As apart of our OUGD403 module we were set a task to based on news articles after having a group workshop on news headlines. The workshop we contributed within gave us a opening understanding and refreshed our minds upon the main events/ news headlines of the past months that have arisen within the media. After discussing this in groups we were given a studio brief which consisted of collating research in a visual format in response to a story, issue or theme found in the national press on the given date of: Tuesday 23rd October 2012. The headline could be extracted from any newspaper of our choice however as apart of the required deliverables we must be in possession of the physical paper from this date. In response to this brief I decided to select two different newspapers one being 'THE DAILY MAIL' and the other being 'THE DAILY EXPRESS', both papers seemed to have similar articles however differed in there approach and written response to the news.

As I started flicking threw these papers and reading through a couple of articles realised that there was a range of material that I could possibly work from, in order to help me gather my thoughts upon the articles and the content that the articles consisted off I decided to create a spider diagram that in order to assist the decision making process of which article seemed the most beneficial to follow up and research into.

THE MEDIA INDUSTRY
I think thats it is important to compare and contrast the response from different newspaper articles as the media has a interesting way of manipulating information and injecting this information into a mass audience depending on the institutions political alignment within the media, (Hypodermic Syringe Theory). It is interesting how the media are able to perceive certain situations and then deliver them in an completely opposing manner.

INITAL THOUGHTS:

As you can see I decided to pick out the main subject areas that the articles' seemed to focus on and the kind of material which I could further research into based to help me gain a better understanding of the content. As I have studied politics before in previous subject areas within my educational experience I decided that the article which I found most interesting was a mainstream article about David Cameron and the EU, this particular article seemed to be appear in both newspapers within the first couple of pages, I think that sticking to a fairly mainstream article would create a horizon of research and the content would have many topic areas spiralling from the content, leaving me being able to produce a good body of visual research.

THE DAILY MAIL:

UK has never been more disillusioned with the EU, says Hague as Government fights rise in Brussels budget

By TIM SHIPMAN

PUBLISHED: 23:47, 22 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:41, 23 October 2012

The British have never been more disillusioned with the European Union, William Hague will warn today as the Government fights a new rise in the Brussels budget.

The Foreign Secretary will use a speech in Berlin to insist that Germany must allow the UK to reclaim powers from Brussels or risk the collapse of the EU.

He will fire the warning shot as Britain and Germany continue to clash over the size of the future EU budget.

Foreign Secretary William Hague will tell a German think tank today that Britain is committed to the EU, but must be allowed to reclaim some powers from Brussels

David Cameron yesterday vowed to stick to his guns and veto the Budget at a summit next month if it leads to an inflation-busting rise. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel is backing a larger increase in spending and officials acknowledge there will have to be ‘a negotiation’.

Mr Hague will today depict Brussels as ‘a great machine that sucks up decision-making from national parliaments’.

He will tell the leading German foreign policy think tank the Koebler Foundation: ‘This Coalition Government is committed to Britain playing a leading role in the EU.

More...

‘But I must also be frank. Public disillusionment with the EU in Britain is the deepest it has ever been.

‘People feel that in too many ways the EU is something that is done to them, not something over which they have a say.’

Mr Hague will also warn that the last vestiges of support will collapse in the UK unless there is change.

‘People feel that the EU is a one way process,’ he will say. ‘That needs to change. If we cannot show that decision-making can flow back to national parliaments then the system will become democratically unsustainable.’

The timing of Mr Hague’s intervention is critical. The German government was yesterday forced to deny that Mrs Merkel is threatening to abandon an EU summit if Mr Cameron wields the veto over the EU budget.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is backing a rise in EU spending, something William Hague is strongly against

In December 2010, Mr Cameron signed a letter with Mrs Merkel saying that the EU budget should rise by ‘no more than inflation’. Since then, the European Commission has demanded a trillion euro budget for 2014 to 2020, which would raise British contributions by £10billion over the period.

But while she has changed her position since, Mr Cameron told MPs yesterday that he stands by it.

In a dig at the Germans, he said: ‘Best to set out your position and stick to it, knowing that you have a veto if you need to use it.’

The PM said the case for a real terms freeze has grown over the last year.
‘If anything, the debt situation, the deficit situation, has got worse, so the pressure to deliver a sensible settlement on the budget has increased, so that is why we will be sticking to our guns.

