How do three different types of reports of the death of Tony Nicklinson compare and reflect their different audiences?

by speedzz12 (student)

AS and A Level English

Word count:1957 – excluding headings and tables

Aim

How do three different types of reports of the death of Tony Nicklinson compare and reflect their different audiences.

Introduction

For my Language Investigation, I have chosen to focus on how the news uses various linguistics according to the audience. The news plays a vital role informing us about the modern society and most people believe everything they read and hear from the news. The news is something which most people watch everyday, a source of which they find out what’s going on around them. So finding out what language they use to accommodate their audience and help them understand is why I have decided on the particular area to investigate. Crystal and Davy has pointed out the “audiences” envision by different types of newspapers concerned are different, therefore they use different language and style, maintaining it by keeping the subject matter constant. I plan to investigate what linguistics devices are used according to the targeted audience. Does the writer use emotionally filled words to make the reader sympathetic? Do they balance both sides of the argument or is visible bias? Does the paper have more images when they are targeting at a younger audience? Is the paragraphs larger if the audience is old and more educated? Overall, I will be looking at the languages used for different audiences.

Hypothesis

I think that the lexis for The Telegraph will have more educated words because their reports have always seen to be aimed at an older, business related audience. The Sun will have some obvious bias points and have the most hyperbole, because as a tabloid paper they’re generally known to exaggerate topics and gossip. Therefore, Newsround will use more basic and semi formal lexis and use sensitive terminology because its trying to get a message across to children as well as inform them of this tragic loss. For graphology, the Telegraph typeface will be classical but its level of pictures will not be as much as Newsround. The Sun will have semi complex wording as they tend to entertain as well as inform, with a subtle amount of pictures. However, I think that Newsround will contain the most pictures because they’re aimed at younger people and pictures appeal to young people more than words.

Methodology

During my investigation to find the articles, I used Google search engine and found out the different types of newspapers; tabloid, broadsheet etc because having two papers that were tabloid would mean that they were similar in certain aspects and aiming at the same audience. Out of the different types, I choose news sources that had high viewing ratings their targeted audience, this way I know that the devices that they use to target their audience works.

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Analysis & Results

For my investigation, I have collected three different types of newspapers - tabloid, broadsheet and childrens news sources. I’ve collect my data from websites which may differ from newspaper articles. Also my childrens news source is a spin off the television version. The reports on the data collected varies in length; the Tabloid newspaper which is the The Sun happens to be 4 pages long, however the text:images ratio is quite unbalance with the the majority of the information being images.

Looking at my results, there is quite a bit of differences from each ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Analysis & Results

For my investigation, I have collected three different types of newspapers - tabloid, broadsheet and childrens news sources. I’ve collect my data from websites which may differ from newspaper articles. Also my childrens news source is a spin off the television version. The reports on the data collected varies in length; the Tabloid newspaper which is the The Sun happens to be 4 pages long, however the text:images ratio is quite unbalance with the the majority of the information being images.

Looking at my results, there is quite a bit of differences from each of the news source. Firstly, it can be distinguished through target audience. The Telegraph news generally is aimed at an older, educated audience, this includes business people who are commuting, the upper and middle class. The Sun paper is aimed at the middle social class and working class, they also target audiences between 15-25 years old.. Therefore, Newsround is aimed at 6-16 year olds.The use of words such as ‘pneumonia’ supports this, whereas in the Newsround report they do not disclose how he passed, they simply state “Tony’s family said he died peacefully” this may be to reassure the young audience that he didn’t suffer. The Telegraph covers long, articulate pieces on politics or important world issues and Newsround covers a range of stories regarding world issues, sports, entertainment and animals, whereas The Sun, to appeal their audience by covering stories of celebrity gossip, sports and TV reality shows. This can be supported by Jucker’s research that suggests that tabloids and broadsheets aim to inform their readers and entertain them at the same time but that entertainment is a higher priority for the tabloids.

The structure of paragraphs in Newsround range from 1-2 which is expected, it is very much broke up so its is easy to read, similarly The Sun and Telegraph range from 1-3, I expected that The Telegraph would have longer paragraphs however is makes the text more readable. Regarding balances of fact and opinion, I found that The Sun reporter’s view was evident and the views that they disagreed with were given less prominence. For example the fact that the judges rejected Tony was because it would put many other vulnerable disabled people at risk however The Telegraph and Newsround mention this. Also in the subheadings “RIGHT-TO-DIE campaigner Tony Nicklinson today passed away just a week after losing the long-running legal battle to be allowed to end his own life”. ‘His own life’ shows that the reporter clearly thought that Tony had a right to die and shouldn’t have been denied whereas Newsround simply states a fact and The Telegraph shows less bias and explaining what actually led to the death of Tony. Telegraph: “Tony ... lost an impassioned campaign for the right to die, passed away on Wednesday after refusing food for up to a week” Newsround: “Tony Nicklinson, the severely disabled man who recently lost a big court case about whether doctors could legally help to end his life - has died.” What I noted with the Telegraph article is that although there is a hint of bias, it is backed up with direct quotes “The 58-year-old father-of-two died from pneumonia just days after accusing the courts of “condemning” him to a “life of increasing indignity and misery” by refusing his plea for an assisted suicide”

