Roland Barthes and Semiotics

Roland Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician

He found semiotics, the study of signs, useful in these interrogations. Barthes explained that these bourgeois cultural myths were "second-order signs," or "connotations." for example a picture of a full, dark bottle is a signifier that relates to a specific signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage.

for example here is a selection of colours and their interpretations through semiotics

Guardian front page analysis

Newspaper by angelos on Scribd

Parts of a newspaper

 

4 types of media perception

The first type is the hypodermic inject needle theory that suggests that media messages are injected directly into the brains of passive audiences. so the audience does not challenge the statement and just accepts it.Another type is the 2 step model theory says that most people form their opinions under the influence of opinion leaders, who in turn are influenced by the mass media.Another type is the uses and gratifications model is an approach to understanding why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs. which also contains the idea that you seek things that reinforce what you already think.The last theory is the Reception theory by Stuart hall which i have a previous post for- link http://angelos25.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/reception-theory.html.

Cultivation theory Gerbner

Gerbner in the 1980s

Cultivation theory suggests that exposure to television, over time, subtly "cultivates" viewers' perceptions of reality. Gerbner and Gross assert: "Television is a medium of the socialization of most people into standardized roles and behaviors. Its function is in a word, enculturation" Within his analysis of cultivation, Gerbner draws attention to three entities—institutions, messages, and publics.However Gerbner also says that people are more likely to look at media that supports which just enhances their view over time.

Here is a video explaining the cultivation theory and some of Gerbners idea

Gerbner also suggest that  media overtime builds stereotypes for different types of people, race, gender etc. for example if you constantly see students being portrayed as gangsters, drug dealers etc. it gives people a stereo type that young people in this generation are bad and you should stay away from them as their dangerous however thats not the case.

Murdoch

The Sun and Murdoch

The Sun, times, Sunday times Ownership-Rupert Murdoch :

The Sun is a tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Since The Sun on Sunday was launched in February 2012, the paper has been a seven-day operation.

Owner Murdoch

Murdoch found he had such a rapport with Larry Lamb over lunch that other potential recruits as editor were not interviewed and Lamb was appointed as the first editor of the new Sun.

In January 1986 Murdoch shut down the Bouverie Street premises of The Sun and News of the World, and moved operations to the new Wapping complex in East London, substituting the electricians' union for the print unions as his production staff's representatives and greatly reducing the number of staff employed to print the papers; a year-long picket by sacked workers was eventually defeated.

Murdoch bought the dying newspapers the sun in 1969 and changed the paper into a tabloid format and reduced print costs using the same printers. Murdoch later on got the ownership of the times as he had good connections with Lord Thomson who was tired of making a loss so he gave the company over to Murdoch in the hope that he could revive the newspaper.

Phone hacking scandal

Murdoch was involved in a big scandal in 2011 which he got in big trouble and loads of investigations of him and his son James with the phone hacking scandal.

Employees of the newspaper were accused of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories. Whilst investigations conducted from 2005 to 2007 appeared to show that the paper's phone hacking activities were limited to celebrities.

On July 2013 Exaro and Channel 4 news broke the story of a secretly recorded tape. The tape was recorded by Sun journalists and in it Murdoch can be heard telling them that the whole investigation was one big fuss over nothing, and that he, or his successors, would take care of any journalists who went to prison.

History

Sun before Murdoch in 1965 was actually a broadsheet newspaper. And in 1969 the sun was rumoured to be losing 2m a year and having a circulation of 800,000 that year was the year was the year where Murdoch took over as IPC was rumoured was rumoured to sell the business to cut the losses.

Sex was used as an important element in the content and marketing the paper from the start, which Lamb believed was the most important part of his readers' lives. The first topless Page 3 model appeared on 17 November 1970. A topless Page 3 model gradually became a regular fixture.

Page 3 was finally terminated in 2015 in January after the sun defending it for 40 years which was the thing that the sun was most known for in their history. However the ‘page 3’ feature was gone the sun still do similar things with models in other pages but not so openly as before.

Political view

The sun are a right wing newspaper as they’ve supported conservative a number of times by supporting labour instead of conservative but they haven’t always gone with conservatives as they’ve gone with labour in the past and publicly said that they would support any able politician who would describe himself as a Social Democrat. However in 2009 they went back to supporting the conservatives and since then they’ve supported conservative ever since

Politically, the Sun in the early Murdoch years remained nominally Labour-supporting. It advocated a vote for the Labour Party led by Harold Wilson in the 1970 General Election, with the headline "Why It Must Be Labour”, but by February 1974 it was calling for a vote for the Conservative Party led by Edward Heath while suggesting that it might support a Labour Party led by James Callaghan or Roy Jenkins. In the October election an editorial asserted: "ALL our instincts are left rather than right and we would vote for any able politician who would describe himself as a Social Democrat." In the 1975 referendum on Britain continuing membership of the European Economic Community, it advocated a vote to stay in the Common Market.

Suns view on brexit. The sun endorsed the leave campaign in the brutish referendum urging all its readers to leave the EU. However this front cover was only for England and wales but for Northern Ireland and Scotland they had different covers

2009 the sun were not so clear of who they were supporting politically when the country was under Gordon Brown. However Murdoch built a relationship with conservative leader David Cameron so the sun started supporting the conservatives again and have been since 2009 but at the moment it’s a bit unclear with brexit

Celebrities and controversy

The sun started to use celebrities to make rumours about them. They were mostly pop stars and very famous including Elton john and most of the rumours where about sexual orientation. The Sun ran a series of false stories about the pop musician Elton John from 25 February 1987. They began with an invented account of the singer having sexual relationships with rent boys.

Barclay brothers and the telegraph

THE TELEGRAPH 

The Telegraph, is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855

The Barclay brothers
The Barclay brothers finally bought the telegraph in 2004 for £665m after a lot of bidding and lawsuits.
Barclay brothers accused of tax exile.
the guardian and the BBC have reported stories of tax exile about the Barclay brothers although they heavily deny it they haven't payed tax for their hotel in 17 years and that's just for 1 of their many businesses.
After 2004 the online telegraph was re introduced from 1995. In June 2014, The Telegraph was criticised by private eye for its policy of replacing experienced journalists and news managers with less-experienced staff


The telegraphs political views:

In modern times the telegraph has been politically conservative due to relationships with editors and owners of the newspaper with the conservative party and also the party’s general right wing political stand. However When the Barclay brothers purchased the Telegraph Group in late June 2004, Sir David Barclay suggested that The Daily Telegraph might no longer be the "house newspaper" of the Conservatives in the future. In an interview with The Guardian he said, "Where the government are right we shall support them". The editorial board endorsed the Conservative Party in the 2005 general election.  

Disaster soundtrack

my disaster soundtrack

sounds used:

atmospheric sounds: violent  winds

sound effects: airplane flying, heart beat, fuzzing sound, fire, sirens, Morse code, bomb exploding and bomb dropping 

Foley sound: heart beat  

David Gaunlett identity theory

David Gauntlett is a British sociologist and media theorist, he specializes in studying contemporary media audiences, the every making and sharing of digital media, and the role of such media in self-identity and self-expression. 

The theory focuses on communication at mass media scale. The uses and gratifications theory discusses how uses choose media that will satisfy given needs and allow one to enhance knowledge, relaxation, social interactions and companionship. The theory assumes that audience members are not passive consumers of media. UGT holds that audiences are responsible for choosing media to meet their desires and needs to achieve gratification.