‘I have not put in place tough settlements in Britain in order to go to Brussels and sign up to big increases in European spending. I don’t believe that German voters want that any more than British voters.’

But officials have made it clear that Mr Cameron won’t necessarily veto any above-inflation rise in the budget.

One senior source said: ‘What matters to us is our net contribution. That’s what we’ll be looking at.’

But insiders have made it clear that having vetoed one EU treaty it is ‘entirely possible’ that he will veto the budget.

German officials expressed irritation at the attitude of the British government. ‘There’s certainly a growing feeling among European partners and also in Berlin that Britain is less interested in any new form of cooperation,’ said one official.

‘That’s a pity, because it is an important partner and we need more integration in the EU.’

REFERENCE:

THE DAILY EXPRESS:

WORLD NEWS

DAVID CAMERON IN SHOWDOWN WITH GERMANY OVER EU

Angela Merkel denied summit plot yesterday

Tuesday October 23,2012

By Macer Hall

Have your say(32)

DAVID Cameron is on course for a showdown with Angela Merkel over her demands for a hike in the European Union budget.

The Prime Minister yesterday indicated that he will block a “big increase” in the contribution from UK taxpayers.

His defiant warning to MPs came after diplomatic sources in Berlin suggested that German Chancellor Mrs Merkel may cancel next month’s crunch EU summit rather than let Mr Cameron use the British veto.

Mr Cameron said in the Commons last night: “I have not put in place tough settlements in Britain to sign up to big increases in European spending. I don’t believe that German voters want that any more than British voters and that’s why our governments have led the argument in Europe for fiscal restraint. So I put down a marker that we need a rigorous settlement.”

European Commission chiefs want a colossal one trillion euros (£800billion) budget for 2014-2020, equivalent to 1.1 per cent of the EU’s expected total GDP. Mrs Merkel is proposing a compromise that would shave off £80billion.

I have not put in place tough settlements in Britain to sign up to big increases in European spending

Prime Minister David Cameron

Mr Cameron wants a freeze in real terms, capping any rise to the expected level of inflation across the EU.

Britain’s annual net contribution to the EU last year was £10.8billion, equivalent to £30million a day.

That could rocket by billions if the German proposals go ahead.

Tory backbenchers last night urged the Prime Minister not to surrender to Mrs Merkel’s demands.

Tory MP Colonel Bob Stewart said: “We should insist that further payments to the EU should be proportionate to the amount of cuts we are taking domestically.”

MP Douglas Carswell said: “Mr Cameron is not going to get a majority in the Commons unless he recognises there can’t be a real-terms increase.

“The rest of Europe needs to respect the fact that it’s democracy talking, not just David Cameron.”

Former Tory Cabinet minister John Redwood called the German threat to wreck the summit “a silly idea”.

He added: “The EU cannot ignore the fact that it is overspending, and cannot ignore the fact that the UK wants a new relationship with it. The sooner they tackle those problems, the better.”

German officials last night denied that Mrs Merkel was plotting to cancel the next Brussels summit unless Mr Cameron backed down.

Her spokesman Steffen Seibert said: “It is not true. I categorically deny this report.”

Mr Cameron’s official spokesman said yesterday: “Many countries are having to take some very difficult decisions and that should be reflected in the discussions in the EU on the budget.”

REFERENCE: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/353807/David-Cameron-in-showdown-with-Germany-over-EU

HOW A MEDIA INSTITUTIONS POLITICAL ALIGNMENT AFFECTS THE WAY NEWS IS PERCEIVED

In this spider diagram above I have outlined a couple of important factors to consider when judging the reliability of the news being given form each of the papers. These factors such as: political alignment, type of paper (tabloid or broadsheet), target market etc. are important to consider when evaluating and summarising the tone of voice which is radiated from each article especially when the article touches on politics.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

As we can see from this table I have created above The Daily Express and the Daily mail have many comparisons in terms of the type of newspaper they are (tabloid) and their chosen alignment within politics. Both of the papers are now 'Tabloid" papers however the Daily Mail was formally a broadsheet paper.

