Look at 3 different newspapers and analyse differences in content and style.
Newspaper Comparison
By Chris Wood
6/10/2002
Aim:
Look at 3 different newspapers and analyse differences in content and style. I'm going to look at a Tabloid, a Broadsheet and a Quality. The newspapers I am going to use are:
Newspaper
Type
Date of issue
Daily Mirror
Tabloid
Mon 14th October 02
Daily Mail
Quality
Mon 14th October 02
The Guardian
Broadsheet
Mon 14th October 02
I made sure I got the newspapers on the same day, as weekend papers differ to weekday papers.
Hypothesis: I think that The Guardian will have the longest sentences, because it is a broadsheet and it was the most expensive. I think that The Daily Mirror will have the shortest sentences as it was the cheapest, it is also a Tabloid which are full of pictures and don't have many sentences.
Preliminary Test:
I did a small investigation to give me an idea of what length the sentences are. I have chosen to look at the first 10 sentences in the Sport sections of each paper. My preliminary test shows that there are differences in sentence length.
Daily Mirror: Daily Mail: The Guardian:
I made a few rules that I will use throughout this investigation:
Rule 1: a number counts as 1 word (e.g. 123)
Rule 2: slang words count as 1 word (e.g. don't)
Rule 3: double barrel words count as 1 word (e.g. cross-section)
By keeping to this my investigation will be fair and the results will be more reliable and accurate.
By looking at the 3 newspapers I found that there were a lot of common sections:
News
Gossip
Adverts
Weather
Sport
TV + Radio listings
Fun and Games (Puzzles + Horoscopes + Problems + Cartoons)
Reviews
I counted how many pages each section had, to give me an idea of what was the most popular. This would help me chose my 3 final sections. I worked out what percentage of the paper they were.
Daily Mirror - total number of pages = 63
Section
Number of pages
Percentage
News
7
27%
Adverts
4
22.2%
Sport
21
33.3%
TV + Radio listings
2
3.2%
Gossip
4
6.4%
Weather
0.25
0.4%
Fun + Games
4
6.3%
Reviews
0.75
.2%
Daily Mail - total number of pages = 80
Section
Number of pages
Percentage
News
24.5
30.6%
Adverts
25
31.3%
Sport
5
8.75%
TV + Radio listings
3
3.75%
Gossip
5
6.3%
Weather
0.5
0.6%
Fun + Games
6
7.5%
Reviews
.3%
The Guardian - total number of pages = 80
Section
Number of pages
Percentage
News
...
This is a preview of the whole essay
4
6.3%
Reviews
0.75
.2%
Daily Mail - total number of pages = 80
Section
Number of pages
Percentage
News
24.5
30.6%
Adverts
25
31.3%
Sport
5
8.75%
TV + Radio listings
3
3.75%
Gossip
5
6.3%
Weather
0.5
0.6%
Fun + Games
6
7.5%
Reviews
.3%
The Guardian - total number of pages = 80
Section
Number of pages
Percentage
News
4.5
8.2%
Adverts
9
1.3%
Sport
31
38.8%
TV + Radio listings
4
5%
Gossip
5.5
6.8%
Weather
0.5
0.6%
Fun + Games
2
2.5%
Reviews
3.5
6.8%
I have chosen to do these 3 sections:
* Sport
* News
* Gossip
Even though Adverts got a very high percentage of the newspaper, I did not choose it because there are not many sentences in the adverts, they are mostly pictures. I chose not to use the Weather and TV + Radio listings sections because they were practically identical, this would give bias results.
I worked out the total number of sentences in each section in each paper.
Section
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Total number of sentences
Sport
53
412
278
843
News
332
719
2394
3245
Gossip
12
42
206
460
I took a stratified sample of the 3 sections from each of the 3 papers. I calculated it by - looking at the number of sentences in that category, divided it by the total number of sentences in that category, and multiplying it by the sample size I have chosen (200).
I put these calculations into a table below.
Category
Newspaper
Stratified Sample (number of sentences I'm going to use)
Sport
Daily Mirror
7
Daily Mail
45
The Guardian
38
News
Daily Mirror
20
Daio Mail
44
The Guardian
48
Gossip
Daily Mirror
49
Daily Mail
62
The Guardian
90
I used a random sample because it is simple and more efficient.
I worked out the Mean, Mode and Median (number of words in a sentence) for each of the 3 sections from each of the 3 newspapers.
Daily Mirror:
News
Sport
Gossip
Mean
26.5
20
22.1
Mode
22
9
22
Median
27
9
22
Comments: I found that the News section had the highest mean and median. The News and Gossip sections had an equal mode. The Sport section had the lowest mean, mode and median.
Daily Mail:
News
Sport
Gossip
Mean
28
21.5
23.6
Mode
28
26
24
Median
29
22
25
Comments: I found that the News section had the highest mean, mode and median. The Sport section had the lowest mean and median. The Gossip section had the lowest mode.
The Guardian:
News
Sport
Gossip
Mean
39.3
27.2
25.2
Mode
42
32
32
Median
38
27
26
Comments: I found that News had the highest mean, mode and median. The News and Gossip sections had an equal mode. The Gossip section had the lowest mean and median.
