The Sun Newspaper

The Sun is a British tabloid daily newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. It was originally published six days a week until News Corp. also started producing The Sun on Sunday in February 2012 to replace the News of the World. With an average daily circulation of roughly 1.6 million copies of their print edition in the UK and a daily readership of around 4.1 million

The Sun on Sunday is the UK’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper. 

The Sun has always been considered controversial in terms of its output, partly due to its over-reliance on sensational news and partly due to complete fabrication for the sake of a story (“Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster”, 1986). It has also maintained an ‘antielitist’ agenda where it regularly exposes the sex or drug scandals of celebrities or authority figures. 

The sun is aimed at working-class, British males, with a low reading age, with most right-wing political views.

This is why the text is larger and there are less text and larger images

the average reading age of the UK population is 9 years old. The Sun has a reading age of 8 years. Using words in bold, lots of visuals and smaller chunks of text means they are purposefully making their product accessible to everyone and especially appealing to members of our society who have weaker literacy skills.

  

The Sun is unashamedly right-wing, and part of its brand is to support a nationalist ideology especially in sporting events and stories about the royal family, but also extending into politics

Newspapers are not just reporting facts, they are choosing media language specifically to communicate their own ideas about storied and can create a bias opinion.

Left and Right wing:


Left wing - Left-wing politics supports social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. ... The term left-wing can also refer to "the radical, reforming, or socialist section of a political party or system".


Right wing - Someone who is right-wing in politics is usually someone who supports social or economic conservatism. In other words, someone who is "right-wing" usually supports tradition and the way things are

Who owns The Sun?
News Group Newspapers and Rupert Murdoch own The Sun newspaper

Who reads The Sun?
Mostly C2DE demographics such as the working class. It is mostly British males with a low reading age, 54% male and 46% females.

What types of stories does The Sun cover?
The Sun covers many stories however they are a right wing politic paper meaning they will have a biased opinion when selling stories such as immigration or Brexit. They cover sports, entertainment such as TV and showbiz, lifestyle and overall breaking news such as current events in the world like the Royal Family.

Why do newspapers have online websites?
News is seen as more 'breaking' and more instant as they are live feeds and therefore can compete with broadcast news/TV. Websites can also be constantly updated during the day rather than being limited by printed editions and waiting for news. They can generate revenue through advertising on the website. It may decrease costs of distributions internationally. Video and AV can be embedded with stories for more detail, the website can increase viewers and overall readerships to reach new audiences and is more accessible. It can also appeal to 24-34 year olds who are more likely to access news online. It reinforces brand identity

Why did the sun stop charging a fee for web access?
They wanted to expand their audience and compete with rivalling free advertising news websites to increase their audience and they can gain money through advertising instead of charging to access the websites. They realised that content can be accessed through the internet either way.

Tabloid vs Broadsheets
The Sun is considered a tabloid as there is a lower percentage of text vs the image ratio and have large headlines and images whereas a broadsheet has a higher percentage of text vs image ratio.

Broadsheets:
- Less reliance on the visual image
- Text larger but not oversized 
- Headlines tend to be informative rather than emotive
- More formal, factual and informative
- Bigger size
- Denser paragraphs, more formal standard English
- Higher cover price and lower circulation

Tabloids:
- Image Led, Image is dominant on the page
- Large headlines with capitalised fonts
- Sensational, exaggerated ,emotive, language
- World news but also entertainment and celebrity focus
- Easy to understand
- More compact
- Lower cover price
- High circulation 


What are gate keepers?
A person or someone who controls access to something

What are news values?
Frequency - Long term event, reported on regularly
Elite persons - A story covering an important, powerful person
Continuity - An ongoing story
The unexpected - An event that's out of the ordinary
Size and Scale - The bigger the event the more likely it is to be reported on
Ordinary people - Human interest
Elite Nations - A story covering an important, powerful nation
Uniqueness - An event that rarely occurs
Demand - An event we want to happen
Predictability - An event that was expected to happen- anticipation
Closeness to home - Relevance to Britain
Negative stories - bad news

What are the key differences between a newspaper and digital news?
Readers: Older people might still prefer the printed version better than the online version, while the younger generation prefers the online editions.  But, if you like news, you would not mind that much where you read it.  The facts that are written will still be the same.

Portability: Printed newspaper editions can be carried everywhere.  Online editions can be a bit more difficult.  You need to carry your laptop or phone or other electronic devices with you and you also need an internet connection.

Space: Newspaper print editions do have limitations on space, online versions not so much.  But even if the online editions have more room, people will still only read until something more interesting pops up  Print editions needs to fit the information in a certain allotted space.  Online editions might want to keep it short to keep the attention of the reader.

Sourcing: With print editions, the sourcing requirements are very strict.  You may not print anything that has not been verified.  Online you can hyperlink to the source-material which will verify your facts.  Accountability is much stricter for printed sourcing than for the online news site’s sourcing.

Interaction: You cannot have an immediate response from your readers with print editions.  They do take part in opinion polls and give comments, but it will only be published at a later stage.  Online News Sites you can take part in opinion polls, write comments, etc. immediately.  You do not have to wait for a result because feedback is immediate.

  
Some people may think it is easier to access an online edition as they carry their phones everywhere and can get notification of new news reports or breaking news. Other people, most likely older people, like to carry the traditional newspaper and believe it is easier to use and access.

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