Newspaper Questions

A) Explain what the term 'Readership' means (2) 

The term Readership, is the target audience that is viewing a piece of media, this includes magazines and newspapers for example. The readership of media is determined through the gender, race, age, class and ethnicity of the audience. 

B) Analyse the data about 'The Sun' and 'Daily mail' newspapers describe two differences in terms of target audience. 

When comparing the sun and the daily mail, we can see that the readership of audiences from the ages of 15-34 shows that The Sun appeals to this age group significantly more than the daily mail does. We can see this from the % of readers of this age group being 7.3% for The Sun and only 2.8 for the daily mail. The readership is likely more appealing for younger audiences as the sun is focused more heavily on casual news such as celebrities, gossip and sports, where the daily mail is more sophisticated in its language and topics.

Another point we can identify is that the sun has a much bigger audience within the class brackets of C2DE when compared to the daily mail. (12.7% in comparison to 5.5%). This may be because the sun is designed to be easy to real and more simple as it is a Tabloid, therefore it applies to the working class more widely as they are likely less educated than a higher up social grade such as C1BA. 

C) From your knowledge of demographics, describe and justify the type of content that might be featured in 4 types of newspapers of your choice from the data provided. 

The Daily Mail 

The Daily mail mainly features Tabloid style content around celebrities, sports and news however they do this targeting the middle class with an NRS of C1B. This is because of the use of sophisticated language trying to convince readers they are a more intelligent paper in comparison to something such as The Sun which is the same content but simple language. The general readership of the newspaper is also mainly females which suggests the content promotes equality. Mainly ages of 35+ are the ones viewing the content. 

The Sun

The Sun features information specifically focused around the Tabloid format. They present information on celebrities, life style, and sport as well as some other news. The readership of the newspaper is mainly Working class males. Because of this the general content and text style needs to be simple and easy to read. The general content of the Sun is. clearly sexualised and targeted at men as well as the readership in the working classes is significantly higher with men being 10.6% of the viewership.