News question 3 practice

Will always be about contexts, could be about:

  • political contexts
  • social contexts
  • cultural contexts
  • economic contexts
Will include The Guardian and Daily Mail examples

my initial ideas

The decline of sales causes the rise of online subscriptions to get premium news content which makes news more expensive for those who do still read it and causes more advertisements to be put on newspapers and websites. The decline in sales has also led to more online content for the news with The Guardian and Daily Mail having exceptionally popular websites that ask for money through different methods.

rest of class ideas

The Guardian isn't printing, Daily Mail has highest female readership with Femail Online, The Guardian 39 million views online while the Daily mail gets 36 million, economic context changed the Daily mail from a broadsheet to a mid market tabloid causing tabloidisation, Guardian tried paywalls but it didn't work, front page of Daily mail costs 30,000 pounds, 2000 articles with 4000 images in the Daily Mail shows how much needs to be published to make money

The Guardian facts

  • Wasn't profitable until 2019
  • stopped printing and only print for prestige
  • tried a paywall but it didn't work so they take donations instead
  • 39 million views online

The Daily Mail facts

  • highest female readership Femail Online
  • 36 million views online
  • was broadsheet now mid market

Final Answer

The UK news industry has seen a severe decline in print sales in recent years. This has forced newspapers to adapt in order to continue to make profit by taking on more tabloid like features with tabloidisation being a wide movement changing broadsheets, as well as moving online. 

 
 

Firstly, the Daily Mail has changed its genre from a broadsheet to a mid-market tabloid. This means it’s adopting more tabloid like features such as larger images and less copy to catch people's attention. This is because soft news has a wider approach as even though it is a right leaning newspaper 17% of its readers still vote labour. However, The Guardian has resisted this approach and has kept its broadsheet features and status; This has lead to a severe decline in sales as it stopped printing as it wasn't profitable, The Guardian only started being profitable in 2019. The only reason The Guardian prints now is for the prestige of being a newspaper in print that gives it an advantage over less reliable online news sources.  

 
 

This decline in sales has lead to newspapers moving online, which both The Guardian and Daily Mail have found success in. The Daily Mail has 36 million weekly views online while The Guardian has 39 million weekly views online. This also means that they have been forced to find other ways to make profit, at first The Guardian tried a paywall but since it didn't work they switched to digital subscriptions and donations. The Daily Mail has also added subscriptions with a Daily mail subscriber spending 80p on a newspaper as opposed to the £1 price of the physical paper. The Guardian charge £1.60 which is almost half of the £2.80 physical paper. The Daily Mail also plays into its audience with it having the largest female readership of any newspaper which lead them to add the Femail Online which is a pink version of their website with more 'feminine' stories. this has been seen as so successful that they added a Femail puff to one of their physical papers with a story about a woman being locked out her home after cheating. The online format also paves the way for more interactivity which follows Clay Shirky's End Of Audience theory that claims that audiences require more interactivity than ever. This means that the Mail Online and The Guardian have comment sections where users can interact with them. This prominence is clear in the story of Boris Johnson's final days in government with it getting 1000 comments within an hour of being posted on the Mail Online. 

 
 

The movement of tabloidisation as well as the shift to online is clearly direct results of the economic decline of the news industry as newspapers find a new way to be relevant among declining print sales. 

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