Newspaper AnalysisManchester Evening News

Manchester Evening News

CharactersConventions:Propp identifies that there are certain characters who appear in most narratives, and Propp’s theory can be applied to the characters featured in the main story headlining the front page of the newspaper. Two of the characters Propp identifies are the hero and the victim. The headlining story is about a school bus that has crashed when taking children on a school trip. Within the story the children are the victims as they have been involved in the crash and the parents can be seen as the hero’s as they come to the rescue to try and help.

Propp’s character theory can also be applied to the smaller stories featured on the front cover. “Kieran killer facing life” identifies that there is an obvious villain involved as the story makes reference to a murderer.

Wayne Rooney also appears on the front cover of the newspaper. In relation to Propp’s character theory he could be seen as being a false hero as Manchester United supporters view him as being a hero because he scores goals and is an asset to the team, however he isn’t a recognised hero for example a police officer .

Narrative EventsConventions:The main focal image on the front cover is of the school bus, illustrating the main headline on the front cover. The image and the headline uses an unconventional narrative to tell the storyas it only gives parts of the details makingthe audience fill in the gaps and interpretthemselves how the crash has happened. This is therefore an enigmatic narrative. The image of the crashed bus shows no state of equilibrium and instead skips straight to stage two of Todrov’s 5 part structure where there has been a disruption to the equilibrium. The front cover of the newspaper tells the story’s using a non-linear narrative as the reader is only told/shown what has already happened, therefore the events are not told in chronological order.

Narrative EventsConventions:Levi-Strauss’ Theory of Opposition identifies the idea that all narratives need to be driven forward by conflict that is always caused by a series of conflicting forces. This theory can be applied to the Manchester Evening News front cover. The binary opposites of good and evil and disability and health can be identified through the images and head lines.

Wayne Rooney- Good

Killer- Evil

Wayne Rooney- Health

Victim- Disability

IconographyThe front cover uses a picture of Wayne Rooney in the primary optical area. Wayne Rooney is iconic of Manchester as he plays for Manchester United and therefore represents the city.

The large bold masthead for the Manchester Evening News is iconic and conventional of newspapers.

SettingThe main focal image on the front cover is of the crashed school bus. The mise en scene tells the audience that the image of the school bus has been taken at the scene of the crash. The image shows a disruption to the equilibrium and in relation to Todorov’s 5 part structure, the first stage is missed out and instead straight away identifies stage two where the disruption has already happened.

Technical and Audio Codes

The language used in both the text and the headlines on the front cover uses journalese which portrays formality which is a convention used in informative newspapers. The main headline uses exaggerated language in order to attract the audience by making the story seem much worse than it probably was. This therefore encourages the audience to pick up the newspaper and read the story. The use of ellipsis in the headline also has the same effect. The main headline misses elements of the sentence out in order to create a short effective headline that captures the audience’s attention and leaves them wanting to fill in the gaps and find out the full details of the story.