MINI MOCK - DEC

In what ways can newspapers incorporate viewpoints and ideologies?

Publishers create deeper meaning and ideologies for the audience through the process of encoding and creating symbolic meaning through their articles and their content they publish.

Many publishers can use different viewpoints to fuel the dominant ideology that they are trying to covey to the reader/audience. For example: In the Daily Mirror's coverage on the tragic case of a toddlers murder they used a lot of anchorage and dramatised/exaggerated lexis to create their dominant ideology to the reader. They create the main headline: "Man held after toddler dies in hammer attack" This headline is very dramatic and the lexis emphasises the brutality of this specific case: 'Hammer attack' which informs the reader on what weapon was brutally used. On front page, the anchorage of highlighted words under certain images or speech: 'Screaming', 'Grim scene' gives the audience insight into the case and the specific people it involved. These highlighted phrases do not make sense, however it creates more emphasis on  how serious this is. It also makes these words jump out at the reader at random points which is an enigma code for the audience/reader to continue reading on. The publisher also uses binary opposition between the selected images. There is a large printed image of the toddler that is looking very dull and sad which creates a sense of guilt, the toddler behind also has a blurred out phase which conveys that this case has less involvement with this baby and therefore the Daily Mirror have to legally not show this baby's identity. However, instead they use anchorage of the caption 'Twin sister in critical condition' this creates a bigger sense of enigma for the reader. In comparison to this image, there is a circular image of the 'parents' below which is printed smaller that shows the parents embracing each other, this conveys that they were happy together. But because both of these images are opposing to each other, it further emphasises the dominant ideology that this was a tragic murder but it also gives the reader less Intel on who actually committed the murder which was the 'father' himself. Therefore, it can have polysemic readings as readers may not understand who to pity or some may not understand how many tragically died. This sense of confusion creates more of a dramatic ideology onto this case. 

In contrast, other publishers may focus of one specific aspect like ethnicity or race to create viewpoints and manipulate the audience/reader into ideologies. For example: in The Times cover on this case they use less dramatic but more factual lexis to convey the serious note of this case and really narrow it down. The headline does not really make sense but the order of the lexis in the headline can create polysemic readings: 'Man held after baby dies 'in attack on twins tower' ' this is more punctual and factual. There are less images and only one example of anchorage used, therefore as the reader there is less to visually see but more information to read. This conveys the sort of target audience that this newspaper brand is trying to appeal to, the more formal and intellectual group of society. This particular article also raises the 'issue' of the suspects race and ethnicity. This is key for the time of which is written since when this article was published, which it says in the byline (2017) Britain just agreed on Brexit.  Brexit generally caused a lot of controversial debates on all race, ethnicity and migration. This particular article gives the reader many ideologies into the ethnicity and background of the 'father' who was accused of murder, who comes from a non-white background. The Times uses ethnicity to manipulate the reader to use it against him and to dehumanize him from the rest of society. Another publisher that dehumanises him is the BBC. During one of their other editions that mentioned this case (BBC radio 4) they included the case in the middle of the other headlines and articles they were sharing on the radio. This creates the ideology for the reader that this case is less important and less significant. On their newspaper edition they also only use one singular image of the suspect which is a sketch of him in court. This takes away all human/natural aspects of the suspect and instead replaces them for only a false/less reliable features of him (that are sketched). This further dehumanizes him and encourages the target audience to believe the dominant ideology that society should separate themselves away from the 'non-human' who have the capability to commit a crime like this.