THE OBSERVER QUESTIONS

Q.5 Analyse the representation of gender on the front cover of The Observer. Give two examples from the extract. [5 marks]

Firstly, the majority of the articles and stories on The Observers cover are about men. For example, the majority of the people in the photograph are men, the headline is about the prime minister (a man) and in the skyline there is an article about 'me and my dad, Clive James' both men. Also, all of the writers on the cover are men. For example, Toby Helm wrote the article on Boris Johnson and Jamie Doward wrote the article about the police.

Q.9 In this question you will be rewarded for drawing together elements from your full course of study, including the theoretical framework and media contexts.

How far does the media language on the front cover of The Observer. reflect genre conventions? [15 marks] I have explained terms a bit to guide you!

In your answer, you should:

• analyse the media language, using specific examples 
• make judgements and draw conclusions about how far the media language reflects generic conventions (= looks like a quality broadsheet front cover) or other areas of the theoretical framework (= meets audience needs) and media contexts (= looks like a typical Observer production, bearing in mind its target audience and its ethos).

PLAN

TABLOID

soft news

size

BROADSHEET

hard news

writing

This edition of The Observer reflect genre conventions as The Observer is a tabloid, however it only recently became a tabloid in 2018 and for over 200 years before that, it was a broadsheet. This means that The Observer of conventional tabloid features as well as conventional broadsheet features.

Firstly, The Observer contains conventional tabloid features as it has soft news on the cover which is typical for tabloids. It has a skyline above the title which contains soft news such as cooking techniques and recipes as well as family stories and often has sports and celebrity news as well. The skyline is filled with colour and pictures which is a contrast to the hard news below it and the skyline is a place where people can take a break from all the political and economic news below it. Also, The Observer is quite small for a newspaper and is the size of a typical tabloid. This is a conventional tabloid feature as The Observer used to be a broadsheet which is twice the size.

The Observer also has conventional broadsheet features as, firstly, it mostly contains hard news articles about current problems in the world. This is a conventional broadsheet feature as most broadsheet newspapers are filled with hard news and very little soft news. In this edition of The Observer, the headline is about Boris Johnson and his methods of dealing with COVID 19 and the photograph is about the police and how an officer died on duty. Also, a lot of the hard news has very little colour or photos which is the same for broadsheets as they contain lots of writing and very little colour. If you look at a newspaper from the 60s then you will see that the entire front cover is practically filled up with writing with a few black and white pictures on the page.

In conclusion, The Observer contains both tabloid and broadsheet conventions however I believe it is more of a broadsheet than a tabloid as it primarily about hard news than soft news. It still has some soft news and tabloid features but The Observer is more of a broadsheet newspaper - even though it is actually a tabloid.