In any visual format it is important to have some sort of layout. The mind likes to organise and distinguish different pieces of information. The Independent captures it visual audience by breaking the information and features in to blocks of digestible imagery. Moving down the page, the top of the paper is small captions, next to images that draw the eye towards them. These captions are an indication to what you will find within the papers depths. The title is in large font, distinguishing itself from the rest of the blocks of information by using size as a written impact.
The main story or feature is highlighted by the use of a large colour photograph that contradicts the title of the main heading. Font again shows its relevance in the title that reads ‘ Aitken Faces Arrest Today’. The photograph is of his smiling wife and daughter, arms linked walking down the road, happy. This contradiction in the written and still image is what makes you want to read on. The article in itself is broken down into snippets of information. Sentences that are easily digested, taking you through the story of this mans despair.
The front page has a montage of information ranging from serious issues to the more ironic or satirical article to lighten the mood. Colour and font are one of the main organisers in the blocking of information. Important information can be blocked off or framed so that the eye is drawn to it.
Broadsheets use many, if not all of the key elements in media and narrative dissection. We find content – the highlighted headlines, stories and current affairs with the element of choice mixed in. You chose the information that you want to read. Background and Narrative are intertwined – The journalist narrates through writing, highlighting the sequences leading up to events and backgrounding with prescition.
The atmosphere and motivation are set by the choice of wording and the desire to inform the public of events and interests that will capture imagination and hold interest from start to finish.
The ability to capture an audience with the written word in not an easy task. With television combining moving image, sound, and narrative we will now move into the news broadcast medium.
Meridian and Channel Fours News Broadcast on the 17th of March 1998
Moving image, sound, narrative. These traits when put together have an almost surreal ability to capture attention and draw and audience into captivity. Combine this with the amazing accessibility to all levels of class and income brackets and you have a medium that has the power to influence the masses: Television.
Newspapers met their match when television became a material object that no one was to be without. The endless viewing and the ability to relay information to millions of people at the same time flourished with the News Broadcast.
In contradiction to its Broadsheet counterpart the television news program enables viewers to have an almost immediate accessibility to the current affairs of the time. What used to stop the press is now cutting in to scheduled programming to inform the public then and there.
I soon realised that viewing two different broadcasts on two different channels had as much point to it as reading the Broadsheet from cover to cover. The two programmes apart from some basic differences were practically the same.
News Broadcasts use sound and title music in order to focus the viewers’ mind in to a set pattern of thinking: The schema. The angles, colours, voice and tone are all projected by the presenter to make you want to find out more.
The narrator is the presenter and the video journalists. These chop and change in order to remain in the focal point and not lose the audiences attention. The presenter also has the ability to use voice and intonation to influence the emotional reaction to the wording that is chosen.
The background can be established in a number of ways in conjunction with each other. Where the written word can only be one dimensional, the news broadcast has the ability to dissect the time barrier, through video imagery, editing, and cutting information. It has a multi-dimensional nature about it. Using many different senses to create its impression on the audience.
The camera can be used to show clips of information whilst it is happening. It uses different focal points and lenses to create perspective and influence concepts.
What is newsworthy to the Broadsheet is fundamentally different to the news on television. It does not matter to some extent what the main news of the day was on either medium, but as I have mentioned Aitken in my analysis of print journalism being front page news, thus giving the feature an air of importance. It must be said that within the broadcast Aitken fell in the sidelines of the day’s events.
Content is greatly influences on what effects the public, more so that what some would find important. Stories and features revolve around what affects the everyday viewer, incorporating local and international affairs in to one program.
Technology is also an advantage within visual news. The ability to talk a viewer through a feature using technology and different scenes and video projections can in effect make the feature easier to understand. There is more movement in the creativity department in television programming.
If we look at tradition compared with popular culture and being spoken at rather than using our own abilities to translate information. The television and its influences can and could make the Broadsheet a redundancy.
This in itself is a very brash statement, as they say variety is the spice of life, but the world and its time definitions are shrinking rapidly. There is no way we can honestly state that media and its interpretations are one hundred percent oblivious to out source influences. The news we are being fed may not give us the full ability to be diverse in our judgement of its product. We need both print journalism and news broadcasts to help us to paint a broader picture of the events that take place in the world in which we live.
In the analysis’ conclusion it has been confirmed that both mediums need to be kept in their own separate corners. Print journalism and video journalism are related in a certain sense, but are also a million miles apart. The luxury of having time to peruse a Broadsheet, and really take into depth its contents is quickly becoming a Sunday morning event.
Television news broadcasting is an easy way of keeping the public up to date with current affairs and their influences on culture, society and on the individual. If used in conjunction with each other, rather than one or the other you can achieve a wonderful insight into the world we live in, with moderate bias that is.
Bibliography
David Miller – Public Relations and Journalism Chpt 6 The Media: An Introduction Briggs & Cobley, Addison Wesley Longman 1998
Dominic Strinati – An Introduction into Popular Culture Routledge 1995
The Independent Newspaper – March 17th 1998
Channel Four and Meridian News Broadcasts - March 17th 1998
David Miller – Public Relations and Journalism Chpt 6 The Media: An Introduction Briggs & Cobley, Addison Wesley Longman 1998
