Text one is ‘The Sun Online’ homepage (02/04/08), the purpose of this text is to inform audiences of the day’s top stories. Text two is the’ BBC News report about the Tiananmen Square massacre’ (04/06/89), the purpose of this text is to inform audiences about what has happened.
The main headline on The Sun homepage is ‘Transatlantic Terror on Trial’ and with the caption ‘to use liquid explosives to blow up passenger jets’, the pictures used appear to be mug shots. Also this could create a moral panic (Cohen) amongst readers and also make some readers doubt flying. This article also appears to be sensationalised an aspect which is used in most tabloid (red top) newspapers.
The majority of the homepage consists of soft news (Galtung and Ruge) this would include celebrity gossip such as ‘Naomi Campbell arrested’ or ‘Becks tops porn poll’. This indicates what The Sun readers want to read, as the newspaper is targeted at C1, C2 and below and uses more informal language. In comparison to other newspaper websites such as The Guardian, The Sun has a more visual approach as the webpage features more pictures than writing.
The BBC news report is both informative and educational as it provides information on the events that happened in Tiananmen Square, but also establishes the BBC as a global institution providing coverage on events happening around the world, as this news report is likely to have interested those who keep up to date with world politics (hard news), therefore target audiences for the BBC would have been middle and upper class.
The report highlights the corrupt Chinese government and the fear that citizens live in as the reporter states that people were shot sitting in their own homes. At present news reports of government corruption have increased, which would have resulted in more people taking an interest in these issues.
Also the reporter is a white female who may be represented the hegemonic view of the BBC as she is injecting audiences (hypodermic needle model) with ‘white ideologies’, which the BBC has been criticized for.
But since the 1980s audiences have been able to gather information from a variety of news sources such as the internet or other news channels and are able to form their own opinion about the event being reported.
But the female reporter is represented as being educated and professional as many women may not have wanted to report from a country where civilians were being killed in front of them. In contrast to The Sun homepage where there is a picture of a Page 3 girl and another of Cameron Diaz in a bikini, these women have been featured on the page for the male gaze (Laura Mulvey) and are being sexually objectified; an aspect which is common in The Sun newspaper which features a Page 3 girl, reinforcing audiences with male ideologies as she has been placed there just for pleasure.
The Sun represents owner Rupert Murdoch who could be seen as a gatekeeper, he decides which stories make headlines and which do not, as information may have been mediated so that it is suitable for the target audience.
Since the majority of newspapers have gone online it has proved to be more effective as on the internet news can be updated throughout the day whereas a news report may only be shown once on the news. The Sun also proves that it caters for all audiences by providing news via ‘paper, online, mobile’. The BBC also has a website and offers a similar service to readers such as alerts sent to mobiles, emails and podcasts. This shows that institutions are trying to cater for the needs of different audiences by offering different forms of receiving news.
The BBC is known for bringing global issues to the attention of readers and listeners, whether it is protests or foreign elections. However the news featured in The Sun tends to be from either Britain or America, as many American celebrities are making headlines in the U.K. For example Jennifer Aniston is featured on the Sun homepage – for smuggling smarties on a film set she is working on.