Investigate the difference in Readability between these different type of newspapers; namely, Tabloid, Broadsheet and Quality.

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Newspaper Comparisons.

Investigation

Different Newspapers have different content, style and presentation. In this project, I am going to investigate the difference in Readability between these different type of newspapers; namely, Tabloid, Broadsheet and Quality.

Plan

To being with, I intend to make some general comparisons between the three newspapers, The Son (Tabloid), The Daily Telegraph (Broadsheet) and The Economist (Quality). The Comparison will include the difference in total surface areas of the newspapers, difference in cost per square meter, and the amount of space devoted to different items and so on. By doing this, I hope to gain some idea of the different content in newspapers and explore whether some of these feature relate to the readability of the newspaper. I then plan to use different type of graphs and charts, like Bar Charts, Pie Charts, Cumulative Frequency Graphs and more, to try to reflect any pattern I find in my data.

Following that, I am going to compare readability across the three newspapers. I have discovered, while researching ways of calculating readability, that there are formula techniques for calculating Readability for texts. Some of such formulae include Fry’s. Readability graph and the SMOG formula, The Flesch-Kincaid Formulae include Fry’s readability graphs, and The Dale-Chall readability index I will try to use to use two of three method to calculate readability, because not all the techniques seem relevant to my investigation. Since I cannot compare all the sections of newspapers, I will use two types of sampling, Random and stratified, to choose pieces of text which I will analyse. By using the two type of sampling, I hope to avoid bias while collecting the data. I will compare one item each from the three chosen categories; “News”, “Politics, and “Arts”. I choose these categories to investigate difference in the readability between different topics in the newspaper.          

  • The amounts of space devoted to different items
  • The sizes, number of pages and cost of the different newspapers
  • The readability in terms of language levels evidenced in different newspapers.

I will also find the Average newspaper, in terms of cost, size and content.

I have chosen three different newspapers to compare:

  • The Sun, which is Tabloid newspaper containing news from around the England. It is mostly read by local residents who as well as wishing to read about local happenings also may wish to read the advertisements, recruitment and classified advertisements. There are 80 pages in this newspaper.
  • The Guardian, which is Broad sheet newspaper, containing national news, but mostly from the south east of England. This is the most popular tabloid newspaper on the market and contains news and comment on a variety of current events with a focus on features and leisure. It is considered a popular paper for a thinking person. There are 34 pages in this newspaper.
  • The Economist, which is a Quality newspaper with news from all over the world. It is renowned for its well-written articles and opinions and its readership tends to be members of the professional and business classes. There are 116 pages in this newspaper.

Hypotheses:

For the first part of my investigation, I predict that:

  1. The Sun will have a higher percentage of Advertisements than the other newspapers, as it is a local newspaper and there is less news to comment on in the local.
  2. The Guardian will be the newspaper that has percentages closest to the average, in terms of space devoted to different items, as it is a middle classed newspaper.
  3. The Economist will have a higher percentage of News and Business, as it is readership is mostly the professional and business classes.
  4. I predict that when I analyses the readability of the newspapers that:
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 The Sun will have the lowest language level evidenced in the newspaper, and will have the smallest measure of spread in word length.

  1. The Guardian will have a language level set between the Sun and the Economist.
  2. The Economist will have the highest language level in terms of word length.
  3. I predict that The Economist will have the best value in terms of size, cost and number of pages.

First I shall investigate the amounts of space devoted to the different items, the sizes, number of pages and cost of the different newspapers; so that ...

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