Steve Neale: Genre Theory

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Steve Neale states that the typical media productions carry out the same codes and conventions. Where they are shared by the producer and the audience through the use of repetition in media products.There are many ways in the media industry that is evidence which supports his hypothesis. 

First of all, one example of a conventions is that every type of newspaper has a masthead on it, this is a usual and normal convention that is shown. This is because this is when the title of the newspaper is displayed on the front cover. Every organisation will want to show who the publisher is, therefore, this is included. Furthermore, there are conventions such as the skyline, headline, body text etc. All of these are all usual aspects of any successful newspaper. Thus, this supports Neal's theory, where there are expected things that are included in all newspapers. 

In addition to this, codes and conventions are shown across all media. One example of this is film, this is because in a film, the audience expect an opening scene, credits and a storyline etc. All of these fit a usual film criteria, which once again, supports Neale's idea. 

Media Ownership In The UK National Newspaper Market

Ownership is when you possess a certain thing, in this example, the ownership of national newspapers are the people who own the newspapers.
In the UK, there are 62 publishers. With just five of the biggest owning 81% of the whole market and the biggest three owning 71% of the market. This obviously means that more people in total tend to read just three of the 62, rather than the other 59 together.

Above shows the circulation of each newspaper, where The Sun, The Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror are the highest.
With only three dominating the market it means that it can affect the media in a big way. This is because whatever is included in one of these newspapers, it will mean more people will believe what they say, mainly because they are the highest sellers. This means more people read their newspapers, thus, more people will see the story.
As viewers, we will have less of a choice of what we actually read, so reading the same news story and them supporting each other, will to some extent, actually indoctrinate us to start to believe in everything they put - this will lead to the whole society with the same kind of ideas and ideologies. This will especially effect viewers when the ownership of the newspapers believe in a certain political way because this will be expressed in their newspapers and therefore, the public - which affects our decisions.

Online Newspapers Vs. Print Newspapers

Online newspapers have both, advantages and disadvantages over print newspapers. Below are some key points.
An advantage of online newspapers over print newspapers is that with online, the news stories are updated by the minute, which gives the reader a constant reminder of what is going on. Whereas, print newspapers are a physical copy, where the reader does not get the latest news on what is going on - they receive yesterday's news. But with this, it means that the online newspapers could have errors included, publishers will want to send out the news story as quick as possible, thus, the stories may not be correct, as well as not as high quality written, where it would be in the print newspapers. Plus, people like to have a physical copy of the newspaper instead of just viewing online.

However, a disadvantage of online newspapers is that the reader will need access to the internet to be able to access the website/news. This means that where ever you are, to read the news you will need a stable connection and a device. But in my opinion, in today' modern world, most people have access to a device, of some sort and internet. So, this isn't a major disadvantage.

Another advantage of online newspaper is that more images are used. This is because there is unlimited space, therefore, as much as wanted can be added. Also, videos can be included. These are impossible to have in a print newspapers, so readers may become more intrigued into watching and viewing more images/videos instead of reading a whole passive of writing - However, I do believe it depends because different people will access news differently, either online or print. For example, older people may tend to read print version because they are use to it, but the younger generation who were brought up with technology might decide to view news online.

A disadvantage of an online newspaper is that there is too much information on a single news story. For example, for one story there is detailed content about that specific story. But also, there are image, videos, interviews etc. The amount of information often looks cramped and quite dense. This will put readers off. They would rather skim read a print newspaper copy, where there is clear important details, instead of every single event that took place.

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