Media - "A newspaper is an institution, a reader is a person."

Authors Avatar

“A newspaper is an institution, a reader is a person.” Roger Fowler

        The language used by the newspapers has undergone a substantial metamorphosis  in recent times. In an increasingly competitive market the papers have been forced to go new ways in the fight for the readers, and in this essay I will try to identify some of  the changes incurred by this, and also explain why the papers have felt the need to implement these changes.

        The most visible way in which the language has changed, is the increased usage of simulated conversation. This is most easily seen in tabloids, and that is why I have chosen to use a text from the Sun to help illustrate the points that I make during this essay. However, as this text will just be used for reference, I do not intend to analyse it properly. After that, I plan to look at how the broad-sheets have altered the ways in which they address their readers.

REMOVING THE STIGMA OF INSTITUTIONAL DISCOURSE

Newspapers have one great disadvantage : they are written, institutional discourse, as opposed to the conversational discourse we are most familiar with. To many, especially lesser educated people, this might have connotations considered undesirable by the papers. Writing is easily related to institutions, and  bad experiences with institutions, examples of such being the civil service, housing agencies, and schools, are, unfortunately, a part of many people’s lives. Due to this they may find that the papers are talking down to them instead of to them. This problem, known as the discursive gap,  is especially significant for the tabloid press, as their target audience is mainly made up of the working class.  In order to deal with this, these papers adapt a style of writing and layout which can be perceived as closer to conversation. One rarely finds long pieces of unbroken text, rather they tend to change the typeface and the fonts so as to signify someone talking. They also use a vocabulary which they believe to be that of their readers, as “ the form of language encode a socially constructed representation of the world”.

According to Fowler the differences between written and conversational discourse are as follows : 

I have already mentioned a few, and there are many more ways in which the tabloids attempt to narrow the discursive gap, and I will here try to name and explain the most important. To describe this more vividly, I plan to use an article which appeared in the Sun Friday, 1st  December. A story about a party attended by Lady Victoria Hervey had been given half the front page, and all of page three.

Join now!

With the use of non-standard English, and also of elements of ‘conversation’, the tabloids aim to suggest linguistic solidarity with their readers. “The language employed will thus  be the newspaper’s own version of the language of the public to whom it is principally addressed.”  Examples of non-standard English frequently used in tabloids include( The words in bold are the ones I found to serve these purposes in the text):

  • Vocabulary – colloquialism and slang (toff, totty, glitzy, saucy, celebs, docs aso)
  • Misspellings (deliberate) like wapp and gottcha
  • Wordplay – puns (peeling back her ...

This is a preview of the whole essay