A analysis of the front cover of the shropshire star, express ans star and the sun

1. Masthead: The Shropshire Star’s logo is neatly
positioned into the top left corner which is more
aesthetically pleasing to see. This is because of
how consumers read media texts, we start
reading on the left and move to the right so
physiologically the logo being on the left is
aesthetic to consumers of media text. The logo
colour scheme is white and blue with yellow as a
secondary colour.
The blue colour scheme ties with the Shropshire
County coat of arms so the newspaper consumer
will feel a familiarity with the newspaper and as a
result The Shropshire Star will be more effective at
presenting itself as the regional newspaper of
Shropshire. The ‘Shropshire’ title is in yellow to
again keep with the county’s coat of arms and is in
smaller font whilst the ‘Star’ is bold and in white
to clearly stand out from the rest of the page. The
date and the website of the newspaper is listed
below the bold white ‘Star’ and the price is on the
far right of the date in a slightly larger font. The
price is not in big bold font and does not dominate
the page in anyway which shows that the
newspaper’s price is not a unique selling point.
This indicates that the newspaper has a regular
base that purchases their paper for the stories
rather than the low price.
Pugs: The newspaper only has two advertisements around the page which again indicates the
newspaper is bought for its stories about Shropshire rather than the adverts and deals that
are placed in the paper. The biggest and more see able advert is the “So What Have The
Romans Ever Done For Us?”. This advert is also a story headline where the story describes
how a ‘Shropshire girl” is proving to be a TV hit which advertises her show but also is a story
for the paper. This suggests that the Hypodermic model is in effective and drills the
information that the show is good because it is linked to the county where the consumer lives
so he/she is highly likely to absorb the opinion of the newspaper.
The second advert is for another Shropshire story
about ‘Miss Shropshire’ and how she is rising to a
national level which again is the Hypodermic Model
in effective again. The story once more is provoking
pride for the success of a local and the county which
a consumer is highly likely to be persuaded to
believe in.
Lead Story: the lead story here is also a lure because
as the newspaper is a regional newspaper, the
‘Flood Alert’ headline will lure most consumers
because they will read the cover of the newspaper
and be attracted to read the story as the ‘Flood
Alert’ could easily effect them. The font and size of
the lead story is big, black and bold and clearly is far
easier to read than the actual text. This shows that
the lead story is larger to the text to attract the
consumer to purchase the newspaper and then the
actual text is for them to read after they have been
attracted to the paper.
Kicker: The Shropshire Star possesses a ‘kicker’
below the masthead which follows a darker colour
scheme to the Star’s colour scheme and is
separated by a black outline. The kicker is about
local sport which is a really effective way of using a
‘kicker’ because the rest of the stories are more
economical with ‘Banks cutting 1,400 UK Jobs’. It
allows the consumer to be able to easily distinguish
the different types of stories instantly.
Sidebar: There are many more sidebars on
the side of the front cover with more stories
to intrigue the consumer. The titles for the
sidebars are in bold to help them stand out
from the text and they are in larger font sizes
to ensure this. This suggests that the sidebar
headlines must be bolder and larger for them
to be noticeable to the consumer.

2. Masthead: The mast head is positioned in the
centre of the page with the strapline
underneath it. The newspaper uses the space
on the side of the masthead to display the date
and price of the paper on the right whilst on the
left the weather is displayed for morning and
afternoon of the day. The presentation is clear
to the consumer of the media text and effective
in being recognisable to a consumer as the
‘Express & Star’.
Lead Story: The lead story is in big bold font
that stands out completely from the other
text which is now apparent that this is a
common formula for a newspaper. Stuart
Hall’s reception theory would be negotiated
reading as not everyone would agree with the
stories which is why there are more stories
available on this particular paper. Compared
to The Shropshire Star, this newspaper covers
the entire west Midlands, not just a county, so
the more viewers means there would be
more negotiated readings. To keep a regular
consumer base, more stories are made
available with a greater variety.
Sidebar: For the negotiated readers of the
newspaper, there four news stories on the
right hand side for more readings about a
variety of topics and current events. There
is also a secondary story on the bottom left
which is a to attract more consumers to
page which done by having the header a
bigger font than the text so it stands out.
kicker: The kicker here is ‘glimpse of new nine-screen Odeon cinema’ which is located below the mast
head of the newspaper. Which is to help the negotiated readers of the newspaper and to target a
younger audience because cinemas are stereotypically more for younger generations than older
generations who typically purchase newspapers. The kicker here is offering more stories for younger
generations to attract a bigger consumer basis for the newspaper. This shows that the newspaper is
trying to survive the growth of the information era by drawing in a younger fan base for the paper. The
Shropshire Star did not involve such stories which shows the difference in the style of a regional and
urban newspaper.
Secondary lead: the secondary lead here is the single
image of the pope and one of the cardinals after the
papal election. The sub-title that is above it is in white
text on a black background which stands out completely
from the rest of the newspaper thus making the
secondary lead very effective in attracting consumers to
the story at hand. The image is the main feature as that
is what the consumer will see first when passing the
paper in store and the fact that the image is the only
dominant image on the front cover. Compared to The
Shropshire Star, this newspaper makes use of the
effectiveness of the secondary lead with a single
dominant image to attract the audience whilst papers
like The Shropshire Star do not use this technique.
Pugs: Compared to the Shropshire Star, the Express &
Star does not make much use of any pugs for
advertising businesses or deals on in the area which
could be that the paper circulation area is the entire
West Midlands and parts of Wales so it would be
unpractical to use pugs. Possibly due to the expanse of
the paper that is why no pugs are used whilst regional
ones do because of regional papers having less possible
customers to place any advertisements in their paper.
This suggests that a regional newspaper will potentially
have more pugs rather than a urban or maybe a
national paper.
Strapline: The strapline below the main headline is easier to see because it has it’s own
section and is in a slightly bigger and similar font, but different enough, to notice it separate
below the headline. The Shropshire Star makes use of the straplines for their headline as
other papers do but the Express & Star are less clear with straplines compares to the
Shropshire Star. This paper seems compact and hard to distinguish pieces of text whilst the
Shropshire Star is more clear with how they layout their texts.

