In the first article, stating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, the Daily Telegraph presents the breaking news as the worst event of the year. By bringing forth the facts that it has brought a lot of publicity abroad, the family have raised the awareness that their missing child could cause the reward of over a few million pounds. Compared to the Shannon Matthews case, this story was spread not only nationwide but other parts of the world to becoming more and more known. The Shannon Matthews case only presents the idea that it was only known in the United Kingdom and not anywhere else worldwide. The fact that Madeleine McCann's case is much more popular could be due to the idea of social class and their reputation. If we look at the comparison between the two children's parents, we can see that Madeleine's family is much more wealthy and belong to the middle, upper class and Shannon's family belonging to the working class of society. The idea that the higher ranked classes have more influence on the media can be proved by these two cases. The repetition of Shannon's mother had 7 children to 5 fathers, emphasises the feeling of resentment towards their case as it presents their family as a low life family that belong on shows such as Jeremy Kyle. McCann's case brought and continued to the attention of many compared to Matthew's case that died down after a month or two and not 10 years.
In addition, the representation of both families has a broad contrast due to the images used to present the recent case at the time. In reading one, the image for McCann's story shows her mother and herself on a slide showing how happy they are when they had their child with them unlike after the incident where they are now in utter misery due to their loss. In reading two, the images shown are a photo of her mother with a negative emotion on her face with a photo of her child beside her smiling. The contrast is also emphasised with the two captions underneath them. On the first reading's image, it says 'Kate McCann must tell the twins their sister is not on holiday' showing a more depressing side to their current situation after the event. On the second reading's image, it says 'Karen Matthews, Shannon's mother, has been arrested'. The main message proven by these articles is that if you have the money you get the attention.
Hierarchical or hierarchy refers to the ranking of society based on social class. The two demonstrated on both readings compare the working class to the middle/upper class. The working class attached to Shannon Matthews' family and the middle/upper class attached to the McCann family. Hall presents the idea of representation is 'contested' meaning there is no set meaning to what is being presented. This allows people to have different viewpoints of a story based on their social class as it is what they have been brought up to believe is correct. The mainstream view of McCann's family can have the two sides of being viewed as sympathy for the family for their lost or blaming them as it was their fault for leaving their children alone while they were out drinking. In addition, the viewpoints of the Matthews family can mainly be viewed as a stereotypical hard life family of which struggle with daily tasks such as paying bills due to not having a good job.
It brings forth the idea that the more wealthy family has a better and positive reputation to uphold whereas the less wealthy family has little to no positive reputation and would not matter if anything bad was said about them to place them in more negativity. The ideology created by our contemporary society has brought forth the simplistic and generalised ideas of people we may or, most likely, may not know. This can bring forward the beliefs from Marxism as Karl Marx believed that parts of society and the hierarchy helped contribute to capitalism due to the separation/divide in social classes which then brought forth the idea of social closure. This was mainly shown by the upper class as they created a place of which were only for those like them.
Hall suggests then that most audiences of a given text will have a preferred or dominant reading, but that others may decode the text taking a negotiated position or an oppositional position:
Reception theory:
In addition, the representation of both families has a broad contrast due to the images used to present the recent case at the time. In reading one, the image for McCann's story shows her mother and herself on a slide showing how happy they are when they had their child with them unlike after the incident where they are now in utter misery due to their loss. In reading two, the images shown are a photo of her mother with a negative emotion on her face with a photo of her child beside her smiling. The contrast is also emphasised with the two captions underneath them. On the first reading's image, it says 'Kate McCann must tell the twins their sister is not on holiday' showing a more depressing side to their current situation after the event. On the second reading's image, it says 'Karen Matthews, Shannon's mother, has been arrested'. The main message proven by these articles is that if you have the money you get the attention.
Hierarchical or hierarchy refers to the ranking of society based on social class. The two demonstrated on both readings compare the working class to the middle/upper class. The working class attached to Shannon Matthews' family and the middle/upper class attached to the McCann family. Hall presents the idea of representation is 'contested' meaning there is no set meaning to what is being presented. This allows people to have different viewpoints of a story based on their social class as it is what they have been brought up to believe is correct. The mainstream view of McCann's family can have the two sides of being viewed as sympathy for the family for their lost or blaming them as it was their fault for leaving their children alone while they were out drinking. In addition, the viewpoints of the Matthews family can mainly be viewed as a stereotypical hard life family of which struggle with daily tasks such as paying bills due to not having a good job.
It brings forth the idea that the more wealthy family has a better and positive reputation to uphold whereas the less wealthy family has little to no positive reputation and would not matter if anything bad was said about them to place them in more negativity. The ideology created by our contemporary society has brought forth the simplistic and generalised ideas of people we may or, most likely, may not know. This can bring forward the beliefs from Marxism as Karl Marx believed that parts of society and the hierarchy helped contribute to capitalism due to the separation/divide in social classes which then brought forth the idea of social closure. This was mainly shown by the upper class as they created a place of which were only for those like them.
Hall suggests then that most audiences of a given text will have a preferred or dominant reading, but that others may decode the text taking a negotiated position or an oppositional position:
Reception theory:
- A dominant or preferred position is when the audience takes the full preferred meaning offered by the text and the ideological assumptions behind the messages.
- A negotiated position is when there is a mixture of adaptation and opposition to the dominant codes. So the audience negotiates the meaning to fit with their “lived experience.”
- An oppositional position is when the preferred reading is understood but opposed or re-drawn drawing on alternative values and attitudes. The ideological assumptions are rejected.
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