BORROWED IDENTITIES - BUT WHOSE?

The front pages of today's [ 30th April 2015] Sun and Scottish Sun make an interesting study in media identities, media institutions and audience.

Ideology and institutions - both newspapers today announced their support for a particular political party in the national Westminster elections due on the 7th May. It is of no real surprise that the Sun [circulation England] announced backing for the Conservative Party [aka the Tory party] whilst the The Scottish Sun [circulation Scotland] declared for the SNP [Scottish Nationalist Party whose aim is an independent Scotish Parliamnet ruling an independent Scotland]. What might be of some surprise is that the Sun announces one of the three key reasons for supporting the Tories being to 'stop the SNP running the country' - the idea that a minority Labour Party might seek to form a government by making a deal with the SNP to form a coalition government and, in doing so, be at the mercy of Scottish demands harmful to English voters. At the same time its 'sister' paper in Scotland was urging its readers to vote SNP.

Borrowed interest / inter-textuality - the design of the front pages are both examples of the application of borrowed interest. The referencing by one product of another in order to create some deeper understandings with audiences.

The Sun takes the idea of new baby cards - it's a boy! / it's a girl! - references and the image of the swaddled new-born baby with Cameron's head on it. They also borrow interest from the story around the anticipated birth of the second royal baby for Kate and William.

The Scottish Sun opts for Star Wars in its depiction of Nicola Sturgeon [the SNP leader]. the caption of STUR WARS is a play on the title of the mega successful film franchise as well as utilising the iconic font. The tag line of 'May the 7th be With you' also borrows heavily from the tag of the film - may the force be with you. Sturgeon is dressed as Princess Leia wielding a light-sabre.

We might also consider why these images are used - apart from being eye-catching. The royal birth might be selected because it is contemporary, the star wars reference, however, is not. However, both have deeper implicit meanings for their intended audience. The Sun is about birth, new starts, beginnings and hope. The Scottish Sun is about heroes [pure and dressed in white], noble champions who fight against oppressive forces of Empire. Such implicit messages resonate at a very deep psychological level with their intended audiences and demonstrate Hall's encoding/decoding model in action in terms of the intention of the institution.

Talking of institutions - how can a newspaper represent two differing ideologies for its audiences? Both are part of the News International Group and thus are owned by Rupert Murdoch but both claim to have separate identities and independence of editorial decision making.








http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/29/the-sun-backs-the-tories-for-election-but-scottish-edition-backs-the-snp