The News Industry - News Coverage Of Madeline McCann & Shannon Matthews

News Coverage of Social Class: Madeline McCann and Shannon Matthews

1. Find examples of language used in each of the pieces to describe the parents of both children. How does this language differ? What are the messages and values on social class? (10 marks)

One of the examples that the article uses to describe the Madeline case is to show when and where the abduction had occurred. The quote "Near Pria da Luz where the family had been staying in a holiday apartment when Madeline was abducted 24 days ago", you can tell from this that the McCann's are quite wealthy that they can afford to stay in an apartment abroad. The place where they are staying is a quite lavish area where tourist usually go to stay, the Algarve is actually rich with interesting buildings and beautiful countryside that mainly middle-class people can go to. From reading this the viewers can detect that the McCann’s are middle/upper class people and people who are able to rent out an apartment in Portugal. I think the message is loud and clear that since the McCann’s went on holiday and lost their child in a different place that isn’t home gains a lot more sympathy towards the audience than how Shannon Matthews was lost around her home, which could be why there was a huge difference between the two stories. 

You can see how raw the article was towards Shannon’s cases, because of the information that they shared. The information what was shared was previous history on her mother’s life where its stated that “Miss Matthews, who has seven children to five fathers” this reveals how complex and long the case was, unlike Madeline’s case, they didn’t need to do any sort of background check of her family, which then again shows the norm of a ‘nuclear family’ that was a typical ‘happy family’.

Another way you can spot a difference of language on articles, is in the McCann’s family. You can see how caring and responsible she is as a mother towards her children. You can tell this from when she says, “You just don’t expect anything like that in a million years. We triple checked. We wanted to believe she was there. We had absolutely no doubt that’s she has been taken”, this shows how concerned and affectionate her mother is towards Madeline, because she made sure to triple check, and maybe because she’s such a good mother she and her partner never expected their child to be missing like this. The quotations that are used are quite personalise which connects towards the readers and creates sympathy for her mother. This also goes back to that ‘nuclear family’ where the mother takes very good care of her children and knows them thoroughly. It displays how a middle-class family is much more involved and cares a lot about their families unlike the working class. You can see in Matthews case that her mother is apposite to this to the point where her motherhood is accused for the wrong. “one of the friends allegedly claimed that Miss Matthews had known where Shannon was throughout the 24-day search”, just this reveals how irresponsible and is a deceiver Karen is because even her own friend is able to doubt on her and claim that Karen knew where she was. Karen’s character is questioned and doubted which you hardly see happening to a middle-class person go through but because Karen has a dysfunctional family and is a working-class woman she can easily be doubted on.

2. Analyse the choice of pictures used in terms of framing, shot type and mise-en-scene. Compare their representations of the social class of the two families. (10 marks)

The daily telegraph has chosen to display an image of Madeline and Kate together. The image is a mid-shot where you can see the subjects body and what they’re doing. It could be that Kate may have taken her daughter to the park and there both on the slide together were she’s holding her hand helping her on the slide. This display her love and care towards Madeline as she’s holding on to her. This definitely shows the blissful moments that they once shared while they were together. Madeline is wearing a pink top which connotes a sense of girliness, delicacy and sweet personality just like any other girl. The way daily telegraph has chosen to exhibits this image shows how they sympathise with the whole story hence why they decided to post such a comforting image. You would expect this type of image from middle class typical childhood is often characterized by an authoritative parenting approach with a combination of parental warmth, support and control. Parents set some rules establishing limits, but overall this approach creates a greater sense of trust, security, and self-confidence. The middle-class parents' involvement in their children's lives underlines their recognition of its importance. So, when you see Madeline and Kate together you can realise the boundaries and rules they set, by letting her child enjoy and have fun at the park. 

