The Times: CSP

Language

1) What are the main stories on the front cover of the Times CSP edition (15 March 2017)?
A political story about Scotland rejecting independence in a new poll and a story about Google, concerning a video on youtube which they refuse to take down, despite it containing anti-semitic content.

2) What are the main stories on the inside page of the Times CSP edition (15 March 2017)?
The inside pages of the Times include stories on the Muirfield Golf Club now allowing female members, the changing of the chief executives for Channel 4, and a story on a stabbing that involved a transgender woman and an official.

3) What is the balance on the Times front page between images, headlines and text?
Unlike the Daily Mirror, the ratio of images to copy on the Times is much more in favour of the copy instead of images or headlines.

4) How do we know that the Times is aimed at a wealthy, educated, middle-class audience?
The Times focuses on much more political stories and has a focus on prominent figures in politics, such as Angelina Jolie. Additionally, the Times uses a serif font for its headlines, which suggests elegance and displays that the demographic it is targeted at is educated.

5) What does a close analysis of the news stories in the Times CSP edition suggest about the Times political beliefs?
The Times is seemingly more right-wing or conservative, with its stories focused more on the male side, and against transgender communities, generally, their stories are covered with a more traditional view, which emphasises their right-wing beliefs.

Audience

1) What is the target audience for the Times?
The Times is targeted at older audiences, with over half of their audience being over the age of 55. Additionally, a majority of their audience is of ABC1 class, with a large percentage of that being mainly A and B class.  Their audience will likely be of the Succeeder or Retired psychographics.

2) Why do the Times front page stories/features appeal to the Times audience?
They include stories on politics and on large corporations, which are stories that people of the Succeeder psychographic, and older generations, enjoy reading, as the information is likely relevant to their daily lives.

3) Why might the Muirfield golf story be of interest to Times readers?
The Muirfield golf story may be relevant because a slightly more significant percentage of the readers of the times are male ~60% and they are of higher class background, making them more likely to enjoy free sports like golf than readers of the Daily Mirror.

4) Why might a reader enjoy the Times? Use Blumler & Katz Uses and Gratifications theory to add detail to your answer.
A reader may enjoy the times because, seeing as it is a newspaper, it offers their audience the gratification of Surveillance. Additionally, the Times also provides the gratification of diversion, as it includes a story on travelling and cultural hotspots. Though an argument can be made that the newspaper offers personal relation to the audience, a majority of the stories are focused on large businesses and politics, making it less likely that consumers read the Times for Personal Relation, and emphasises their reasoning to be for surveillance on the world around them.

5) Times readers are mostly over 55 years old. Why is this?  
Younger generations consume media much more differently than older generations did, with the new age of digital media, the need for paper news has greatly diminished, causing the only audiences that consume the newspapers traditionally being of the older demographic. Additionally, younger generations can find their news form many more outlets than was previously possible, and with the rise of citizen journalists, large, biased newspaper companies like the Times are becoming obsolete.

Representation

1) What representation of Great Britain can be found on the front page of the Times?
Great Britain is represented as a beautiful country filled with "cultural hotspots", and is also displayed as a place of great pride and importance, as the main story focuses on the fact that Scotland no longer wishes to leave the UK.

2) How does the Times represent the gender in the Muirfield golf feature?
In the Muirfield golf feature, the Times represents gender as more in favour of the male gender, with descriptions such as "gentlemen-only clubs" used as though addressing them formally. They are much more forgiving to the men for not including women into the club than the Daily Mirror was on the same story.

3) How does the Times represent big companies like Google or Channel 4? 
The Times represents big companies such as Google as extremely powerful and important, with both the cover and inside including lengthy articles on them, in which they refer to the companies with an extremely formal tone.

4) How does the Times present the story of the transgender runner jailed for stabbing an official? What does this suggest about the Times's attitude towards LGBT issues?
The Times covers this story in a way that seemingly villainises Lauren, by emphasising the degree to which she injured the official. Additionally, the article repetitively includes the detail that Lauren is transgender, which isn't an extremely significant detail, but through the bluntness of the heading and her descriptions, the newspaper seemingly targets all of the transgender community as "dangerous".

5) What clues can you find in the CSP pages that suggest that Times readers are more likely to support the Conservative Party?
The newspaper is extremely slow to adapt to change, with the Muirfield story being a great example of their apprehensions, as in the middle of the story the article includes more facts on male-only clubs. This extremely traditional out view is a common trait associated with the right-wing parties, especially the Conservative party. Additionally, the focus on large corporations like Channel 4 further establishes their conservative position, which is for large companies and not against them like the left-wing parties believe. 

Industries

1) Who owns the Times?
The Times is owned by a conglomerate called News Corporation, in particular by a subsidiary called News UK. A majority of News Corporation is owned by Rupert Murdoch.

2) What is The Times's circulation in 2018? How many papers did the Times use to sell back in the 1990s?
In the 1990s the Times circulated averagely over 800,000 papers, however, this number has almost halved in recent years coming down to just over 400,000.

3) How has the Times reacted to the decline in print sales and the growth of the internet?
The Times employed a social media marketing strategy to regain traction for their news, as well as creating an online newspaper for consumers to read, should they sign up to the subscription service to read articles. If they don't have a subscription service, the Times uses a paywall to ensure that readers must pay to read multiple articles.

4) Using Galtung and Ruge's News Values theory, choose three factors that make a news story more likely to be placed on the front page of the newspaper.
The three most significant factors that would likely create a front cover, headline story is a story that has: Immediacy, it should've happened recently to ensure it is relevant; Negativity, it should be dangerous and frightening to draw in more readers; Amplitude, it should be a significant, shocking event.

5) Why have newspapers seen such a steep decline in sales over the last 20 years?
Newspapers have seen a considerable decline in recent years due to the latest developments in technology, and the impact this has had on how the majority of people consume media. With a majority of people now consuming their news and information digitally, globally, the relevancy of print newspapers has declined, instead, creating space for more independent and niche groups of journalists, mainly citizen journalists, to produce and advertise their own stories. This means that with a broader range of options, and a lesser demand to consume newspaper through physical papers, the press has begun to see a decline in the readership.

Written By Aishwarya Odedra