Media Coursework - Newspapers

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Media Coursework

Newspapers don't just give us the facts about events that happened. Most of them especially tabloids exaggerate most of the facts. This shapes our thoughts and makes the story more dramatic.

The headline is telling us a quick reference about what happened on the day and who and what was involved. This article is from the Daily Mail; the Daily Mail is a tabloid because it has bolder layout, more 'human interest' stories and a higher proportion of shorter articles covered in less depth.

The picture of Steven Parr is with his injuries but they could have just put a picture of Steven Parr without his injuries. from my point of view I think it was right to put a picture of him after the accident showing his injuries so that we have a good idea and we can build up a picture of the scene and see how bad the incident was, how badly he was hurt.

The first few paragraphs of the article are just briefing us about what happened, how and who was involved. The article tells us a bit about Steven Parr; it tells us his age (51), his wife's name and age (Jennifer, 50), it tells us how many children he has (father of two, daughter Suzanne, 26 and son Matthew, 17). So we learn a bit about what kind of man he is and we see that he is an ordinary person just like us.

Steven Parr saw a youth smashing a phone box. But when Steven Parr intervened, the youth responded violently, which put Steven Parr in hospital recovering from his injuries. These are the basic facts of the story. However, Ben Taylor, the journalist, develops the story and makes us feel angry about the situation. Also Ben Taylor makes us have sympathy for Steven Parr. This report does a lot more then just gives us the facts; it influences us about the way we think. Ben Taylor used the headline, language and picture to build up a sympathetic image of Steven Parr in our heads.
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The headline dominates the report, it is bold and large which makes it stand out. The key words in the headline are, thug, smashing, instead, intervened and terrible price. The journalist has used the word 'thug' as it describes the attacker being horrible. Violent and trouble. The word 'instead' highlights that Steven Parr had choices of what to do. The word 'intervened' is a formal word, it's suggested 'forceful'. Ben Taylor used the words 'terrible price' because of has action that's Steven Parr was beaten up badly. The headline gives the reader a good idea of what has ...

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