hello welcome to my easy to understand guide on the guardian set newspaper cover for examination from 2021 onwards for gcc educas media studies component 1 exam now this set cover in particular this one just here will only ever appear in media language or representation questions in component one section a if it appears as a media language question it will be very specifically about picking apart elements of this set cover if it appears as a representation question in section a it will be this cover in comparison to an unseen newspaper cover that they may provide you in the exam the sun newspaper is also a set cover i've got separate videos for that as well and the sun as a newspaper could come up in section b of the component one exam for industries and audiences and i've got a separate video for that as well but this video is just going to focus on the guardian set cover for media language and representation it's important to understand a little bit of context about what this article is about so that it helps you understand um you know why they're writing about things in this particular way so a few years ago there was a vote to see if we should as a country remain in the eu or leave the eu it was called the referendum and uh british citizens were allowed to vote and um it was a very divisive vote so it was almost split evenly half and half but the people who wanted to leave the eu just just topped it just a little bit so the decision was to leave the eu but what it meant was that almost half the country disagreed with that um and so um lots of people were arguing about this and and had different opinions on it um it was very difficult because britain then had to negotiate a deal so mps and the prime minister at the time theresa may had to negotiate a deal uh with the eu about how we would leave when we would leave what the costs would be and how it would have an impact on things like our people our economy our laws etc and then when theresa may uh left as prime minister she stood down boris johnson took over so he kind of inherited this issue from her boris johnson voted in favor of leaving the eu so he was somebody that voted to leave and part of his campaign and part of the leave campaign was something called project fear when people wanted to remain in the eu some of their reasons were that they were worried about what might happen to things like our economy to our laws to our jobs to our citizens and there were a lot of warnings about what could happen um the people who wanted to leave said this was just drumming up fear and they called it project fear you know they were just trying they said that remainers what they called people who wanted to remain were just trying to scare people and that it wouldn't really happen so they called this project fear and they used this as a way of convincing people to vote to leave anyway those people who wanted to leave had their own phrase which they called project prosperity so their argument was that if we left they would create a better economy with more jobs and that we would prosper as a country so we're going to start with the masthead which is the actual title of the newspaper um the guardian now most newspaper titles are in uppercase so blocks and they're very kind of um thick bold fonts maybe it's about connoting that they are a bit independent and they are a bit alternative and they're not the same as all the other newspapers perhaps it's about trying to make them stand out and seem unusual the word the guardian as well don't forget word guardian means a kind of parent figure so someone who's going to look after you so perhaps connoting that the guardian as a newspaper is going to do that for its readers the choice of stories on the front cover for the guardian you know a lot of political stories hard news so things that were quite complex and difficult to understand and perhaps that suggests that the target audience for the guardian are perhaps readers who have a higher reading age who have perhaps more levels of education so perhaps reflecting the demographic of the people who are reading the guardian there's a lot of writing on this front cover a lot of copy so the amount of text and the images although large there's still a lot of writing you know in terms of a ratio whereas in comparison to the sun which you may have seen on one of my other videos that had much bigger images and much smaller amount of writing so the the more amount of the larger amount of writing and copy on this front cover for the guardian again suggests perhaps that readers the guardian are more able to be engaged by lots of text you know happier to do a lot more reading for example or may have a higher reading age the choice of the image on the cover is boris johnson with his kind of head down and there's a few other mps in the background as well their heads down some people have their kind of face in their hands as well they look quite sad and defeated so it's creating quite a negative representation of boris johnson and the other mps it makes us feel as though they've somehow lost or failed and the audience for the guardian might like this the guardians readers are much more left-wing and normally quite anti-conservative so they would actually probably quite enjoy these representations of boris johnson and the conservatives looking like they failed um they also not just it's not just about their left-wing um kind of political standpoint but also because they got rid of the guardian because they tended to be more left-wing are more likely to have