The Media in English Language: Journalistic Style

67. THE MEDIA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE. JOURNALISTIC STYLE. THE PRESS. QUALITY PAPERS. AND POPULAR PAPERS. 1. INTRODUCTION [to do] 2. THE MEDIA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE The term "mass media" is used to refer to the different types of public communication in abroad sense, it can be defined as the sendi...

67. THE MEDIA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE. JOURNALISTIC STYLE. THE PRESS. QUALITY PAPERS. AND POPULAR PAPERS. 1. INTRODUCTION [to do] 2. THE MEDIA IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE The term "mass media" is used to refer to the different types of public communication in abroad sense, it can be defined as the sending of messages to a multitude of receivers. Mass media function both as entertainment and as a source of communication. Apart from these, there are two other functions: they serve the economic system and they influence people. They serve the economic system by means of advertising: adverts only focus on the positive aspects of the product and relate them to highly estimated social values. They influence people by offering a partial or incomplete view of reality. This is usually done by selecting the source of information and omitting criticism to selected information. Currently the media include the printed press, radio, television, news media websites, sites that include online versions of printed newspapers, social networks as X (former Twitter) or Facebook and opinion makers (which can include vloggers, influencers, TV hosts etc.) For example, X is an important network for politicians and journalists. It is increasingly common for comments on X to be incorporated into news coverage as a legitimate source. An increasing number of politicians and other public figures have been criticised, and in some cases forced to resign, due to comments made on social media. 3. JOURNALISM 3.1. The Press in the United States. Quality and popular papers. Because of the size of the country most newspapers are local or metropolitan. There are three major national newspapers: USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and the national edition of The New York Times. Examples of the most popular local or metropolitan newspapers are Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and the two New York tabloids, the Post and Daily News. Many newspapers are part of chains that own several newspapers, and there is a general trend toward consolidation of ownership. The largest chain is Gannett, the publisher of USA Today, which owns more than 100 daily newspapers. Traditionally, newspapers depended on advertising and since advertising has greatly shifted online, some papers have been lacking financial support. Billionaires have bought some newspapers, for example the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has bought The Washington Post, just to mention an example and this fact may threaten the unpartisanship of the press. News magazines were at one time a central element of the US media landscape but have declined considerably. However, the top news magazines do still have a significant role in public discussion. Examples of news magazines are Newsweek, Harper's Magazine, Forbes, Time and there are also many popular magazines such as People, Vogue, Cosmopolitan, National Geographic. The First amendment to the Constitution forbids any law abridging the freedom of the press except on some conditions: laws of libel, prosecution of obscenity, right to privacy, licensing of broadcast stations and postal regulation on personal address. However, journalists increasingly face pressures including more precarious jobs, greater pressure to generate audience engagement and revenue, political polarisation and decreased public trust. Surveys have shown that, while 60 percent of journalists in the 19705-1980s said they had "almost complete freedom" in selecting stories, by 2013 only 34 percent reported such freedom. The boundaries of the profession are also increasingly blurred by the proliferation of communicators with a wide range of values and goals, including partisan commentators, citizen journalists, various new infotainment platforms, etc. According to Patrick Lee Plaisance, 2016, potential harm posed by news accounts, the use of deceptive tactics to secure stories, and the increasing prevalence of infotainment content are all examples of journalism ethics issues. 3.2. The Press in the United Kingdom. Quality and popular papers. The UK media has a long tradition for newspaper readership. However the circulation of the printed national press has been steadily falling due to readers moving to digitally available news. Many organisations have embraced the Internet to make their content available online via dedicated sites or apps for mobile devices. The online readerships of some newspapers now greatly surpass printed circulation. The main characteristic of newspapers in UK has always been their open partisanship. However, recent changes of ownership have often led to changes in party endorsement. In the UK you can find 11 national daily newspapers, and 10 Sunday sister titles. Seven of these titles publish special editions for Scotland, and these compete with three Scottish dailies. National newspapers are typically divided into three sectors which relate to their physical size, as well as the quantity of news, values and quality