EXPLAIN HOW THE POLITICAL CONTEXT IN WHICH NEWSPAPERS ARE PRODUCED, INFLUENCES THEIR OWNERSHIP AND REGULATION

1.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 do you think the government should have about the things reported in the UK press?

Press freedom is significant as it presents media institutions with the ability to produce stories in any political alignment that they desire 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 about even if they damage other 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 celebrity stories in the tabloid newspapers. Without press freedom we would live in a country with state censorship where the government controlled the news we received. This means that they could only publish stories in their favour and what they wanted the public to see. The government should have no control over what is reported in UK press as we need and have a right to know what is going on. Press freedom is related to representative democracy as we can see different political ideas that are not always in favour of the controlling government.

2. How are newspapers regulated and why do you think this is necessary? Can you refer to an academic idea we have studied in class?

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.   

3. What examples of editorialised content would not fit 'impartial' television news (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 had been 'dragged' into the off-shore tax audiences, claiming her innocence. Whereas the Guardian used negative language such as 'controversial' and 'exploiting' connoting that the Queen was fully aware, this therefore shows their left wing ideology.

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

Ownership models like the Daily mail’s proprietor model offer a prime example of how 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. 


5. How much power does the press have to shape political debate, e.g. the influence of proprietors on politicians to support policies 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 ideologues and therefore political debate through the widespread circulation which has the power to influence politicians in their debates. The owners of newspapers can influence the editorial stance of a newspaper. Newspapers will also attempt to influence how the public vote 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 on cultural industries as DMGT (owner of the Daily Mail) also owns multiple other companies as shown above. This therefore shows the integration and conglomeration of cultural industries which follows the normal capitalist patterns seen in Hesmondhalgh's theory.


6. Explain the political affiliations of the two newspapers, e.g. The Daily Mail as a right wing newspaper is partly defined by its support for the Conservative party, The Guardian as a centre-left newspaper is partly defined by its support for Labour or the Liberal Democrats, and how this is clear from an example you have studied.

To begin with, the daily mail is a clear right wing(capitalist) newspaper, which evidently portrays these views through its conservative stories and layout. The daily mail always tends to have a focus on money and 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 and 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 and made it as if those lesser off were wrong and the queen was simply a victim. In contrast to the mail, we see the guardian adopts the left wing (socialist) ideologies because of its support for labour. The guardian is very much a hard newspaper and so what it conveys tends to be less biased and more factual. Despite this though, there is a slight lean in what it has written towards the socialist side of things and so the rich tend 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 the poor and so they should be taxed a greater amount.