voted to remain in the eu and the guardian as a newspaper was a remain supporting paper so it means that the target audience would feel that it's it's quite right that the mps have failed in this deal because they kind audience probably feel quite justified they they always thought that mps would fail in this so um it reflects how the audience would probably feel about all of this the caption underneath the photo helps to anchor the meaning so it tells us that this is a brexit meeting and therefore we understand oh brexit's not going well because we see the image we see the caption and we associate the two things together so the caption helps to anchor the meaning of the article and the audience immediately understand that brexit is not not going well at all and there is a sign behind them in the article in the photo which you can see where it mentions project fear and project prosperity and it feels ironic to the readers who would be familiar to this um they they would understand that you know these phrases were phrases that were used by the by people like boris johnson when they said it would all go brilliantly and then to see that in conjunction or juxtaposed with their faces looking defeated it would almost add this element of comedy or irony for an audience that would make it entertaining for them there's a lot of emotive language in this article which creates this idea that britain is in a very dangerous point in terms of politics so i'm just picking out some words here they use the words warn risk jeopardy ominous and horrifying and those words all connote this idea of danger um you know it's very clear that the guardian thinks that something bad is happening with brexit and the negotiations there is um an article um a smaller article within uh this front cover which is about the prime minister of hungary uh the prime minister um orban he very much anti-eu he was talking a lot in the run-up to the brexit deal about how the eu was going to um you know uh not be the right thing for britain how we should leave how how everyone should leave he he's known as being quite right-wing and actually they label him as right wing uh in the article and immediately that tells the audience because the audience are left-wing the labeling of him as right-wing tells the audience that that they should not like him and they should see him as as the enemy almost and because the photo they've chosen looks quite angry as well um it makes him seem like a bit of a villain a bit of an enemy there is a part at the top of the newspaper where they talk about um the economy and there's a kind of lovely little simplified graph which looks a bit like a heart monitor going across the top and it kind of dips down um that simplifies quite a complex issue people don't really understand stuff about the economy it's quite complex but using a very simplified graph that just literally plummets helps us to see that um the economy is going to suffer or and or is suffering and so it simplifies an issue it makes it easy for the audience to understand there's another small side um article as well which is about dairy which obviously unrelated necessarily to politics but it adds another bit of variety for the audience it shows that the guardian is kind of looking at a range of things like politics health etc health is an issue which is quite a middle-class issue the idea of paying attention to things like your diet and avoiding particular foods like dairy or gluten we often think of as being something that perhaps more wealthy or educated people do um but dairy has often been we've often been told that dairy is bad for us so eating cheese and butter and things like that is something we've always been told to avoid so the guardian having an article about dairy being good for you is quite unusual and unique and that might appeal to an audience it sets the guardian apart as being a bit of an alternate paper as well there's a cartoon illustration at the top of the paper um and that cartoon illustration adds a little bit of you know humor it makes it seem lighter but maybe a bit of soft news at the top so it balances out the cover a little bit and that balance is often quite important so you don't want your paper to appear completely negative um g2 is kind of a fitness supplement that the guardian have so well it's a it's a supplement that covers a lot of things fitness being one of them um and these supplements help to appeal to an audience it gives them you know extra things and it makes them feel like they're getting value for money the fact that this is a kind of how-to article like how to get twitter etcetera it makes the guardians seem quite educational and and uh knowledgeable because it makes it sound like they're going to teach us the price of this newspaper is two pounds now on the sun cover they advertise how cheap they are in comparison to the mirror the guardian is quite expensive at two pounds it's one of the most expensive newspapers you can buy and again that connotes the wealth um and class status of their typical readers you do have to be quite wealthy to be able to buy this on a regular basis and don't forget you will get a copy of these newspaper covers in the exam with you for the educast gcc component one exam so you don't have to remember the covers off by heart but it's useful to know them really well before your exam so that's my easy to understand guide to the guardian set cover for exam from 2021 onwards and if you check out my channel there are lots of other videos on there for gcse and a level