of content: broadsheet (also known as quality), mid-market, and tabloid. Examples of these are: broadsheets as The Independent, the Times or the Guardian mid- market newspapers as The Daily Mail or The Daily Express tabloids as The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Star. Until the early 2000's all broadsheets were printed in a large format hence the name broadsheet. The Independent was the first to break with tradition and reduced the size of the paper to a more manageable 'compact' format. It was closely followed by the Times in 2003. the Guardian changed to tabloid format in 2018. The UK's newspaper readership continues to be stratified by class. Readerships of quality newspapers are predominantly middleclass. Readerships of mid-market papers are more evenly split with relatively equal proportions of readers from each socio-economic background. Tabloids are read predominantly by the working class. A recent survey established that tabloids account for 48 percent of newspapers read, mid-market tabloids 33 percent, and broadsheets 19 percent. The UK national newspaper market is highly concentrated. Five companies account for 80 percent of all consumption, online and offline. Examples of these are the Daily Mail Group, which accounts for nearly 60 percent of national newspaper circulation including their digital paper Mail Online and News Corp UK and Ireland Ltd, which includes The Sun, The Sun on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Times. The majority of online newspapers are free to access although some newspapers are experimenting with a range of different payment models since the sales of their printed versions are falling. The Times for example has no content available for free. The Independent, which ceased to be available in print format, offers limited content for free with additional content available to subscribers. The Guardian offers readers who subscribe as 'supporters' or 'members access to a range of additional content including podcasts and expert discussions. 4. JOURNALISTIC STYLE There is a great number of conventions in English journalistic writing. Some of the characteristics that define news writing are determined by factors, such as the type of story, structure, objectivity or reliance on official sources. In addition, we have to contemplate the differences between writing for the print and writing for broadcast. 4.1. Writing for print 4.1.1. The news story News is the basic material for the media. News story writing demands simple prose, complete understanding of the subject, conciseness and precision in the use of language. There is a traditional formula to summarize what every news story should contain: the answers to 5 WS and 1H: who, what, when, where, why, how. Of the millions of events that take place every day, only some will receive the treatment onews item, according to: > Impact. Events which affect people's lives. > Timeliness. Recent events. > Prominence. Celebrities always make news. > Proximity. Home stories are more interesting as a rule than foreign affairs. > Conflict. Arguments and fights make news. > The bizarre or unusual. > Currency. Events related to issues being discussed by the public. As regards the structure of the news story, it must guarantee the reader to move through the story easily. Some of the most widely used structures are:  Inverted pyramid. It concentrates the most interesting and important information at the top of the story so that the reader can get the essential facts and then go on to another story. Headlines and leads should describe what the story contains as concisely and interestingly as possible. The body should provide more evidence and illuminating details.  Spiral. The writer takes each element of the lead and goes into progressively greater detail. Each expansion includes references to the level above, in order to provide smooth transitions.  Block. Very similar to spiral, except that paragraphs are independent, with no reference to any except the lead.  See-saw or pro-con. Conflicting arguments are presented when dealing with a controversial story.  Chronological. The story of the event is presented in chronological order. There are some conventions in story writing:  The headline and the lead are the most important parts of the story. They must interest the reader. Leads on news stories generally contain the answer to most WS and H, and essentially the target is to attract the reader's attention.  Short paragraphs. It is not compulsory to fully develop each idea within a paragraph.  Attribution and quotations. Direct quotations bring life to a story, but they are used with discretion and always attributed to the speaker. Paraphrasing is often used to speed up the story and convey the information more concisely.  Avoidance of 1st and 2nd person pronouns except in the lead. 4.1.2. Feature story The difference with news story is on emphasis. Feature stories go beyond facts by trying to discover the interesting sides of an event. They also humanize the news, as most of them centre around people and their activities or interests. They can adopt different structures:  Anecdotal: an anecdote is used for the introduction of a relevant topic.  Suspended interest: ambiguous paragraphs lead to an unexpected end.  