Pros and Cons of one company owning lots of newspaper outlets.
Pros
The company can get more money as they are reaching more than one group of people
The company will be able to reach more people as they own various different media outlets with different target audiences
The company has a bigger influence on the world with all these media outlets
Cons
There won’t be much competition if these companies get any bigger
There won’t be a much of a variety of news being presented as they will all be promoting a certain cause e.g. Brexit – Say News Corp want Britian to Leave the EU, all media outlets owned by them will try to convince people to vote Leave.
They can influence lots of people so there won’t be much argument or debate on things.
M1: Comparing the articles of the same story but from two different providers
Both articles are presented in roughly the same way. They both have big bold headlines at the top with fairly large photos underneath them and little captions under them explaining a bit more on the story. Both also have photos in the article with captions to help explain the story but also to keep the readers attention. However the BBC News article has more words and sub headings throughout the article as well as bigger paragraphs than The Mirror article which has much less words and no sub headings. The BBC News article also seems to go into more detail on the story than The Mirror article which explains the word gap. I believe that The Mirror is trying to make the reader believe that Scotland leaving the UK and becoming an independent country is bad. Throughout the article, especially near the end, the article focusses on what Theresa May says about a united UK being an "unstoppable force" and that "there is no limit to what we can do". The article doesn't really focus much on what the Scottish Parliament have said and there is only brief sentences on what they have done or will do. I believe the BBC are trying to let the reader make up their own mind instead of pushing them to one side or another. There are fairly big paragraphs stating what is happening with Theresa May and the British Government and the Scottish Parliament. They have a good amount of quotes from Theresa May but there are also some quotes from people from the Scottish Parliament like Scotland's Brexit Minister Michael Russell who said there had as been "no discussion" with the Scottish government over what will be in the letter triggering departure from the EU. The Mirror seems to be bias towards Scotland not leaving the UK due to there not really being much said about the Scottish Parliament and what they intend to do and the article is mainly focused on Theresa May and what she will do and it shows what she wants and that's for Scotland to stay with the UK during Brexit. The BBC doesn't seem biased at all. There are near equal quotes and statements from both parties and there doesn't seem to be anything to try and sway the readers views.
Explain the media platforms used for news distribution
In the We Media article, there does seem to be a bias towards Donald Trump visiting Mexico being a bad thing because there are many angry tweets from Mexicans expressing how Trump is not welcome in their country and that the Mexican President shouldn't have invited him. There were also tweet criticising their leader, President Enrique Peña for not "putting his feet into the fire" referring to the President not forcing Trump to apologise for they way he talks about Mexicans. There is one tweet looking at things from a different perspective but that is surrounded and almost hidden by the angry tweets. The We Media article only includes angry tweets (with the exception of the one I just mentioned) and no tweets looking at the positives of the meeting. The BBC article doesn't seem to be biased at all. It has equal points and simply tells the story. It doesn't have too many words compared to the We Media article but it's intention to inform the public of what is happening is clear. The Sky News article does seem a little biased. One phrase to show this could be "allowing Trump to take over" as the phrase is seen as aggressive but more importantly the phrase could be used if one person is dominant over another and they take over so you could kind of see a bias towards Donald Trump. In terms of media used to present the story, all of the news outlets have pictures with captions to keep the readers interest but only the We Media news outlet has public Tweets in the article and only Sky News has a video in their article. The video has audio and it briefly explains what is in the article. I think this is a good idea as it allows people to know what the article is about before reading it and it keeps people who may not be into reading interested in the subject of the article and they may want to read it. There was some aspects of the story that wasn't included in some of the articles. The part where Donald Trump is compared to Adolf Hitler is not included in the We Media article but is in both the BBC News and Sky News articles however how and when Donald Trump arrived in Mexico is not included in the BBC News article or the Sky News article but it is included in the We Media article stating that Trump entered Mexico on his private jet at Mexico City International Airport at about 1:30pm on August 31st 2016. Both the BBC News article and the We Media article included the resignation of Luis Videgaray after the meeting but this was not included in the Sky News article. I think the target audience for the We Media article is young adult because there isn't too much in the paragraphs and most of the article is made up of tweets from Mexicans reacting to Trump visiting their country so to not strain their attention. The tweets are short and get the message across that the Mexican people are not happy with Trump visiting their home. The BBC article seems to be aimed at a more middle aged audience as it has more paragraphs and that may put younger readers off because they may not like reading however on the flip side, the paragraphs and the article as a whole is fairly short and younger readers may feel inclined to read it despite their first looks and thoughts on the article. The Sky News article seems to be directed at a young adult audience because the paragraphs are small and there are pictures to keep the readers attention but most importantly there are social media links at the top of the article just under the first picture under the headline. This could be so that it attracts teenagers because they use lots of social media and this may encourage them to read this article or others by promoting them on social media.