Overall Comment: I found that the Daily Mirror had the lowest mean, mode and median in all 3 sections.. The Guardian had the highest mean mode and median out of the 3 newspapers in the News, Sport and Gossip sections. This shows that the average sentence length in The Guardian is the biggest. The Daily Mail has the lowest average sentence length.
I put my data into equal class intervals; it shows how many sentences had how many words:
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Number of words in sentence
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
<10
0
0
0
5
0
6
0
0
0
1<20
2
8
4
3
9
5
8
23
21<30
4
4
29
25
25
28
77
30
48
31<40
5
2
4
8
54
51
0
41<50
0
0
0
0
2
2
56
9
51<60
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
To find the mean of the equal width intervals I multiplied the number of sentences by the mid point of the number of words in a sentence, I did that for all the numbers in that column. I then added them together; I divided the total by the total of numbers in that column. E.g.
Daily Mirror - Sport
5.5 x 0 = 0 186 + 102 + 35.5 = 323.5
5.5 x 12 = 186 12 + 4 + 1 = 17
25.5 x 4 = 102
35.5 x 1 = 35.5 323.5 divide = 19.........so the mean is 19
45.5 x 0 = 0 17
55.5 x 0 = 0
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Mean
9
27.5
22.2
20.4
28.9
25.4
29.3
36.6
26.1
Modal interval
1<20
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
41<50
21<30
Median interval
1<20
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
21<30
31<40
21<30
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Number of words in sentence
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
<10
0
0
0
5
0
6
0
0
0
1<20
2
8
9
3
5
5
8
23
21<30
6
5
47
44
28
43
82
38
71
31<40
7
20
49
58
42
61
36
89
81
41<50
7
20
49
60
44
62
38
45
90
51<60
7
20
49
60
44
62
38
48
90
Cumulative Frequency table:
The table on the next page is raw data. It shows how many sentences had how many words. It has all 3 sections from all 3 newspapers. I used the actual number not tally, as tallying is longer and harder to count.
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Number of words in sentence
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
2
3
4
5
3
6
2
7
8
2
9
2
0
1
2
2
2
3
2
2
3
4
5
5
3
7
6
4
3
7
3
3
6
8
3
3
4
3
4
9
5
3
3
20
3
3
3
2
2
21
4
2
1
4
6
22
2
5
8
6
4
2
7
2
2
23
4
6
6
6
24
2
2
3
8
8
5
25
4
3
4
6
26
5
0
2
7
8
27
2
2
3
6
2
6
28
4
8
2
2
6
29
3
3
5
0
8
30
7
4
7
3
4
31
3
2
9
2
32
4
7
6
3
33
2
3
1
2
2
34
2
6
6
4
35
7
8
36
6
4
37
3
6
5
38
7
39
2
1
2
40
3
41
2
4
42
5
43
5
3
44
3
45
8
46
5
47
2
48
6
2
49
50
7
51
3
52
53
54
6,18,18,18,18,19,20,20,21,21,21,21,22,22,23,23,23,23,23,23,25,25,25,25,27,27,28,29, 29,29,29,29,29,29,29,30,30,30,31,31,32,32,32,33,33,34,34,34,34,34,34,35,35,35,35,35, 35,35,35,36,36,36,36,37,37,37,37,37,38,38,38,38,38,38,38,39,39,39,39,39,39,39,39,39, 39,39,40,40,40,41,41,41,41,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,42,43,43,43,43, 43,44,44,44,45,45,45,45,45,45,45,45,46,46,46,46,46,47,47,48,48,48,48,48,48,49,50,50, 50,50,50, 50,50, 51,51,51
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Number of words in sentences
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
<20
2
8
9
3
5
5
8
23
21<30
4
4
29
25
25
28
77
30
48
31<51
5
2
6
9
56
10
9
Standard Deviation:
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
Sport
News
Gossip
.363589
.396645
2.192851
2.237391
.840894
.846675
4.017535
3.056253
2.222797
I worked out the standard deviation using excel. This was much quicker and more efficient. I have written below how to work out the standard deviation to show I no how to do it.
The standard deviation, s, of a set of data is given by the formula:
s =
The higher the standard deviation, the more spread out the data is. I found that The Guardian had the highest standard deviation in all 3 sections. The Daily Mirror had the lowest standard deviation in the Sport and News section. The Daily Mail had the lowest standard deviation in the Gossip section.
I also grouped the standard deviation for each newspaper. This helped me show what newspapers had the highest and lowest standard deviation. I totalled up the standard deviation for each newspaper by adding up all 3 sections.
Daily Mirror
Daily Mail
The Guardian
4.953085
5.92496
9.296585
This shows that The Guardian had the most spread out data, the Daily Mirror had the least spread out data.
Conclusion:
I think that my investigations went well. I found that my data proved my hypothesis correct. My results show that The Guardian had more letters per word on average than the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror.
I feel I have collected enough data and drawn enough graphs to give my strong reliable results. If there was more time I could have undertaken extensive an investigation by looking at more papers, and every single page.
I could also have looked at the size of images that were in the papers, to see if there was a correlation between the size and number of pictures to the length of the words.
I think the Daily Mirror is more appealing to less intellectual people that don't like to read much. The Guardian is more appealing to more intellectual people that like to read a lot.