Question and answer. An interview shows the personage in an unfiltered way. The characteristics of feature stories are: the style is more relaxed, there is a greater amount of detail, there are descriptions of actions, people and places, and also more quotes and even dialogues with dialectal features to illustrate the descriptions of people. A feature story is divided into different parts:  The lead may be longer than in the news story but it must gain the reader's attention from the beginning and keep it to the end.  The body expands the subject introduced in the lead and answers every question.  The ending makes a conclusive point about the story. 4.1.3. Journalistic style As regards language and style, there are some conventions to follow in headlines and article, both in the news and feature story written for the print: HEADLINES A headline must prepare the reader for the article content, it must be to the point, short,and appeal to the attitudes and interests of the intended reader: a) Economy devices:  Choice of special vocabulary, common words which are economic or descriptive, e.g., "toll"= number of people dead.  Use of simplified grammar: omission of articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions... Nouns are loaded with pre-modifiers. Present Tense is dominant, giving a sense of immediacy. Abbreviations and shortenings are often used. b) Anticipation: headlines should prepare the reader about what to expect in the article, whether it anticipates content, style or attitude. c) Appealing to the reader: playing with meaning or with sounds. E.g., headline "weight for it"(weight and wait as homophones) news: a man has to wait before he can get the winnings from a bet on his weight. E.g., headline "charity chop" (alliteration ch ch) Ø news: karate exhibitions for charity, a chop is a karate blow. ARTICLES An article must meet the expectations raised by the headline. a. They can appeal to the reader through  style: the register may be neutral (fire), descriptive (blaze) or emotional(inferno); it can also be formal/technical (became interested in, vaccination) or conversational (took a fancy to, gotta)  thematization, that is the arrangement of the content according to choice of focus or choice of facts  use of humour and irony achieved through language that is not appropriate to the situation or making the reader build up false expectations  use of literary devices: metaphors, hyperbolic language and other figurativelanguage to create special effects. b. Clarity is essential in articles. An article must show both coherence and cohesion by clear links that interweave the ideas in the text: reference words, linking words, juxtaposition of ideas, capital letters, bold type... c. Economy. In news stories, where the focus is on giving the most facts in a short space, economy may be more important than in feature stories. 4.2. Writing for broadcast. Most of the conventions for writing for print apply here. The difference is the way eventsare viewed, because of the time limitations of the broadcast media.  Selections of news a. timeliness: recent events are really important. b. information, not explanation: there is no time for details, only to give a few facts. c. audio or visual impact: news is often chosen because sound or pictures are available  Characteristics of writing a. broadcast journalism must have 4Cs: correctness, clarity, conciseness, colour. b. there is emphasis on the immediate. c. conversational style, without breaking rules of grammar or using slang d. tight phrasing, avoiding adjectives, passives…  Story structure. The dramatic unity is used, it consists of climax, cause and effect. The climax introduces the main facts, the cause explains the surrounding circumstances, the effect gives the listener the context and some insight about possible implications and future events. 4.3. Writing in the web. Because the web is a word medium, for many users it has become an information source. People go to web sites to find things out. Many sites are dependent on the quality - not the amount - of information they provide for their users. Consequently, information must be good --it must be well written and accurate, complete, efficient and precise. Key terms and concepts a) Immediacy -. When a news event occurs, most people turn to broadcasting, but increasingly they are also turning to the web for immediate information. This information is of a different nature, however. Information on the Web has to be written, not spoken. Consequently, it is more likely to have gone through an editing process than live broadcasting. b) Permanency - The web has a permanency that broadcasting does not have. In broadcasting, once the words are spoken and pictures shown, they cannot be easily recalled by the viewer. When words or pictures are put onto a web site, they are there for as long as the server exists. c) Capacity - The web is not limited by time, as broadcasting is, and it is not limited by space, as print. d) Flexibility - By flexibility, we are referring to the web's ability to use almost any current form available for presenting information, such as words, pictures, graphics, video, and audio. e) Interactivity -Developers of web sites have established a variety of ways that individuals can interact, such as designing their own versions of a web site, chat rooms, polls, immediate responses to information, etc. 5. CONCLUSION (In the works) BIBLIOGRAPHY Hewitt. Karen and Feklin, M. Understanding British Institutions. London: Perspective,1998 Oblekevich, James and Catterall, Peter. Understanding Post-war British Society. London: Routledge,1994