context

Product context

  • The Times is a British National ‘quality’ newspaper

  • First published in 1785

  • Newspaper is a broadsheet

  • The Times have been published by Times Newspaper since 1981

→ subsidiary of News UK — owned by News Corp Rupert Murdoch’s company

  • Politically adopts a neutral position compared to political allegiance of tabloid press

  • Have a right wing allegiance supports the conservative party at key times

  • Range of journalist with varied political viewpoints

→Which allows the newspaper to offer a more neutral and balanced political stance on some issues

  • set edition was published on February 1st 2022 — report of the investigation of the parties held at Downing Street during Covid 19 lockdown

Political context

  • story was reported in November 2021

  • About the Downing street parties during Christmas which were attended by the PM

  • Led to inquiry being undertaken by senior civil servant Sue Gray

  • When edition was published BJ was due to give a statement on the scandal

  • Sue Gray revealed that the Metropolitan Police were investigating several breaches of lockdown by No 10 and BJ refused calls for his resignation

Social and cultural context

  • The times largely targets the ABC1 demographic with cultural capital and an interest in news and analysis in detail

  • This demographic is targeted with more and detailed text, less images, and less bias than the daily mirror — this is because the target audience would be more educated and therefore form their own opinions based on the facts

  • The theme of the times is to accurately present the news and its effect on society — whilst it is not explicitly critical of the government on the front page, both the conservative party as well as Labour were shocked by the revelations

  • the newspapers plug reflects a cultural context with a lifestyle focus — this intends to broaden the appeal of the newspaper

  • The Times is a right wing publication in a largely right wing press — this will influence their representation of stories due to their ideologies — normally favouring the government however the times does try to be neutral in its stance.