Newspapers: MailOnline case study


Work through the following tasks to complete your case study on Mail Online. 

MailOnline close-textual analysis

Go to MailOnline and analyse the stories currently featured:

1) What are the top five stories? Are they examples of soft news or hard news?
2) What celebrity content is featured?

 -Megan and Harry
-ITV presenters eg Ant and Dec, Holly Willborough 
-Strictly contestants
-Chris evans

3) What examples of ‘clickbait’ can you find?

-Meghan cradles her baby bump on Sydney beach and wears £880 maxi dress before she and Harry kick off their shoes to join an 'anti-bad vibes circle' with surfing mental health group
-Supermodel Karlie Kloss wears stunning Dior gown as she marries Joshua Kushner, the brother of Trump's son-in-law, in a small ceremony in New York but close pal Taylor Swift does NOT attend4) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?

I believe that the daily mail reflects ideologies and value of elite nations and gives information based on what they do and how people can also use their tricks. This is the same as the daily mail newspaper as it provides stories that audiences would find interest in reading. The story about animals also gives a sense of caringness and a socialism approach of helping others before yourself.5) Think about audience appeal and gratifications: why is MailOnline the most-read English language newspaper website in the world? How does it keep you on the site?

 The mail online provides audiences with huge amounts of Copy and this is appealing to audiences as it gives them surveillance and also escapism because it diverts their mind. This is through the use of stories for entertainment purposes and soft news that would interest audiences.
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Guardian column: So Daily Mail and Mail Online are ‘totally separate’? It depends how you look at it by Peter Preston

Read this Guardian column by Media veteran Peter Preston on a row between the Guardian and the Mail over the controversial MailOnline (ex-) columnist Katie Hopkins. Answer the following questions:

1) Why does Preston suggest that the Daily Mail and MailOnline should be considered to be basically the same publication?

 This is because the stories featured in the newspaper are also used online as they have the same writers

2) How does Preston summarise other newspaper websites?

 The other newspaper websites are the sun's website and The Mirror which is said to be pure bun and extrapolation of the print version. He talks about everything becoming available online and talks about this memory online lasting forever for audiences.

3) How many readers does the online-only Independent now boast?

 19 million readers.

4) Do you feel the Daily Mail and MailOnline have a different ‘world view’?

 I believe that both these sources provide audiences with generally the same worldview but the mail online potentially talks about soft news more and stories to do with celebrities are presented more and has the same ideologies as presenting a right-wing approach.

5) Do you see a future for the paper version of the Daily Mail or will it eventually close like the Independent?

 I believe that daily mail has a future that is better than the independent as it is the second highest newspaper read in the UK and many people do follow it. This means that it will not close as it allows audiences to comment as it uses controversial headlines and opinion columns on the website. 
Even with falling circulation, the front cover of the Daily Mail can set the news agenda and dictate what broadcast media lead on such as, the influential BBC Radio 4 Today programme or News night on BBC2. This is why newspapers are still seen as having a disproportionate influence despite falling sales.

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Media Magazine MM55: Media, Publics, Protest and Power

Media Magazine 55 has an excellent feature on power and the media. Go to our Media Magazine archive, click on MM55 and scroll to page 38 to read the article Media, Publics, Protest and Power', a summary of Media academic Natalie Fenton’s talk to the Media Magazine conference in 2015. Answer the following questions:

1) What are the three overlapping fields that have an influence on the relationship between media and democracy?

 The political field - when state powerfully limits or enables the diversity of the voices and views through powerful regulation.

 The economic field - The commercial influences like profit pressures which relate to the type of ownership and funding. This is the level of intensity of market competition.

The journalistic field - The assumptions that have emerged about the news and journalism like ethics, impartiality and norms of objectivity.


2) What is ‘churnalism’ and does MailOnline provide examples of this kind of news gathering?
3) Fenton argues that news should serve the public and help democracy. Does MailOnline do this?

4) What is infotainment? Is MailOnline guilty of relying on this kind of content?

5) Has the internet empowered audiences or is it still dominated by the major media conglomerates? How does MailOnline fit into this?

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Factsheet 182 - Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context

Finally, read Media Factsheet 182: Case Study: The Daily Mail (Part 3) Industrial Context and complete the following questions/tasks. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets

1) What do Curran and Seaton suggest regarding the newspaper industry and society?

 They suggest that newspapers have to reflect the needs and desires of the reader in order to maintain circulation and readership 

2) Curran and Seaton acknowledge that media ownership in the UK is dominated by what kind of company?

 A conglomerate company.  

 3) What does the factsheet suggest regarding newspaper ownership and influence over society?

 It suggests that powerful people change the way other poeple view things and they are seen as opinion leaders (2 Step Flow Model)

4) Why did the Daily Mail invest heavily in developing MailOnline in the 2000s?

 They noticed that their print newspapers were in decline and also notices that the development of technology was good and that things like the internet was trending and therefore created a website.

5) How does MailOnline reflect the idea of newspapers ‘as conversation’?

This is because people are allowed to hsare their views by commenting on articles which people can then reply back to which allows the idea that the Mail Online can be 'a conversation'.
6) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?

 The Mail Online publishes around 1000 stories, but 10,000 pictures. This is because the pictures can communicate a lot to the audience in a short space of time which may intrigue them. They also can attract customers by doing this and it does make their website full of words which can look boring.

7) How does original MailOnline editor Martin Clarke explain the success of the website?

 The reason MailOnline has become a success is because we cover the waterfront. It’s all the news you need to know, all the news you wanna know. The big stories. The lighter stories. The completely amazing stories.

8) What does it mean when it says readers are in control of digital content?

 This is when the importance of the article is based on the amount of people who clicked on it.

9) How is the priority for stories on the homepage established on MailOnline?

 They prioritise it by determining which stories have had the most views.

10) What is your view of ‘clicks’ driving the news agenda? Should we be worried that readers are now ‘in control of digital content’?

 To certain extent, because readers are much more interested in soft news where there is gossip etc rather than hard news where it talks about politics and world affairs which is much more important as they can significantly change our lives. This leads to people being less aware of what is happening around the world.

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