Comparison of the representation of celebrities in two tabloid newspapers

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Comparison of the representation of celebrities in two tabloid newspapers

I have studied two articles about Victoria Beckham and her lifestyle, one of which is in the Daily Mirror and the other is in the Daily Star. The article in the Daily Mirror is about Victoria Beckham having to rush Romeo to the hospital ‘after suffering frightening convulsions.’ The article is on page 11 that shows that the article is quite important to the paper as it is near the beginning of the paper. The article takes up about half of the page leaving the other half covering advertising and short news reports. The news report is about “Footie girls go missing”, this is about two girls who have gone missing in Nottingham. This is of much more importance than the main article about Victoria Beckham and this shows us the values of the paper, as they believe celebrity articles sell more stories. The article is the Daily Star is on page 14 again showing that the article is quite important, however this article is on “The Goss” page which draws the readers attention to the articles as ‘goss’ is a juicy intriguing word. This article is about how Victoria Beckham couldn’t attend an award ceremony to claim an award so sent her Mum, Sister and friend to pick it up for her. Similarly the article takes up half of the page however the rest of the page is dedicated to other celebrity gossip.

In the Daily Mirror the article is called “Romeo Scare” and the page is mainly devoted to the headline. The headline is ‘Romeo Scare’ and is large text in sans serif font that is bold and therefore stands out and is eye catching. The first impression of this headline is very dramatic and ‘scare’ is used to emphasise the circumstances and exaggerate the truth, which captures the reader’s attention.  The sub heading is underlined to emphasise what is said it is positive portrayal of Victoria Beckham as it says, “Victoria rushes son to hospital after he has fit” using this statement and underlining it is positive towards Victoria as it suggests that she is a good mother. The article in the Daily Star also has a large headline that is sans serif font and bold however the headline is split in two different styles. “Queen Victoria?” is in capitals and larger than the sentence above this, the readers first impression of the page would to think that the article is positive portrayal of Victoria as she is being referred to as Royalty. Although the initial first impression is dismissed and the article becomes very negative as the rest of the headline is “Who does she think she is ….”  This is also bold but the text is much smaller and is used to question Victoria’s actions. The ellipses are very important and used to show a continuous of the headline, they are also included to allow the reader to make their own judgement.

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The Daily Mirror has used large pictures to break up the text and make it more appealing to the readers. This is usual of a tabloid paper as the socio economic groups that tabloid papers are targeted at are E D and C and therefore this structure of a page appeals to them and is more inviting to read. There are 2 pictures included in this article, one is of David Beckham, the caption besides the picture states, “FATHER: Beckham” The picture is not framed and overlaps the headline to involve him in the article even though he is ...

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