(FINAL) LO1: Understand the News Industry
Unit 7 LO1 – Understanding the news industry
A media market is an area where the population can receive the same television and radio offerings; this may also include other types of media such as radio and Internet. Different news providers may choose to target a specific media market to increase the size of their audience. They may target a specific area due to the stereotypical political views of that area, or because that area contains a number of people of a certain ethnicity or another reason depending on the type of content that broadcaster produces.
An example of a media provider that targets a specific market is Al Jazeera. Also known as JSC, Al Jazeera is a Doha-based state-funded broadcaster owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is partly funded by the House of Thani, the ruling family of Qatar. It reports its news in English but mainly focuses on Arab related topics such as the Syrian war and immigration. It covers these topics so it appeals to the English-Muslim market, a demographic that is rarely specifically catered to. Al Jazeera distributes their news mainly via TV; they have multiple outlets including specialist channels that report the news in multiple different languages. They also use the Internet to update their website with the latest news. Having multiple TV channels in different languages means that Al Jazeera can distribute their news to a much wider audience as people from different countries and cultures will all watch one of their TV channels to keep up to date with the news. Also, having one or multiple TV channels shows that Al Jazeera is a professional company meaning that their news stories can be trusted. However the number of people who watch TV is decreasing due to the impact of technological convergence. More and more people are starting to update themselves on the latest news via the Internet as it is updated more regularly than most other platforms.
Media providers often have a political bias; the Daily Mail for example is biased towards right wing parties. It reports on UK and global news while giving its own opinions, which tend to be linked to right wing views. Because of this it appeals to a market that aligns with the papers right wing views and probably votes for either the Conservatives or the United Kingdom Independence party. The Daily Mail mainly distribute their news via their daily newspaper however they also update their audience via their website and more recently, Snapchat. Although the number of people who buy newspapers is decreasing it is still a good way for the Daily Mail to distribute the news to its target audience (people over forty) as people who are most likely to buy newspapers are over forty. However in an attempt to widen its audience and maximise profit the Daily Mail has utilised modern technologies such as Snapchat in order to appeal to a younger audience. They provide Snapchat users (69% of which are aged 18-24) with updates on world events mixed in with celebrity gossip stories in an attempt to keep them up to date with current affairs whilst still keeping them interested by showing them pictures of celebrity weight loss and other trivial matters. The main advantage of using Snapchat and other modern technologies is that it is regularly updated whereas a newspaper is only updated daily meaning that people can see the latest news whenever they want.
On the other hand a media provider such as The Guardian newspaper is biased towards left wing parties such as the Labour Party. This means its main market will be people with socialist views as the newspaper is likely to add its left wing bias to the stories that they report on. The Guardian distributes its news in a similar way to The Daily Mail 
(via its daily newspaper and its website), however it does not have a Snapchat account which holds them at a particular disadvantage as people who read The Guardian are likely to be young people below the age of thirty who are more likely than the typical Daily Mail reader to use a social media platform such as Snapchat meaning that The Guardian are drastically reducing the size of their audience. Despite this they still utilise the benefits of the Internet by updating their website regularly with the latest news and implementing live news articles for particular events like the general election and the EU referendum.
(via its daily newspaper and its website), however it does not have a Snapchat account which holds them at a particular disadvantage as people who read The Guardian are likely to be young people below the age of thirty who are more likely than the typical Daily Mail reader to use a social media platform such as Snapchat meaning that The Guardian are drastically reducing the size of their audience. Despite this they still utilise the benefits of the Internet by updating their website regularly with the latest news and implementing live news articles for particular events like the general election and the EU referendum.
These examples link to Shoemaker & Vos’ 2009 theory that states “in exercising its "surveillance" function, every news medium has a very large number of stories brought to its attention daily by reporters, wire services, and a variety of other sources. The editor acts as a “gatekeeper” and chooses certain items for publication that they regard as more important or more interesting than others”. Very often this is based on personal experience of the editor and their bias/ideology.
News Corp is an American multi mass media company that focuses on newspapers and publishing. It is one of two companies, which succeeded the former News Corporation, alongside 21st Century Fox—which consists of the old News Corporation's broadcasting and media properties, such as Fox Entertainment Group. News Corp is classed as a multimedia company because it distributes its news via print, TV, Internet and radio. News Corp own major newspapers like the New York Post as well as the British radio group “Wireless Group”; they also own HarperCollins, a major book publisher. However their largest news reporting subsidiary is by far Fox News; a news channel and website that is under constant scrutiny for it political bias. Fox News is unapologetically right wing in the way it reports the news. It applies its political bias to every story it reports on and in some cases has been know to falsify information in order to further promote their right wing political agenda. An example of this is when they stated and then “changed” the identity of the Quebec Mosque shooter. The shooter, they claimed, was a Muslim. First, a Syrian refugee; then, a man of “Moroccan origin,” as Fox News claimed in an article it quietly deleted around noon the day after the attack without correction. (A Moroccan man interviewed by police was actually a worshipper at the Cultural Islamic Centre of Québec.) However, the accused shooter is not a Muslim and he is not a refugee. He was born in neither Syria nor Morocco. The suspect is a 27-year-old white French Canadian named Alexandre Bissonnette, whom an immigration rights group has identified as a far-right Internet troll. Because Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp, has such a large influence in global news he is capable of misleading people and subconsciously making them align with his political views due to the stories that subsidiaries of News Corp publish.
As a whole News Corp will have been affected by technological convergence as traditionally it is know as a publishing company. Also because of technological convergence less and less people are watching television, which is Fox news’ main platform. However to combat this Fox News updates people via its website and its Snapchat account in an attempt to broaden it audience. Although, technological convergence will not have affected News Corp as severely as other similar companies due to its political bias. Right wing political views tend to be held by older people who are more likely to still use older technologies such as television, radio and newspapers.
One of the biggest news providers in the UK is the BBC. The BBC is classed as a multi-media company as it distributes its news via the Internet, TV and radio. The BBC usually aims to provide unbiased news coverage although it has been suggested that is slightly biased towards left wing parties due to its harsh criticism of the Conservative government. BBC News as a whole has not been effected drastically by technological convergence, as it is a multi-media company. People don’t listen to radio as much as they used to, meaning the listenership for BBC radio stations may decrease however the number of hits on the BBC News website will increase as more and more people are starting to get their news from online sources as websites are more regularly updated than other forms of media. The BBC also broadcast a news program at multiple times during the day on its most popular TV channel (BBC 1) and they also have a channel that broadcast news updates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In addition to this they also have a channel that is dedicated to political news which provides a live feed of the houses of parliament at various times throughout the day. Out of all the forms of distribution the BBC use, their website is the most popular and useful however the fact that the BBC distribute their news so widely over multiple different platforms helps them dominate the news industry in the UK meaning that their news will always be accessed by people no matter what platform is most popular.
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