Introduction to The Times and Constructing Representations

If a newspaper has and pushes a specific agenda, they can more easily gain a following, meaning more support for their campaigns and more sales from papers.

Broadsheets

• Quality / serious press
• Aimed at higher social groupings
• Plain layout, smaller typeface
• Longer and more detailed articles
• Serious headlines
• More of a focus on politics

Tabloids

• Popular press
• Aimed at lower social groupings
• Bold layout
• Shorter articles, more pictures, less in depth reporting
• Puns and jokes in headlines
• Focus on human interest, celebrities
• Use of gimmicks such as bingo, free prizes, phone in surveys

POLYSEMY

Not everything has a single meaning. One of the best ways of applying media theory is through suggesting two or more meanings.

In newspapers, producers typically attempt to avoid polysemic readings. The process of forcing an audience into a particular reading is called anchoring.

Anchorage

The fixing of a particular meaning to a media text, often through the use of captions.

Bias:

An unfair representation, doesn't cover the other side of the argument.

Agenda:

An ideology that encompasses different ideals, usually political. For example, Jeremy Corbyn's agenda is anti-war and nuclear, providing houses and fair pay to people.

Different ways of being bias:

• Bias through selection and omission
• Bias through placement
• Bias by headline
• Bias by photos, captions and camera angles
• Bias through use of names and titles
• Bias through statistics and crowd counts
• Bias by source control
• Bias by word choice and tone

Study of representation looks at:

• The group, place, or issue on which a media text is focusing.
• The technical devices the media text uses in order to present these groups or issues.
• The message about the group or issue being created within the text.
• The impact of this message on the target audience.

KEY THEORY 8 - FEMINIST THEORY - LISBET VAN ZOONEN

The idea that gender is constructed through discourse, and that its meaning varies according to cultural and historical context.

The idea that the display of women's bodies as objects to be looked at is a core element of western patriarchal culture.

The idea that in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes that are used to construct the male body as spectacle differ from those used to objectify the female body.

Sexualisation

• To make something, be it person or object exhibit sexual aspects
• To define somebody purely by their perceived physical attractiveness

Objectification

• To present somebody as something inanimate or unfeeling
• To define somebody purely by their use or function.

Not ruffling any feathers! Victoria Beckham shares hilarious photo of herself celebrating Thanksgiving dressed as turkey
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-5112879/Victoria-Beckham-celebrates-Thanksgiving-dressed-turkey.html

This article pokes fun at her, it doesn't sexualise or objectify her. Its apparently "hilarious"

Looking