MailOnline case study: Blog tasks

Go to MailOnline and analyse the stories currently featured:

1) What are the top five stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?

• Royal family-hugs for harry ( soft news)
• British man mistakenly killed by a hunter (Soft news)
• Trump wanting the free trade deal to start immediately after Brexit (hard news)
• May will hold last-ditch private talks with Tusk before her make-or-break pitch for a Brexit deal amid fears summit failure could mean no deal (hard news)
• Trump says Saudi Arabia is being treated 'guilty until proven innocent' over the disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi and compares claims to Brett Kavanaugh sex assault allegations (Hard news)

2) What celebrity content is featured?

• Strictly come dancing
• Prince Harry 
• Celebs go dating 
•  Rob Kardashian losing weight 
• Ant Mcpartlin divorce 

3) What examples of ‘clickbait’ can you find?

• Put down that hairdryer! Celebrity stylist reveals the weird and wonderful ways to protect your tresses from the colder weather - from drinking more water to using a TOOTHBRUSH
• Cute AND clever! From a cat who saved her owner from choking to a dog who delivered breakfast in bed - proud owners share their pets' surprisingly smart accomplishments.

4) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?
The daily mail reflects ideologies and value of elite nations and gives information based on what they do and how people can also use their tricks. This is the same as the daily mail newspaper as it provides stories that audiences would find interest in reading. The story about animals also gives a sense of caringness and a socialism approach of helping others before yourself.

5) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: why is Mail Online the most-read English language newspaper website in the world? How does it keep you on the sit?

The mail online provides audiences with huge amounts of Copy and this is appealing to audiences as it gives them surveillance and also escapism because it diverts their mind. This is through the use of stories for entertainment purposes and soft news that would interest audiences.

Guardian column: So Daily Mail and Mail Online are ‘totally separate’? It depends how you look at it by Peter Preston

Read this Guardian column by Media veteran Peter Preston on a row between the Guardian and the Mail over the controversial MailOnline (ex-) columnist Katie Hopkins. Answer the following questions:

1) Why does Preston suggest that the Daily Mail and Mail Online should be considered to be basically the same publication?

2) How does Preston summarise other newspaper websites?
The other newspaper websites are the sun's website and The Mirror which is said to be pure bun and extrapolation of the print version. He talks about everything becoming available online and talks about this memory online lasting forever for audiences.


3) How many readers does the online-only Independent now boast?
19 million readers.

4) Do you feel the Daily Mail and Mail Online have a different ‘worldview’?
I believe that both these sources provide audiences with generally the same worldview but the mail online potentially talks about soft news more and stories to do with celebrities are presented more and has the same ideologies as presenting a right-wing approach.

5) Do you see a future for the paper version of the Daily Mail or will it eventually close like the Independent?

I believe that daily mail has a future that is better than the independent as it is the second highest newspaper read in the UK and many people do follow it. This means that it will not close as it allows audiences to comment as it uses controversial headlines and opinion columns on the website. 
Even with falling circulation, the front cover of the Daily Mail can set the news agenda and dictate what broadcast media lead on such as, the influential BBC Radio 4 Today programme or News night on BBC2. This is why newspapers are still seen as having a disproportionate influence despite falling sales.

Media Magazine MM55: Media, Publics, Protest and Power

Media Magazine 55 has an excellent feature on power and the media. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 38 to read the article Media, Publics, Protest and Power', a summary of Media academic Natalie Fenton’s talk to the Media Magazine conference in 2015. Answer the following questions:

1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?
The three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy:

The political field 
when state powerfully limits or enables the diversity of the voices and views through powerful regulation.

The economic field
The commercial influences like profit pressures which relate to the type of ownership and funding. This is the level of intensity of market competition.

The journalistic field
The assumptions that have emerged about the news and journalism like ethics, impartiality and norms of objectivity.

2) What is ‘churnalism’ and does Mail Online provide examples of this kind of news gathering?
Churnalism means the cutting and pasting of unattributed rewrites of press agency or public relation materials.

Examples:


3) Fenton argues that news should serve the public and help democracy. Does MailOnline do this?
The daily mail does do this to a large extent as it publishes stories that are accessible and what audiences would actually like. This is due to the high clicks and means that audience opinion in what is regarded as important is taken into consideration. 

4) What is infotainment? Is MailOnline guilty of relying on this kind of content?
This is the type of content which has the element of surveillance to provide audiences but is also for entertainment purposes so that consumers interests can be maintained. I believe that the mail online is guilty of this because there are stories that are published to provide information but also generate certain opinions.

5) Has the internet empowered audiences or is it still dominated by the major media conglomerates? How does MailOnline fit into this?
It is still dominated by the major media conglomerates as there is pressure on news organisations to produce even more profit than before. The corporate media are profit led and not obliged to fund unprofitable news. This has overtaken journalism and local news.

Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context

Finally, read Media Factsheet 182: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context and complete the following questions/tasks. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

1) What do Curran and Seaton suggest regarding the newspaper industry and society?
The newspaper industry is believed to said to reflect desires and interests of readers to maintain its readership and they suggest that the mass media and newspaper industry should have a liberal ideology because newspapers are wielded as propaganda to have an influence on individuals.

2) Curran and Seaton acknowledge that media ownership in the UK is dominated by what kind of company?


3) What does the factsheet suggest regarding newspaper ownership and influence over society?
Newspaper ownership increased which increased level of readership and circulation. AS the press is more industrialised no one is really free to establish their own paper. This is made an illusion to society as substantial capital is required. This means that circulation and readership is maintained through the control over what society is reading.4) Why did the Daily Mail invest heavily in developing MailOnline in the 2000s?
This is because it was believed that they could invest in more so that their traffic could grow and be a bigger business for the daily mail. This was seen to be more profitable for them as a result.

5) How does MailOnline reflect the idea of newspapers ‘as conversation’?
The reflection of conversation in a newspaper is believed to be direct and immediate making it seem like a conversation building a relationship with the editor and reader.

6) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?
10,000 pictures and 1000 stories.

7) How does original MailOnline editor Martin Clarke explain the success of the website?
The reason why it is a success is that the newspaper is so broad that it isn't set to be established to a niche audience. This is because of the layout the stories of the mail online are the stories most visited and others stories are set beside this like to do with celebrity gossip and politics making the readership better as it covers interests of audiences as a whole.

8) What does it mean when it says readers are in control of digital content?
This is known as prosumers as Clay Shirky calls it and means that the daily email offers one line communication from the producer to the audience and mail online offer two-way method as readers give feedback that producers receive.

9) How is the priority for stories on the homepage established on MailOnline?
They are established based on the audiences likings from the previous amount of time which means the high click counts, for example, readers that are reading the really popular stories and those are the most viewed which will mean its the biggest story and is like that new readers will also be wanting to read it.

10) What is your view of ‘clicks’ driving the news agenda? Should we be worried that readers are now ‘in control of digital content’?
I don't think we should be worried about readers being control of the media as this also gives a more of a democratic image of the media, as audiences opinions are being taken into consideration. This is important because then audiences will be fundamentally interested in the stories or the latest news as it is the most preferred anyways.