A VISION OF HELL!
China Quake in British newspapers
LCC SGD MAGD 2008 Piero Zagami Elective B Design and Politics The earthquake in China seen by British newspapers 2
Section 1 12 newspapers / 4 days
On the 12th of May 2008, a devastating earthquake killed thousands of people in China. The day after, almost every British newspaper was reporting this news. The following analysis is focused on the first four days after the tragedy (from the 13th to the 16th of May), studying how newspapers reported the event, and highlighting differencies of approach by the press to the same story. 4
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“Less than at any time does a simple reproduction of reality tell us anything about reality.� Bertold Brecht
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Section 1/01
News charts
Experiment 01 7
13th May 8
14th May
15th May
16th May 9
News story coverage chart 10
Section 1/02
Front page
Experiment 02 11
Front page: 13th May 12
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Front page: 14th May 14
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Front page: 15th May 16
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Front page: 16th May 18
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Front page: overview 20
Section 1/03
Photography
Experiment 03 21
Photography: 13th May 22
Photography: 14th May 23
Photography: 15th May 24
Photography: 16th May 25
Photography: overview 26
Section 1/04
News overlay
Experiment 04 27
News overlay: 13th May 28
News overlay: 14th May 29
News overlay: 15th May 30
News overlay: 16th May 31
Section 2 12 newspapers / 1 days
To precisely analyze the different styles of communication of British newspapers, I focused my studies on a specific day, the 14th of May. The compared analysis begins with observing how tabloids, newspapers, and the free press have different visual and typographic languages to tell the same story, and this is evident throughout the entirety of the newspaper. 32
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Section 2/01
14th May: news visual dialogue The Daily Telegraph The Guardian The Independent The Times Daily Express Daily Mail Evening Standard London Lite Metro The London Paper Daily Mirror The Sun Experiment 05 34
Newspapers This category is addressed to those newspapers that preserve the traditional broad sheet structure such as The Guardian, The Independent, The Times and The Daily Telegraph. Here the classic news hierarchy is preserved: world news come for first, followed by the local news and the celebrities gossips. The visual language is usually sober and neutral.
Tabloid newspapers
Free newspapers
Tabloids
This kind of newspapers represents a hybrid between the traditional newspaper and the tabloid, for format and content. These newspapers usually give priority to the main news, but do not let forget to stress the attention on the celebrities gossips and the local news. The Daily Mail, Evening Standard and Daily Express are examples of this category.
The majority of free newspapers is published as tabloids. Content of this kind of newspapers reflects the audience: a clear focus on quick news (local, national and international), lifestyle, technology, media, celebrities, and movies information. Examples of this kind of newspaper are: London Lite, Metro, The London Pape.
A tabloid is a newspaper that emphasizes sensational crime stories, gossip columns repeating scandalous innuendos about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and other so-called “junk food news�. The visual language is usually confused and sensationalistic with pictures invading most of the page and big words. Experiment 05 35
Visual language: The Daily Telegraph 36
Visual language: The Guardian 37
Visual language: The Independent 38
Visual language: The Times 39
Visual language: Daily Express 40
Visual language: Daily Mail 41
Visual language: Evening Standard 42
Visual language: London Lite 43
Visual language: Metro 44
Visual language: The London Paper 45
Visual language: Daily Mirror 46
Visual language: The Sun 47
14th May: news visual dialogue: “Earthquake in China� news coverage (alphabetical order) 48
Section 2/02
Typography
Experiment 06 49
The Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
Typography: news titles 50
The independent
The Times
Daily Express
Daily Mail
Evening Standard
London Lite
Metro
The London Paper
Daily Mirror
The Sun
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Typography 52
Section 2/03
Page numbering
Experiment 07 53
The Daily Telegraph
The Guardian
Page Numbering 54
The independent
The Times
Daily Express
Daily Mail
Evening Standard
London Lite
Metro
The London Paper
Daily Mirror
The Sun
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Section 3 1 newspaper / 17 days
News Decay During the first week after the earthquake in China, the story was found in each one of the twelve newspapers considered. In my analysis I found that The Guardian was the newspaper to give more importance and information to the event than any other. Therefore, I decided to collect this newspaper day by day to observe when The Guardian would stop mentioning the story. After the 31st of May, the newspaper didn’t mention any further news about the situation in China. The following pages show an analysis of the visual language of The Guardian over 19 days (Sundays excluded) until the story was no longer mentioned in the newspaper. Experiment 08 56
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13th May 58
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14th May 60
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15th May 62
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16th May 64
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17th May 66
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19th May 68
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20th May 70
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21st May 72
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22nd May 74
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23rd May 76
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24th May 78
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26th May 80
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27th May 82
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28th May 84
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29th May 86
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30th May 88
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31st May 90
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News decay: “The Earthquake in China” disappearing process (over 19 days: 13.5 - 31.5) 92
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LCC SGD MAGD 2008 Piero Zagami Elective B Design and Politics The earthquake in China seen by British newspapers
Newspapers (May): Daily Express 13-14-15-16 Daily Mail 13-14-15-16 Daily Mirror 13-14-15-16 Evening Standard 13-14-15-16 London Lite 13-14-15-16 Metro 13-14-15-16 The Daily Telegraph 13-14-15-16 The Guardian 13-14-15-16-17-19-20-21-22-23-24-26-27-28-29-30-31 The Independent 13-14-15-16 The London Paper 13-14-15-16 The Times 13-14-15-16 The Sun 13-14-15-16
Quote at page 6: Jan van Toorn (2008), Critical Practice, Rick Poynor and 010 Publishers, Amsterdam Bibliography 94