This is the final part of our case study work for Newspapers and is full of information that could easily come up in our exams.
Audience
Target audience
The Times target audience is older with over half the audience aged 55+. In terms of social class, they are overwhelmingly in the ABC1 social classes - 62% from social group AB. This means Times readers are likely to be professionals, managers or company owners. They are likely to be in the Succeeder psychographic group.
Audience pleasures and representation
Politics
The Times is right-wing and supports the Conservative Party. It is generally against the left-wing Labour Party. The Times newspaper will act as a voice for the establishment (the wealthy and powerful) and will not support anything that threatens major changes to the status quo.
The Times target audience is older with over half the audience aged 55+. In terms of social class, they are overwhelmingly in the ABC1 social classes - 62% from social group AB. This means Times readers are likely to be professionals, managers or company owners. They are likely to be in the Succeeder psychographic group.
Audience pleasures and representation
Surveillance/Information
The main reason we read newspapers is to find out what is going on in the world around us. News, different opinions, information about current affairs. This includes British politics and Britain's place in world politics and economics (patriotic). The Times focuses on hard news that we expect from a broadsheet newspaper - politics, economics, world news etc.
Diversion/Entertainment
One of the main reasons we read newspapers is for entertainment. The Times has evolved over recent years to contain more stories that provide entertainment or diversion. It also targets people with disposable income and an interest in culture/status and how they are perceived.
Personal Identity
A Daily Mirror reader will probably think very differently from a Times reader. Even if a reader does not always agree with a viewpoint the newspaper puts forward, they may still be agreeing with the values being shared. The Times newspaper seems to endorse the Conservative party and show their strong affiliation with the political party by the way stories are constructed. The way businesses are represented also shows the Times values private companies over working class people.
Becoming an active participant
Increasingly newspapers, especially online editions, encourage audience input through comments and email. The audience are not targeted with informal language or direct address as often, leading to a distance between journalist and reader. This encourages less dissent and comment and therefore more passive audience members who will accept the dominant view point of the paper.
The Times is right-wing and supports the Conservative Party. It is generally against the left-wing Labour Party. The Times newspaper will act as a voice for the establishment (the wealthy and powerful) and will not support anything that threatens major changes to the status quo.
The Times: Industries
The Times is owned by News UK (a subsidiary of News Corporation). News Corporation is a conglomerate mostly owned by Rupert Murdoch, an Australian media mogul with many business interests worldwide such as the Fox network in the USA.
In July 2009 News Corporation had to pay large sums of compensation for the phone hacking scandal, where their journalists were accused of using illegal methods to obtain information.
The Times circulation in 2019 was 376,000, down 12% in a year and much lower than the high point of over 800,000 in the 1990s. Since 2020, The Sun and The Times have not published their circulation figures, perhaps to prevent knowledge of how many readers they have lost.
- Moved towards a multi-platform landscape. This means that it publishes and synchronises across its print, desktop and mobile platforms. Some newspapers (e.g. The Times) have a paywall on their online content. The Times has had a hard paywall since 2010, but it often experiments with making content available for free. Last summer, it began free registrations and has been adding around 30,000 a week.
- Created a social media strategy in collaboration with the digital team to drive growth of their Twitter and Facebook profiles.
- In 2018, Times and Sunday Times hit 500,000 subscribers as digital outnumbered print for first time at an initial cost of £1 per week for a digital subscription.
Watch this advert promoting the Times across different platforms:
Key question: Why have print newspapers declined?
ACCESSIBILITY / DIGITAL AGE: The growth of the Internet as a major source of news (since the 1990s). This has particularly impacted on advertising revenue for newspapers as we use the Internet (often free) for services. Television news is also available 24 hours a day so no need to make ‘appointment to view’ or buy a daily newspaper as updates on-line are more up to date.
COST: People are accessing news freely through social media and other online outlets. Newspapers cannot compete with the speed and cost-free nature of this. Twitter has no printing costs, printing factories, distribution costs and journalist wages.
CHOICE & VARIETY: Previously we would go to small number of outlets for our news (BBC and other national broadcasters, national and some local newspapers). Now there are so many places we can access news (numerous TV channels, websites, social media accounts, blogs).
