Question 2

Explain the political significance of the concept of 'press freedom' and its relationship to representative democracy. Why do you think freedom of the press is important? How much influence top you think the government should have about the things reported in the UK press?

Press freedom is significant as it gives media institutions the ability to produce stories in any political alignment that they want and also publish any stories they feel are in the public interest. This is important as it means the public can receive news stories that they need to hear, even if they damage the people's reputations. It allows all news to be given to the public so that we have all the information we might need about politics and economics as well as some celebrity stories in tabloids. Without press freedom we would live in a country with state censorship where the government controls what news we receive. This means that they could, if they wanted, only allow stories in their favour to be published. This links to representative democracy as we can see different political ideas that may not favour the government, if we had state censorship we would only see news in favour of them. The government should have no control over what is reported in UK press as we have a right to know what is going on in our country and the world.

Explain how the political context in which newspapers are produced, influences their ownership and regulation. Refer to The Guardian and The Daily Mail newspapers you have studied. (10 marks).
2. How are newspapers regulated and why do you think this is necessary?
The Government has a say of what media can be produced and media outlets have to follow a set of rules to pass through regulation. This is necessary because some media outlets might punish things that could offend a group/individual or could scare the nation into believing a particular belief or ideology. An academic idea that supports this idea is the Livingstone and Lunt Theory.

3. What examples of editorialised content would not fit 'impartial' television news (e.g. social or political opinion) from The Guardian and The Daily Mail print or online editions.

An example of editorialised content that wouldn't fit impartial news would be the Paradise Papers Story due to the contrasting headlines which clearly show their political affiliations. The Daily Mail shows their right wing ideology proposing that the Queen had been 'dragged' into the off-shore tax audiences, claiming her innocence. Whereas the Guardian used negative language such as 'controversial' and 'exploiting' connoting that the Queen was fully aware, this therefore shows their left wing ideology.

4.What examples of ownership models, e.g. The Guardian’s trust ownership and The Daily Mail’s proprietor model, could show the opportunities offered by the latter model for control by ‘press barons’.

Ownership models like the Daily mail’s proprietor model offer a prime example of how media can be controlled to influence public political views. Press barons like Rupert Murdoch, who controls most UK tabloids, can be seen to share his political opinions in each of his newspapers; this allows for an unfair opinion to be shared with the UK. 


5. How much power does the press have to shape political debate, e.g. the influence of proprietors on politicians to support policies promoting cross-media ownership or holding back from regulation.

The press can develop power through ownership of newspapers which consequently can shape political stances due to their ideologues and therefore political debate through the widespread circulation which has the power to influence politicians in their debates. The owners of newspapers can influence the editorial stance of a newspaper. Newspapers will also attempt to influence how the public vote in elections. It is important that newspapers stick to a code of conduct or rules set out by independent organisations in order to avoid this. If one large business or one singular man owns a company their ideologies can filter down into the papers. This relates to Hesmondhalgh's theory on cultural industries as DMGT (owner of the Daily Mail) also owns multiple other companies as shown above. This therefore shows the integration and conglomeration of cultural industries which follows the normal capitalist patterns seen in Hesmondhalgh's theory.