Newspapers: MailOnline case study
Work through the following tasks to complete your case study on Mail Online.
MailOnline close-textual analysis
Go to MailOnline and analyse the stories currently featured:
1) What are the top five stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?
The top 5 stories include-
2) What celebrity content is featured?
The Royal Family is the first story that appears when you go on the website. An England football manager and an X-factor star are also featured. The Simpson's owner is also one of the top stories and we could argue that this is a celebrity since the show is so well known.
3) What examples of ‘clickbait’ can you find?
There are many examples of clickbait on the site. Arguably, we could say that every single article is an example of clickbait. This is especially true for the neverending slide bar on the right-hand side. MailOnline strategically has made the headlines of each post very long and they essentially give away the whole story. This leads people to click on it as they want more detail.
4) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?
The ideologies presented in the Daily Mail newspaper are reflected in MailOnline only to a small extent. There isn't a great link between the newspaper stories and the website stories. This is probably due to fact that the editors have control of what stories appear on the front of a newspaper but the public control what appears at the beginning of the website. Therefore the ideologies of the newspaper don't have a chance to be shown to a large extent. The most prominent ideology on MailOnline is the fact that they view the Royal family with importance and positivity. Our selected newspaper featured a main story on the royal family and so does today's MailOnline.
5) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: why is MailOnline the most-read English language newspaper website in the world? How does it keep you on the site?
Read this Guardian column by Media veteran Peter Preston on a row between the Guardian and the Mail over the controversial MailOnline (ex-) columnist Katie Hopkins. Answer the following questions:
1) Why does Preston suggest that the Daily Mail and MailOnline should be considered to be basically the same publication?
They are basically the same publication because the stories featured in the newspaper are also used online. Also because they have the same writers.
2) How does Preston summarise other newspaper websites?
He describes them as essentially rubbish backup plans for if the print version would ever die down. He states that "Both are forerunners of what may transpire if print dies a lingering death and all we have left is the online memory."
3) How many readers does the online-only Independent now boast?
19 million readers
4) Do you feel the Daily Mail and MailOnline have a different ‘world view’?
I don't think they have a different worldview. However, I do believe that they publish content that is going to benefit them profit wise rather than caring about quality journalism. In turn, this has led to the online version of Daily Mail appearing to be a lot more soft and clickbaity than the actual print newspaper.
5) Do you see a future for the paper version of the Daily Mail or will it eventually close like the Independent?
I believe that it will eventually close like the Independent. This is because their main readership is older audiences with traditional, Conservative views. The new generations are very different from this, they are open-minded and most follow the Labour party which means that they would not read a newspaper like the Daily Mail.
Media Magazine MM55: Media, Publics, Protest and Power
Media Magazine 55 has an excellent feature on power and the media. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 38 to read the article Media, Publics, Protest and Power', a summary of Media academic Natalie Fenton’s talk to the Media Magazine conference in 2015. Answer the following questions:
1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?
Political- when the state limits or enables the diversity of voices and views in the press, through its power to regulate, deregulate or subsidise the media.
Economic- refers to commercial influences that can effect the relationship between media and democracy. Examples of economic factors include: types of ownership; type of funding (such as advertising or paying audiences); and level and intensity of market competition.
Journalism- refers to assumptions that have emerged over time about what constitutes ‘news’, and the ethics and practice of journalism.
2) What is ‘churnalism’ and does MailOnline provide examples of this kind of news gathering?
Churnalism is the practice of cut-and-pasting news from unattributed rewrites of press agency or public relations material.
3) Fenton argues that news should serve the public and help democracy. Does MailOnline do this?
MailOnline does not do this at all. Their idea of 'news' is celebrity gossip and useless soft news. This way, they are not helping democracy at all.
4) What is infotainment? Is MailOnline guilty of relying on this kind of content?
Infotainment is broadcast material which is intended both to entertain and to inform. I believe that MailOnline is guilty of this kind of content. They offer their readers entertainment and often inform them on unimportant things (like where a celebrity went on holiday) Their important news, such as politics or world affairs, is very limited.
5) Has the internet empowered audiences or is it still dominated by the major media conglomerates? How does MailOnline fit into this?
