MailOnline case study: Blog tasks

 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?

Harry's new job in the US - hard

Zara Tindall's new baby - soft

Children COVID vaccine - hard

Boris Johnson makes remark about EU vaccine - hard

Suez Canal blockage - hard

2) What celebrity content is featured?

Zara Tindall's pregnancy, Derek Draper's hospitalisation, Prince Harry's new job

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

the extent of Derek Draper's condition, the defamation of Laurence Fox

4) To what extent do the stories you have found on MailOnline reflect the values and ideologies of the Daily Mail newspaper?

I think that they reflect the same ideologies, with more stories on celebrities because they would be more likely to get shared online

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 endless scroll feature baits you in with more clickbait - diversion

- it caters to certain ideologies that the majority of the readers identify with (right wing bias) - personal identity

- nostalgia - they often refer to things from the past that the audience would remember

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?

they're owned by the same kind of media moguls and the way that they're constructed is very similar

2) How does Preston summarise other newspaper websites?

they're all far behind MailOnline in terms of readership, other newspaper websites feature completely different content and often use different ideologies 

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

24.5 million

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

I think the MailOnline has a focus leaning more on soft news that gets people talking om social media, leading to a muted view of the real world. The Daily mail newspaper acts as an anchor the brand's beliefs as it focuses itself on harder news that reflect a grittier outlook on life

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

I think that as long as there is an audience for hating Royals, supporting right wing politics, and enforcing traditional gender roles, there will always some sort sort of print DM. As time progresses however, the print readership numbers will decrease as the readership age is around 60+ so one day the print version of the Daily Mail will cease in my opinion. 

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 economic, political, and journalistic field 

2) What is ‘churnalism’ and does MailOnline provide examples of this kind of news gathering?

the regurgitation of news stories - the coverage of the Suez Canal incident was reguargitated by many media outlets including DM

3) Fenton argues that news should serve the public and help democracy. Does MailOnline do this?

I think the right wing bias of the DM allows it to be a fair voice for democracy because they are well knowledged in politics - left wingers could debate this because there is an unhealthy bias towards the right 

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

information about entertainment - MailOnline features an abundance of soft news 

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

Martin Clarke's comments with the audience shape their content and demand 

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. You won't be able to access our Factsheet archive now school is closed but you can open this factsheet here if you log in to Google using your School email and password.

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

that newspaper industry should follow plurist values and allow audience to shape their content

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

large news organisations like the BBC, the Guardian, The Times 

3) What does the fact-sheet suggest regarding newspaper ownership and influence over society?

the newspaper industry is dominated by very few rich men who share the same political views

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

Because they saw that developing wave of new technology and the decline in their print was another reason why

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

they offer readers with an open debate due to controversial opinion pieces 

6) How many stories and pictures are published on MailOnline?

there's an endless scroll feature which means virtually endless stories 

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

"we give the audience what we want" - audience shape content 

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

the number of interactions determine what gets featured on the front page 

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

soft news stories tend to get more clicks 

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

digital content forms a lot of shared posts on social media - I think that the number of clicks something receives should determine the pecking order of the ordering of news stories and that according to Clarke "the audience choose their own content"