consume it.
