A Study of How Gays and Lesbians Are Represented in the British Tabloid Press - Essay Example

2.1 Functions of Media in Modern Western Societies.In modern cultures, all news media, including tabloid newspapers, have multiple functions which extend far beyond the mere provision of information and entertainment. Culture theorists have been keen to point out that news texts both reflect the culture they operate in and also influence that same culture. Communication occurs on many different levels and using a variety of signifying practices from the straightforward statement of fact, to images, symbols, and connotations which go much deeper into collective and individual sensibility: “all social practices – whether reading newspapers and magazines, visiting museums, shopping for clothes – take place within representation and are saturated with meanings and values which contribute to our sense of who we are – our culturally constructed identities.

” (Hall: 1997, p. 339) By engaging with selected cultural artifacts, people build themselves a conceptual world, and as mass media provide instant gratification for needs like entertainment and education they necessarily also convey a whole raft of other hidden messages.Society attempts to regulate the media through censorship laws that aim to reduce exposure to content deemed too extreme for a general view, and in most societies, there is an ongoing dialogue between politicians and journalists who have an interest in forming and manipulating public opinion.

In this paper, the focus is on tabloid media, where relatively low information content is the norm, in contrast with the broadsheet newspapers where more space is given for argument and debate. In both of these cases, however, there is always a certain amount of “loading” of cultural values through the very language that is used. An obvious example of this is the naming strategies that media use for particular groups and individuals. Status markers and labels such as “Sir” and job titles convey a patriarchal authority while nicknames can indicate affection, for example.