DAILY MIRROR AUDIENCE AND REPRESENTATION

What is the Daily Mirror’s target audience?

The Daily Mirror is a British Daily National Tabloid newspaper aimed at predominantly working class readership. It follows a traditionally left-wing stance.

The target audience, according to NRS and ABC data, is C2DE, over 35 and are working class Labour supporters.

Who is the Daily Mirror competing against in some target demographics?

One of the Daily Mirror’s main competitors is The Sun newspaper who targets a similar socio-economic demographic but usually adopts a more traditionally right-wing stance.

How do Newspapers impact audiences?

• Newspapers often operate as opinion leaders, mediating the news for the readers.

• A loyal reader of a newspaper will be regularly exposed to the ideas and beliefs of the newspapers and this will in turn influence how they perceive the world around them at both a global and a national level.

Representation in Newspapers:

• Representation refers to the way events, issues, individuals - including self-representation - and social groups - including social identity - are represented through processes of Selection and Combination.

• It is important to consider the process of mediation that media products undergo.

• In news texts, the editors are gatekeepers, their ideology must match the ideology of the owner.

REPRESENTATION FRONT PAGE

Codes of expression:

The choice of the image of Boris Johnson focuses on his code of expression and the anchor of the caption. He has been criticized previously for his ‘smirk’ and the newspaper has selected an image with this expression, reinforced by the caption ‘I’m not going’, which connotes his seemingly uncaring attitude.

REPRESENTATION FRONT PAGE

Selection and combination and political allegiance:

This selection and combination of images and texts conveys the attitudes and beliefs of the newspaper whose political allegiance of left wing is suggested by the more ‘active’ image of Keir Starmer and the anchor ‘crushing’ referring to the way he dealt with Boris Johnson in the House of Commons.

REPRESENTATION FRONT PAGE

Negative representation:

The combination of images, layout and the language choices constructs a negative representation of the event and the Prime Minister’s role in it.

REPRESENTATION DOUBLE PAGE:

The focus of the representation is on a wide range of different responses all of which construct a negative representation of the government.

The use of direct quotations and the inclusion of individuals stories and the representations of ordinary people personalises the story by making about the experiences of individuals.

This helps audiences build emotional engagement with the political stories and is a technique particularly used by tabloid newspapers.