I believe that the internet has empowered audiences due to information pluralism. Access to the internet (both for producers
and users) is seen as the means to democracy and freedom of communication. However, the major media conglomerates still dominate it to a large extent. For example, a person could theoretically start up their own news website but it would never reach the same views as MailOnline, or other major news websites, because they don't have the funding or power for that.
Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context
Finally, read Media Factsheet 182: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context and complete the following questions/tasks.
1) What do Curran and Seaton suggest regarding the newspaper industry and society?
Curran and Seaton suggest that have to reflect the needs and desires of the reader in order to maintain circulation and readership and that, technically, anyone should be able to set up a newspaper and that newspapers should maintain a liberal ideology. However, this assumption is wrong and an illusion because the press has been industrialised; ‘ordinary people’ would require substantial capital to establish a paper. The Internet has lowered these entry costs, however, the “the list of the ten most-visited sites is dominated by large news organisations like BBC News, the Guardian, The Times, The Sun and Telegraph.” This would suggest that the individual may have access to resources, but they will have difficulty reaching an audience without the power of the mass media industries.
2) Curran and Seaton acknowledge that media ownership in the UK is dominated by what kind of company?
A conglomerate. Most British press was bought up in the 1960s and 1970s by conglomerates. The press has become a subsidiary of these companies.
3) What does the factsheet suggest regarding newspaper ownership and influence over society?
The independence of newspapers has been harmed due to these facts. It is not surprising that the editor or owner of a newspaper would have a big influence on the views and ideologies of the paper. For example, Rupert Murdoch in 2003 strongly wanted a war with Iraq and it is no coincidence that all of his 175 newspapers around the world that he owns supported this view in their articles.
4) Why did the Daily Mail invest heavily in developing MailOnline in the 2000s?
They came to notice that the readership figures for their newspaper were declining dramatically and that they needed a way to generate more readers and more profit.
"We are […] in the middle of a perfect storm of horrifically rising newsprint prices, disappearing classified revenues, diminishing display advertising, the rise of cannibalistic and parasitic Internet sites, the ubiquity of the frees and, now, most worryingly of all, readerships […] who have less and less disposable income to spend on newspapers.” (Dacre, 2008)
5) How does MailOnline reflect the idea of newspapers ‘as conversation’?
Newspapers transitioning to online has led them to be more of a conversation. This is because of the fact that people can engage with the articles online through comments and social media. This allows more views to be heard and people to debate with each other.
6) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?
The digital Daily Mail publishes around 1000 stories, but 10,000 pictures. The fact that there are so many pictures compared to stories illustrates how heavily MailOnline rely on visuals to tell their stories and attract an audience.
7) How does original MailOnline editor Martin Clarke explain the success of the website?
Clarke explains that “The reason MailOnline has become a success is because we cover the waterfront. It’s all the news you need to know, all the news you wanna know. The big stories. The lighter stories. The completely amazing stories."
He suggests that it is all a competition for people's time and that readers look for something that is "engaging and interesting and fascinating – and as fun – as possible.”
8) What does it mean when it says readers are in control of digital content?
Digital content on MailOnline is ranked based on how many clicks each article receives. Therefore, the readers decide what is most important in this moment, not the editor.
9) How is the priority for stories on the homepage established on MailOnline?
Whichever story gets the most views. The stories that are on the homepage are there because they have a high click count; lots of people in the last 5 minutes read these stories so it’s highly likely that new readers arriving at MailOnline will want to read these as well.
10) What is your view of ‘clicks’ driving the news agenda? Should we be worried that readers are now ‘in control of digital content’?
To some extent, yes. Readers are clearly more interested in celebrity gossip or soft, useless news rather than the important politics and world affairs that will actually impact our lives. In the case of MailOnline, these important stories get sent to the bottom because they don't have as much views as the soft news. This means that people are becoming less and less aware of what is happening in the world around them and this is quite dangerous for society and the future.
MailOnline close-textual analysis
Go to MailOnline and analyse the stories currently featured:
1) What are the top five stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?