The Newsround article uses a reassuring tone, they do this by using positive connation in the headline “peacefully”, explaining why Tony had appeal for the right to die “He had been paralysed for the past seven years and could only communicate by blinking, using a special computer” and why he lost the court case “If a doctor had helped Tony to die they could be accused of murder” and what the judge said supporting his decision “But the judge said it was a very difficult decision and he was not prepared to make such a big change to the law”. The Telegraph uses a formal, factual tone because they mention many high authoritative figures such as “His lawyers...”, “High Court”, “Lord justice Toulson” and “Prof Richard Dawkins”, however it was more moderate and restrained compared to The Sun. The tone of the article is empathic and dramatic “rapidly deteriorated”, “catastrophic stroke” highlighting how bad Tony Nicklinson suffered, it’s common for The Sun as its known for its uses of hyperbole.

The Sun news article uses a range of linguistics to accommodate their readers. The text is serious and uses simple vocabulary to reporting to their audience in an incoherent way. Similar to Newsrounds whose words are also dumbed down but the difference is the audience of Newsround is 6-16 year olds who may not understand words just as “imminent” but The Sun is targeted at middle-lower class adults. The Telegraph article uses very descriptive and informative language, it contains 19 quotes with half of them stemming from authoritative figures. This is most likely because The Telegraph readers are educated and will therefore make a decision of how they feel about Tony Nicklinson’s case, however The Sun article contains 5 quotes. They seems to sway the readers mind, by including more of a one-sided report instead of balancing both argument. Although The Newsround report only contains 1 quote, its shows no bias. However it seems that The Sun has taken more advantage of their gullible readers which Newsround could easily do as children are easily manipulated but they have quite a factual stance.

The Sun however uses euphemism to avoid using such blunt, taboo phrase such as “died” as Newsround and The Telegraph did, they used “passed away”. This surprising because I expected Newsround to use these terminology as it is for children and they are usually shielded from taboo words. The Sun uses in total of 15 adjectives and The Telegraph uses 13 adjectives and many of the adjective are emotive. The Sun and Telegraph reiterate how bad of a stroke Tony had by using “catastrophic” whilst Newsround state “He had been paralyzed for the past seven years”. This also shows Newsround doesn't hold any strong views on this matter. Also The Sun text contains a range of possessive and personal pronoun.

The Telegraph uses a range of linguistics to accommodate their readers, the level of wording is educated and formal which agrees with my hypothesis. The text includes a range of quotes from authoritative figures which adds to the believability and trustworthiness of the text. As expected, it contains a wide range of polysyllabic and monosyllabic words such as “extraordinary”, “culminated” which makes the text interesting and more readable . The Telegraph and The Sun address Tony Nicklinson as “Mr Nicklinson” at most times and when addressing him again uses “he”. However I noticed that under all pictures in the article, The Sun address him as “Tony” this could be receive sympathy from readers. Newsround addresses him as by first name “Tony” constantly which shows a lack in formality but also allows the reader to feel more at ease.

Newsround uses very little description with 5 adjectives in total and is quite brief, the structure was; what happened to Tony, his death then the status of the court case. The text is child friendly and contains a range of complex and compound sentences such as “Tony’s family said he died ...Wednesday morning, thanking people for their support” I also expected Newsround use simple sentence and a few compound sentences. There is no use of emotional language or euphemism, I think with the audience that the writer was writing for, there should have been use of euphemism. The text of Newsround is serious and uses familiar collocation.

The Sun uses the most pictures out of all the sources with 8 picture and they all have an emotional connotation, Newsround is only contains 1 picture which is surprising as I thought Newsround would have more pictures as children can comprehend images more than words. The Telegraph does not contain any pictures however it contains 2 video; one of Tony’s reaction to his home and another of the solicitor announcing Tony’s death. It could be said that The Telegraph uses videos instead of voluntarily picking out quotes and allowing the readers to interpret the information based on a sentence and make their own assumptions.

Conclusion

It is clear from my analysis of Newsround, The Telegraph and The Sun that they all accommodate their audience however Newsrounds does not use all linguistics which could accommodate the audience better. The Sun uses linguistics which suit a different audience and The Telegraph uses the presupposed linguistics. I thought that predicting an outcome of what devices would have been used would be simple but I found that sometimes the writer does not always accommodate their readers generally but its always depending on the topic in hand. Finally to conclude, certain genre news sources may have similar styles of writing however, again it all depends on the topic because if this was an article of on celebrity gossip, there probably would have been more uses of devices such as journalese.