Newspapers: Daily Mirror - Language and Representations

Our first Newspapers CSP is the Daily Mirror.

Remember, this is an in-depth CSP and needs to be studied with reference to all four key concepts: Language, Representation, Industries and Audience.

Daily Mirror notes

Background

The Daily Mirror was first published in 1903 as a newspaper for women ‘to act as a mirror on feminine life’.

Sales for this demographic were limiting, so the newspaper was re-designed to appeal to a broader audience. Initially to middle-class but later during WW2 changed to target C1-C2-DE skilled and semi-skilled working classes who were affiliated with the Labour party.

Hugely popular in the 1990s, it has now significantly declined and only sells around 250,000 copies a day.

Language

AQA has selected the following pages as our Daily Mirror CSP pages:

Analyse these pages and look at which stories have been selected for the newspaper and how they are constructed for their audience.

Representations

The Daily Mirror supports the Labour Party and is against the Conservative Party. Generally, the newspaper will act as a voice for normal people (like NHS heroes) and go against the rich and powerful (like Conservative politicians or big corporations like Amazon).

Here's a graph of the most left-wing and right-wing newspapers: 

You need to study the selected CSP pages for the Daily Mirror to see how the newspaper represents different people, groups, issues and events. Remember: CAGE - class, age, gender, ethnicity.

Blog tasks: Daily Mirror case study

Work through the following questions to cover the Language and Representations key concepts for the Daily Mirror.

Language

1) Write the definition of the following key language for newspaper front pages (you may want to add an example for each from our Daily Mirror CSP):

Masthead:
Pug:
Splash Head:
Slogan:
Dateline:
Kicker:
Byline:
Standfirst:

2) How much does a copy of the Daily Mirror cost? (Note: the current cost is different to the CSP edition - we recommend learning both).

3) What are the main stories on the CSP edition of the Daily Mirror (see above)? Make sure you learn the headline and what the stories are about.

4) Why is the choice of news stories and content on the Mirror CSP front page typical of a tabloid newspaper?

5) What is the balance on the Daily Mirror front page between images, headlines and text?


Representations

1) What political party does the Daily Mirror support? Is there any evidence to support this in the CSP pages we have studied?

2) How does the Daily Mirror Pride of Britain Awards represent ordinary British people?

3) How is climate change as an issue represented in the Daily Mirror? What evidence can you provide from the CSP pages to support this?

4) How are environmental protesters like Greta Thunberg represented in the Daily Mirror? Look at the inside pages to answer this.

5) How are different countries and political leaders represented in the Daily Mirror? Does this reinforce or subvert the stereotypes we usually see in the media?  

Extension tasks

Read this Guardian column on the Mirror's struggles with covering Brexit. How did the Mirror suggest people vote in the EU referendum and how did many of its working class audience actually vote? What does this tell us about social class in Britain in recent years?


You will get some lesson time to work on this case study but will need to complete it at home if it isn't finished - due date on Google Classroom.