3. Masthead: The Sun masthead is considerably larger
than the urban and regional mastheads seen before
which very clear. This could be because The Sun is a
national newspaper with a circulation of 1.8 million
daily in the country. The colour scheme of white text
and red background comes from the name being The
Sun and the white text could be a technique to make
the newspaper stand out more and be easily
recognisable .
Exclusive: It is clear that The Sun possess an
exclusive from the massive strapline ‘Amanda
Holden Exclusive’. This is an excellent strategy to get
more readers because more consumers would
purchase the paper for the exclusive. Stuart Hall’s
‘Uses and Gratifications Model’ is in effective here
as readers or potential consumers would be an
active audience due to the exclusive. The readers
would seek out this paper for the exclusive/original
news that no other paper is reporting about. This
exclusive is a feature as well due to the story being
about how Amanda’s heart stopped so there is a
human-angle to the story. This again is why the
exclusive is so effective due to readers being active
to seek out and purchase the newspaper.
Kicker/Strapline: Unlike the urban and regional paper
previous, the national paper, The Sun, uses a kicker to
make the strapline stand out from the image and
headline of the paper. The kicker makes it obvious
where the strapline is as the white box with black text
on top of the image makes the strapline more visible
to the viewer. The other papers did not use this
technique because they followed a more traditional
layout/structure.
Pugs: The Sun uses pugs again in a non traditional manner because they have an included
magazine that comes with the newspaper in the current edition being analysed. This shows the
untraditional style as the Shropshire Star and Express & Star advertise shows and businesses
whilst The Sun advertises businesses and shows through the use of including a magazine. This is
also a selling technique because a consumer maybe more likely to purchase the newspaper
because they are getting more out of the newspaper with their money. The Shropshire Star and
Express & Star maybe unable to use this technique because of their short circulation range due to
being urban and regional newspapers so any regional newspaper will possess no magazine
enticements included.
Lead Story: The lead story’s headlines is in white and
bold text on a black background that merges with the
main imager. The headline also dominates the entire
page and leaves little to no room for any other stories
on the page like The Shropshire Star and Express &
Star. This clearly shows that the newspaper relies on
celebrity gossip to attract any consumer basis which
is why it has a circulation of 1.8 million daily. Here,
according to Stuart Halls uses and Gratification
theory, the readers are active readers because with
the magazine included and celeb gossip, the audience
are most likely to be active readers who seek out this
information. The other papers do not use such
techniques which shows The Sun’s reliance on
celebrity gossip instead of traditional journalism. For
a regional newspaper, these techniques would not be
used because if celebrity gossip was the lead story
then the regional newspaper may as well be a
national newspaper. As a conclusion, the regional
newspaper will have to have no magazines or be
based solely on celeb gossip because the aim and
reason why consumers purchase a regional
newspaper is not for celeb gossip.

4. To Conclude:
Comparing all three of the newspaper’s front covers, The Sun is by far the most un traditional newspaper between the three
because the page is dominated by the headline which is celebrity gossip whilst the other two newspaper have limited images and
concentrate on the actual content of text rather than simple headlines and large images. The Sun clearly has its regular fan base
due to the technique of how large the masthead is and how the story on the front cover is only a headline shows the fan base and
that the paper does not have to fight hard for their consumers.
The Express & Star uses the same techniques as the Shropshire Star which is natural considering they are sister newspaper ran by
the same organisation. They both use straplines with bigger fonts to stand out from the text and the images are more
informational rather than to attract a potential consumer’s attention. The main selling point of the two papers is the stories they
cover as the front covers have huge headlines that clearly attract the consumer’s attention which then entices them to purchase
the paper because the story will be local and most likely effect them in some way or another. The stories are a variety with
economical and political stories to accidents in the county/region with some sports coverage. This appeals to a wide variety of
consumers which is how a regional/urban paper would have to do because otherwise the papers would only sell to a niche
market.
Overall, analysing the three papers from regional to urban areas and then national shows why a regional newspaper is a regional
newspaper and how they differ from bigger papers. Regional use the headlines of local events to attract consumers rather than
celebrity gossip and the use of images, straplines and side bars are used in moderation to control the amount of content. The side
headlines stand out from the text but not as much as much as the headlines to ensure that the headlines remain dominant. To
conclude, the regional newspaper relies solely on the power of the stories rather than the status of the celebs and the paper
overall which is why the regional paper is a REGIONAL paper which shows me that the amount of and the topic of the contents is
the most important feature of the regional newspaperalongside the layout of the newspaper.