The top 5 stories include-
- Harry & Meghan at the Invictus Games ceremony- soft news
- Glenn Hoddle in hospital- soft news, nearing hard
- X factor star pregnant- soft news
- Tricks on diswashing- soft news
- The Simpson's- soft news
 |
| MailOnline front page on Saturday 27th October |
2) What celebrity content is featured?
The Royal Family is the first story that appears when you go on the website. An England football manager and an X-factor star are also featured. The Simpson's owner is also one of the top stories and we could argue that this is a celebrity since the show is so well known.
3) What examples of ‘clickbait’ can you find?
There are many examples of clickbait on the site. Arguably, we could say that every single article is an example of clickbait. This is especially true for the neverending slide bar on the right-hand side. MailOnline strategically has made the headlines of each post very long and they essentially give away the whole story. This leads people to click on it as they want more detail.
4) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?
The ideologies presented in the Daily Mail newspaper are reflected in MailOnline only to a small extent. There isn't a great link between the newspaper stories and the website stories. This is probably due to fact that the editors have control of what stories appear on the front of a newspaper but the public control what appears at the beginning of the website. Therefore the ideologies of the newspaper don't have a chance to be shown to a large extent. The most prominent ideology on MailOnline is the fact that they view the Royal family with importance and positivity. Our selected newspaper featured a main story on the royal family and so does today's MailOnline.
5) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: why is MailOnline the most-read English language newspaper website in the world? How does it keep you on the site?
MailOnline's use of clickbait and the endless stories is a way of keeping readers on the site. This way, MailOnline cover diversion more than surveillance (Blumler & Katz) when it comes to news because their stories aren't educating their readers but, rather, giving them a way to spend free time.
Guardian column: So Daily Mail and Mail Online are ‘totally separate’? It depends how you look at it by Peter PrestonRead this Guardian column by Media veteran Peter Preston on a row between the Guardian and the Mail over the controversial MailOnline (ex-) columnist Katie Hopkins. Answer the following questions:
1) Why does Preston suggest that the Daily Mail and MailOnline should be considered to be basically the same publication?
They are basically the same publication because the stories featured in the newspaper are also used online. Also because they have the same writers.
2) How does Preston summarise other newspaper websites?
He describes them as essentially rubbish backup plans for if the print version would ever die down. He states that "Both are forerunners of what may transpire if print dies a lingering death and all we have left is the online memory."
3) How many readers does the online-only Independent now boast?
19 million readers
4) Do you feel the Daily Mail and MailOnline have a different ‘world view’?
I don't think they have a different worldview. However, I do believe that they publish content that is going to benefit them profit wise rather than caring about quality journalism. In turn, this has led to the online version of Daily Mail appearing to be a lot more soft and clickbaity than the actual print newspaper.
5) Do you see a future for the paper version of the Daily Mail or will it eventually close like the Independent?
I believe that it will eventually close like the Independent. This is because their main readership is older audiences with traditional, Conservative views. The new generations are very different from this, they are open-minded and most follow the Labour party which means that they would not read a newspaper like the Daily Mail.
Media Magazine MM55: Media, Publics, Protest and Power
Media Magazine 55 has an excellent feature on power and the media. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 38 to read the article Media, Publics, Protest and Power', a summary of Media academic Natalie Fenton’s talk to the Media Magazine conference in 2015. Answer the following questions:
1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?
Political- when the state limits or enables the diversity of voices and views in the press, through its power to regulate, deregulate or subsidise the media.
Economic- refers to commercial influences that can effect the relationship between media and democracy. Examples of economic factors include: types of ownership; type of funding (such as advertising or paying audiences); and level and intensity of market competition.
Journalism- refers to assumptions that have emerged over time about what constitutes ‘news’, and the ethics and practice of journalism.
2) What is ‘churnalism’ and does MailOnline provide examples of this kind of news gathering?
Churnalism is the practice of cut-and-pasting news from unattributed rewrites of press agency or public relations material.
3) Fenton argues that news should serve the public and help democracy. Does MailOnline do this?
MailOnline does not do this at all. Their idea of 'news' is celebrity gossip and useless soft news. This way, they are not helping democracy at all.
4) What is infotainment? Is MailOnline guilty of relying on this kind of content?