IMMEDIACY: Critics of the newspaper as a medium also argue that newspapers haven’t moved with the times. The technology revolution has meant that readers accustomed to waiting for a daily newspaper can now receive up-to-the-minute updates from Web portals, bloggers and new services such as Twitter.
Newspaper regulation: How and why are UK newspapers regulated?
The newspaper industry is regulated by IPSO.
Previously, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) was a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines. The PCC closed on Monday 8 September 2014 after criticism following the phone hacking affair.
It was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).
The role of IPSO is to:
Media theorists Galtung and Ruge defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. The following list is adapted from their work:
Blog tasks: The Times case study - Audience and Industries
Create a blogpost called 'The Times - Audience and Industries' and then work through the following questions:
It was replaced by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO).
The role of IPSO is to:
- Regulate 1500 print and 1100 online titles.
- Listen to complaints about press behaviour.
- Help with unwanted press attention.
- Advise publication editors .
- Provide information to the public.
- Provide a journalist whistleblowing hotline.
There is currently a heated debate in the media regarding whether the newspaper industry requires stronger regulation. Some people argue that the newspaper industry cannot be trusted to regulate itself using IPSO and that stronger, statutory regulation should be introduced instead. This would also implement the recommendations of the Leveson Inquiry which followed the phone-hacking scandal. There are links in the extension tasks below if you would like to read more about the newspaper regulation debate.
Reminder: News values
Media theorists Galtung and Ruge defined a set of news values to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain stories and photographs were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. The following list is adapted from their work:
- Immediacy: has it happened recently?
- Familiarity: is it culturally close to us in Britain?
- Amplitude: is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
- Frequency: does the event happen fairly regularly?
- Unambiguity: is it clear and definite?
- Predictability: did we expect it to happen?
- Surprise: is it a rare or unexpected event?
- Continuity: has this story already been defined as news?
- Elite nations and people: which country has the event happened in? Does the story concern well-known people?
- Negativity: Is it bad news? Bad news tends to get more focus as it’s more sensational/ attention grabbing.
- Balance: the story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
Create a blogpost called 'The Times - Audience and Industries' and then work through the following questions:
Audience
1) What is the main readership demographic for The Times newspaper? Add as much detail as you can.
2) What aspects of the front page of the Times CSP edition suggest that their readers are likely to be more educated and interested in hard news rather than entertainment?
1) What is the main readership demographic for The Times newspaper? Add as much detail as you can.
2) What aspects of the front page of the Times CSP edition suggest that their readers are likely to be more educated and interested in hard news rather than entertainment?
3) Times readers are mostly over 55 years old. Why is this and how is this reflected or challenged by the new stories in the CSP pages we have studied?
4) What are the main audience pleasures offered by the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory.
5) Why might a reader enjoy this CSP edition of the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory categories and write as detailed an analysis as you can.
4) What are the main audience pleasures offered by the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory.
Industries
1) Who owns the Times? Write the name of the company AND the billionaire who owns the company.
2) What was the The Times's circulation in 2019? How many papers did the Times used to sell back in the 1990s?
3) How has the Times reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet?
4) What does IPSO stand for and what is IPSO's job?
5) Why do some people want stronger regulation of British newspapers?
Extension tasks
1) Who owns the Times? Write the name of the company AND the billionaire who owns the company.
2) What was the The Times's circulation in 2019? How many papers did the Times used to sell back in the 1990s?
3) How has the Times reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet?
4) What does IPSO stand for and what is IPSO's job?
5) Why do some people want stronger regulation of British newspapers?
Extension tasks
Read this Guardian column on the pleasures of print newspapers and the dangers of the digital age. Do you think newspapers will continue to exist in the future? Why?
Read this Guardian column on IPSO, the press regulator. Why does Polly Toynbee suggest IPSO has been a "total failure"?
Read this short Press Gazette feature on the Times's paywall. Why does the Times head of digital describe the paywall as a success?
You may also want to watch this video from fantastic Media teacher Ms Fisher explaining The Times and the Daily Mirror for A Level students:
Read this short Press Gazette feature on the Times's paywall. Why does the Times head of digital describe the paywall as a success?
You may also want to watch this video from fantastic Media teacher Ms Fisher explaining The Times and the Daily Mirror for A Level students:
Due date: on Google Classroom
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