Newspaper Key Terminology

Conglomerate- A large business corporation that is comprised of a range of different parts or smaller businesses
Horizontal integration- When a media company owns different businesses in the same chain of production and distribution.
Convergence- Where one form of media product "cross sells" another form of media product to their mutual advantage of increasing sales/audiences.
Plurality- Where there are a diversity of viewpoints available and consumed across and within the media industries and prevents any one media owner or voice having too much influence over public and political opinion.
Monopoly- When a sector of media industry such as newspapers is dominated by one or a small number of large organisations.
Merger- Where two or more companies, usually of similar size, combine to form a larger single company.
Takeover- Where a larger company buys a smaller company.
Distribution- The process of how the media product gets to its audience after production.
Synergy- The combination of different areas of the media coming together to maximise profit.
Vertical integration-
Consolidation- basically monopoly

. Trinity Mirror plc is the largest British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher after purchasing rival Local World for £220 million, in October 2015. It is Britain's biggest newspaper group, publishing 240 regional papers as well as the national Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People, and the Scottish Sunday Mail and Daily Record. Since purchasing Local World, it has gained 83 print publications.

Monopoly, horizontal integration, merger, takeover, consolidation

News UK is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp, owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and The Sun on Sunday newspapers as well as the Times Literary Supplement and Times Educational Supplement. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc.

Monopoly, horizontal integration, consolidation, conglomerate

Trinity Mirror, the UK’s largest local newspaper group and publisher of the Daily Mirror, is eyeing further consolidation, as the industry races to tackle the long-term decline of print publishing. “We see ourselves as a consolidator in the newspaper industry and will continue to do so subject to tight financial returns,” said chief executive Simon Fox, as the group reported like-for-like print advertising revenues fell 18 per cent in 2016. Trinity is in early stage talks with Northern & Shell, the parent company of the Express newspaper titles and OK Magazine, which could lead to it taking a stake in some of the Richard Desmond-owned assets. The move is part of a wider shake-up in the UK newspaper industry, as media owners face steep drops in print advertising combined with the existential threat from digital groups like Google and Facebook, who are taking the vast majority of new digital advertising revenues.

consolidation, merger, monopoly

Ownership effects media products as the more media products owned by one person or company, the less variety of viewpoints are accessible to the public. Multiple pieces of media with the same ownership are going to present the same political bias and if the audience is surrounded solely by products owned by the same company, their viewpoints will likely reflect that political bias. For example, Rupert Murdoch is involved in the ownership of The Sun, The Times, Sky, and Fox News. Ownership will effect things such as political bias, how certain news stories are presented and what audiences are told and not told. In the case of Sky, if Rupert Murdoch were revealed to be involved in some sort of crime or conspiracy, Sky's coverage of it would have a very different tone to a news outlet with no connection to Rupert Murdoch.

Newspapers have been one of the worst effected mediums by technological advances. Many people nowadays get their information from social media and other online sources. Paying for a newspaper seems arbitrary when you can find the same information online for free. Many newspaper outlets also release their information online, but this can lose them money. In the case of The Times website, their way of keeping a profit is to require people to pay a subscription fee in order to have access to the news stories.

With different political biases come different types of audiences. Depending on the newspapers leanings, the audience will come to expect certain things. For example, The Sun's audience would expect it to be more opposed to the Labour Party and less accepting of diversity, whereas a left leaning newspapers audience may be appalled to read the same content. Also, The Sun, like 95% of tabloids, is heavily anti-Labour. If The Sun audience were to read an article praising and hailing the Labour party, it would go completely against the image they have made for themselves and would almost definitely lead to complaints. This ties into Halls theory of representation, where stereotyping is used to assert power over communities. In the case of The Sun, it relies on heavy stereotyping of racial minorities and LGBTQ people in order to keep them something the audience should fear and hate. Often times, newspapers will play into the audience's prejudices and fears and feed into them. This is not unique solely to The Sun or just right-wing newspapers. All sides of the political leanings will rely on some level of audience fear and bias.