However, if you see the images that daily telegraph has used in the Shannon Matthews article are completely different from the McCann’s. The images are close ups of Karen and Shannon where they aren’t together, and have separate images. You can see how Karen’s facial expression are quite dull and her face is tilted downwards and her eyes are facing the ground. She seems to look emotionless and nonchalant in the image. The image of Shannon seems like a portrait from her school, where you can tell from her expressions she looks quite happy just like any young girl would be. She’s also wearing pink top and a pink hair band which shows her girly personality just like any other normal girl. The individual images could reveal the real separation between them, after what Karen did to Shannon. 

People can expect a working-class mother to fake a kidnapping since working class people are more like to be financially unstable. Working-class wages can be very low which is hard to provide for a family let alone provide for seven children that Karen has. The mind-set of a working-class person is completely different from a middle-class person, a working-class person is mainly focused on trying to make ends meet and busy working most hours, hence why they don’t give much importance to their children like the middle-class people do. 

3. Hall notes that representation is “contested”, in particular the representation of those with less power in society.  He argues that news coverage can be hierarchical. To what extent is this evident from the two readings? Make reference to Hall’s theory of representation in your answer. (10 marks)

I agree with hall because news coverage is hierarchical as they prioritise and favour the rich and middle-class people more than the poor working-class people. Most news coverages about hierarchical stories are usually presented in a positive way, where newspapers display the stories in certain way which the audience has a preferred reading. And most less hierarchical stories are presented in a negative way, showing how deprived working-class people are. Those who have less power are certainly challenged much more than those who have power because they can compete against them as they don’t have security of such power. I think that those who have less power have to definitely struggle to prove them themselves as that they don’t fit in the stereotypical mould that society has created.

You can see this happening in Shannon Matthews story and Madeline McCann’s story because there are social differences between them since Madeline belongs to a middle-class family. Kate is represented as a typical caring mother who she unconditionally loves Madeline. She’s presented as a good mother who looks out for her children and is attentive towards them. However, Karen Matthews is represented as a ignorant and a negligent mother who allowed her daughter to captive and be in harm for money. She’s presented as a bad mother who did something like this to her own daughter, when she should be protecting her. And through language, expressions and signs we are able to tell how each story is being presented.

4. What is the dominant (intended) meaning of The Daily Telegraph? How is the audience supposed to feel about the two families?  Do you take a negotiated or oppositional reading and if so, how / why? Make reference to reception theory in your answer. (15 marks)

For the McCann’s story, I think that the dominant meaning could be that The Daily Telegraph wanted the audience to view the message that they wanted to in a simple form. They want the audience to agree with what they have written and presented so they can get the message across. Being able to show how powerful the McCann’s are as a middle-class family means that middle class families are able to do so much more than working class families. The audience is meant to feel really sympathetic towards the McCann’s family much more because their daughter went missing in a ‘different country’. The fact that she’s been missing in Portugal is used as a token to gain peoples sympathy because no one can imagine losing their child like this. Hence why, the audience has a preferred reading, as they can relate to the grieve that the parents are feeling. 

For the Matthew's story, I think The Daily Telegraph wanted the audience to have a preferred reading just like the story for McCann’s. So, the audience can still agree with them even though they had published a negative story about the Matthews. However, I think the audience would have had a negotiated reading mainly because some of the audience were able to understand the reasons why Karen did what she did because of her financial state but some of the audience would not understand the reasons why because they disagree with that Karen did regardless of any difficulties she was dealing with they the audience understand this story in different ways, either in a positive way or a in a negative way. It also depends whether the audience can and can’t relate with the message that’s being conveyed because the story is hard to interpret. The audience is supposed to feel frustrated with what Karen did to her own daughter, because she’s a mother who’s supposed to protect her daughter and care for her, but she allowed her to get kidnapped for money just reveals to the audience how much of a bad mother she is.  

The Daily Telegraph wants the audience to feel different emotions and intakes with different ideologies and messages from both of the families. Both stories are completely different from each other which is why they are targeting different audiences, from social class to morals and values.