blogg #4

To what extent do the best selling UK newspapers cover stories related to serious issues? To what extent would you think that it is their role to do so? In your opinion do the tabloid media and 'low budget entertainment' (reality shows, soaps) have too much power and influence in this country?

The tabloid media in this country sell papers because they relate to the lowest common denominator, thus appealing to more people in this country than the broadsheet papers (the guardian, times etc...) and so get their message across and what they want everyone to think to greater effect. The fact that the sun only costs about 25p probably helps this fact, but even though the sun and daily star are viewed so poorly by the upper-middle class and upper-class, this still doesn’t do anything to diminish its popularity. The sun is the biggest selling news paper in Britain and as much as it is a bother to admit it but the stats speak for themselves; the sun had recently started backing the conservative party, the first time they haven’t been labour since John major was in power, the sun has always backed the eventual winners of the following years elections, this is probably why they are so powerful. It is no real surprise that there is only one broadsheet in the top 6 selling newspapers, broadsheets carry a certain stigma about them, people who read papers such as the independent of the times are seen as snobby or posh, this shouldn’t be the case, although people who read the broadsheets tend to be upper-class who look down on people who sit and read the sun. It all comes down to the fact that in this country there is still a big (not quite as big as once was, but still there) class divide.

Looking at the list of television programs, I’m not really surprised at what I see, the top show being the X factor; it is more surprising to see that there is no Eastenders on the table rather than no programs like, newsnight or question time. The reason, this country likes to pretend that we are trying to be sustainable and ‘green’, but what actually happens is that people go about their days trying to look sustainable and then when they get home, rather than watching a program about the world or how to keep your carbon footprint down, they would rather see someone’s life in the eastend of London fall apart, or see who’s being voted off of their favourite reality program. I can’t sit here and pretend that I don’t do this; I do, like everyone else. Although, I do watch newsnight and question time, this is to further my own knowledge of politics and what’s happened in the world, both locally and internationally.

In a country where we are always complaining that we are not informed well enough, we don’t seem to (statistically, I can understand that there are many people who don’t conform to the tables in the bloggprompt) do enough ourselves, granted it is the governments prerogative to keep us informed to a level that we are satisfied, but we have to do a bit of work too, we can’t just sit down and expect to be feed all this information that we want, not always need, to know. The power that the red-tops and the ‘trash TV’ seems to hold is massive, however, as long as there are people reading other papers and watching newsnight, we will still be able to seek out and find information for ourselves.