Difference

TABLOID: A tabloid papers general visual aesthetics are smaller in comparison to a broadsheet (the general physical size), the main topic areas which tabloid papers tend to focus on: crime stories, gossip, tv and general entertainment, the quality of journalism tends to be fairly low, the focal points/areas of discussion tend to offer a element of escapism to the audience rather than being educationally enlightening thus targeting a 'lower class' audience.

BROADSHEET: A broadsheet paper tends to be larger in size (physically), they tend to focus on educationally enlightening content such as politics, the economy, cultural events/issues and financial matters. A broadsheet paper is targeted at a 'middle/upper' class audience. The Daily Mail use to be a broadsheet during its early days however soon after turned into a tabloid paper.

CONTRAST:

When looking at the 'Tone of voice' in terms of the perspective the institution has taken to the article is important to love at all the factors mentioned above, however this aspect of political alignment is visually evident through the positioning of the article within the physical paper itself. As we can see from the two images shown below it is fairly interesting to see where the institutions have positioned the articles:

The Daily Express (to the left), The Daily mail (to the right)

TONE OF VOICE

Surprisingly the Daily Express paper to the left has located this particular article about the EU budget increasing on the second page of the paper, in comparison to the Daily mail who have decided to locate this particular piece of news on the eighth page within the paper. This is surprising when looking at the type of paper both articles are from. Although the Daily Mail use to be broadsheet it is surprisingly that they have decided to place this article further on in the paper and priorities other news which has less importance.

Although this is a surprising comparison we can clearly tell which paper is less bias than the other when reading the actual text copy. The daily express seems to take a much more bias approach to the information, victimizing David Cameron in the report in comparison to the Daily Mail who have decided to take a much more mature approach to the news and maintain equality within the way that they present each side of the news, there seems not be any victimization towards a certain side.

STOPPING, EVALUATING AND PROGRESSION FROM THIS POINT

After looking at the article and researching for visual information in the form of statistics, graphs/charts on information relating to the EU budget I seemed to come to what one would call 'a dead-end' with the specific content of the article itself. In order for me to form visual research relating to the article by spiralling-off from all the knowledge and information that I had collated already I decided to look for info-graphics that specially related to Britain.

BRITISH INFO-GRAPHIC

''Britistics – UK Infographic

Newspaper Supplement
Britistics is a personal data visualisation project which collects British statistics from reputable sources such as Office for National Statistics and OnePoll. The aim of the supplement is give readers a modern day picture of the UK today.

Britistics uses a combination of symbols either: designed by me, adapted by me, public domain or designed by The Noun Project. Those attributed to the Noun Project: house, dog, sick man, family genetics, stop watch, monitor, television, laptop, CD, ipod, game controller, trolley, news, clapperboard and key.''

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Britistics-UK-Infographic/1457231

The Wing

            Political tendencies of newspapers and tabloids in UK - (MA Project)  

            The inicial purpose was to compare how left and conservative newspapers and tabloids treat a specific article in conformity to its political tendency. This premisse was meant to be open to new issues I could discover and develop. So, I used the parliamentary vote on the future of Trident, the UK’s submarine-based nuclear weapons system.

            The relation tabloids and newspapers have with political parties are, in some cases, very close in UK. So, I was expecting to see several differences in the way left and right tendency newspapers and tabloids treat the parlimentary vote.

                        On march 15, this issue was treated in all eight newspapers I choose to analyse, excepting on Evening Standard.  '' " ''

REFERENCE: http://www.behance.net/gallery/The-Wing/2505437

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Conservative-Party-Direct-Mail-2010/1341955

As we can see this series of political info-graphics was has been produced has a formality to it with a tactful edge of humour and playfulness in the composition and depiction. The content of the info-graphics seem to be portraying statistics relating to British wealth, immigration levels and also gently attacking Gordon Brown in an indirect and mature manner.

After looking for political info-graphics as a form of visual research I thought that considering the article focused on the Conservative party and David Cameron and the majority of the info-graphics collated above focused on the conservative party I decided to look at the conservative political campaign in further detail.

The posters shown above are apart of the Conservative parties political campaign, however these posters have been created by the public as apart of a 'competition'. As we can see they are all fairly similar in their structure and visual aesthetics, by this I am referring to the fact that they all maintain a level of formality within them, however also have bold quirkiness to it, this is evident through the use of colour.