Infotainment is broadcast material which is intended both to entertain and to inform. I believe that MailOnline is guilty of this kind of content. They offer their readers entertainment and often inform them on unimportant things (like where a celebrity went on holiday) Their important news, such as politics or world affairs, is very limited.
5) Has the internet empowered audiences or is it still dominated by the major media conglomerates? How does MailOnline fit into this?
I believe that the internet has empowered audiences due to information pluralism. Access to the internet (both for producers
and users) is seen as the means to democracy and freedom of communication. However, the major media conglomerates still dominate it to a large extent. For example, a person could theoretically start up their own news website but it would never reach the same views as MailOnline, or other major news websites, because they don't have the funding or power for that.
Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context
Finally, read Media Factsheet 182: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context and complete the following questions/tasks.
1) What do Curran and Seaton suggest regarding the newspaper industry and society?
Curran and Seaton suggest that have to reflect the needs and desires of the reader in order to maintain circulation and readership and that, technically, anyone should be able to set up a newspaper and that newspapers should maintain a liberal ideology. However, this assumption is wrong and an illusion because the press has been industrialised; ‘ordinary people’ would require substantial capital to establish a paper. The Internet has lowered these entry costs, however, the “the list of the ten most-visited sites is dominated by large news organisations like BBC News, the Guardian, The Times, The Sun and Telegraph.” This would suggest that the individual may have access to resources, but they will have difficulty reaching an audience without the power of the mass media industries.
2) Curran and Seaton acknowledge that media ownership in the UK is dominated by what kind of company?
A conglomerate. Most British press was bought up in the 1960s and 1970s by conglomerates. The press has become a subsidiary of these companies.
3) What does the factsheet suggest regarding newspaper ownership and influence over society?
The independence of newspapers has been harmed due to these facts. It is not surprising that the editor or owner of a newspaper would have a big influence on the views and ideologies of the paper. For example, Rupert Murdoch in 2003 strongly wanted a war with Iraq and it is no coincidence that all of his 175 newspapers around the world that he owns supported this view in their articles.
4) Why did the Daily Mail invest heavily in developing MailOnline in the 2000s?
They came to notice that the readership figures for their newspaper were declining dramatically and that they needed a way to generate more readers and more profit.
"We are […] in the middle of a perfect storm of horrifically rising newsprint prices, disappearing classified revenues, diminishing display advertising, the rise of cannibalistic and parasitic Internet sites, the ubiquity of the frees and, now, most worryingly of all, readerships […] who have less and less disposable income to spend on newspapers.” (Dacre, 2008)
5) How does MailOnline reflect the idea of newspapers ‘as conversation’?
Newspapers transitioning to online has led them to be more of a conversation. This is because of the fact that people can engage with the articles online through comments and social media. This allows more views to be heard and people to debate with each other.
6) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?
The digital Daily Mail publishes around 1000 stories, but 10,000 pictures. The fact that there are so many pictures compared to stories illustrates how heavily MailOnline rely on visuals to tell their stories and attract an audience.
7) How does original MailOnline editor Martin Clarke explain the success of the website?
Clarke explains that “The reason MailOnline has become a success is because we cover the waterfront. It’s all the news you need to know, all the news you wanna know. The big stories. The lighter stories. The completely amazing stories."
He suggests that it is all a competition for people's time and that readers look for something that is "engaging and interesting and fascinating – and as fun – as possible.”
8) What does it mean when it says readers are in control of digital content?
Digital content on MailOnline is ranked based on how many clicks each article receives. Therefore, the readers decide what is most important in this moment, not the editor.
9) How is the priority for stories on the homepage established on MailOnline?
Whichever story gets the most views. The stories that are on the homepage are there because they have a high click count; lots of people in the last 5 minutes read these stories so it’s highly likely that new readers arriving at MailOnline will want to read these as well.
10) What is your view of ‘clicks’ driving the news agenda? Should we be worried that readers are now ‘in control of digital content’?
To some extent, yes. Readers are clearly more interested in celebrity gossip or soft, useless news rather than the important politics and world affairs that will actually impact our lives. In the case of MailOnline, these important stories get sent to the bottom because they don't have as much views as the soft news. This means that people are becoming less and less aware of what is happening in the world around them and this is quite dangerous for society and the future.
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