Compare and contrast the benefits of using different media platforms
I will be using the Westminster Attack on 22 March 2017 for examples. BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39363933 Citizen Journalist: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/british-parliament-attack-the-victims/article/488586 People were able to quickly spread the news of the attack via social media. They were also able to discuss the events that had occurred in the comments sections of Facebook or Instagram posts. People were also able to leave their opinions in these comment sections by either writing them out or they could use emojis to express quickly how they feel. People can also talk privately with their friends over apps like Facebook Messenger where they can discuss what has happened and give their opinions on the event privately. Like wise they could comment on Facebook posts but this would be visible by anyone. This is a benefit to citizen journalists as they can make a post about a story quickly (maybe even beating mainstream media) and it can be seen by many people around the world in short amounts of time. News broadcasters have to write their articles in a way so it appeals to their target audience. They have to make the headline stand out as this is the first thing that they will read and this will determine if they read more into the article. For example BBC's Headline was "Westminster Terror Attack". The word 'Terror' immediately gets peoples attention. The word 'Attack' does the same but with the two words together can cause moral panic and people will want to know more. The whole headline tells you a synopsis of what has happened before you have read the article. It tells you that there has been a Terror Attack in Westminster. The whole aim of the headline is to get your attention and make you want to read more and find out more about what is going on. The beauty of the headline is that it tells you what is going on but it leaves you wanting to know more so they go on to read the article. The benefits of broadcasting the news live is that you can report the news almost exactly as it happens. This is good as you keep the viewers constantly informed about what is happening and it can also make viewer want to go and read the articles that have been produced so they can learn more about the situation if it wasn't all explained in the broadcast. Both the Mainstream media and Citizen Journalist websites had coverage of the victims and their identities. Both also looked at some of the injured. They also have photos of the victims and paragraphs about who they were, what they were doing, and statements from their families. The paragraphs throughout the articles are small and easy to read. There are photos to keep the readers interest and there are little captions on the photos to explain what's happening in them. Both articles list who had been injured and where they are from. Only the BBC article names the attacker as 'Khalid Masood' and the Citizen Journalist article doesn't even mention the attacker. The Citizen Journalist article also missed out one of the victims, Kurt Cochran. This maybe because his identity hadn't been released yet or he was still alive at the time of the article being written. There is some bias in the Citizen Journalist article. It labels PC Keith Palmer 'Hero Police Officer' showing their views on the police officer. They also want to make you feel sympathetic towards the victims as it labels another as 'Mother picking up children'. The BBC article also tries to make you feel sympathetic by mentioning that PC Palmer has a 5 year old daughter when it talks about him joining Parliament Security. Both articles make you want to believe that this is a horrific event (which it is) by using words and phrases like: 'murderous route', terror attack and 'mowed down pedestrians'. This can cause moral panic and cause fear in people as they may think that this could happen to them. It could also make people angry as they may take the attack to heart and want to have revenge on the people behind the attack.