hello and welcome to my easy to understand guide to this guardian front cover and focusing on media language and representation this video is going to be particularly relevant for you if you are studying the educast gcc media studies specification as this front cover is going to appear as a set text from 2024 onwards so let's start by having a look at the masthead of the newspaper the words the guardian make it sound as though this newspaper is quite caring protective as though it's a kind of parental figure looking after us the phrase for 200 years suggests that this newspaper is historic it's traditional it's been going for such a long time and that adds a sense of gravitas to the newspaper the strapline news provider of the year makes it sound as though this newspaper is award-winning and therefore quality the price of this newspaper is quite high perhaps why they've made it quite small on the front cover but it does suggest that this newspaper is going to be aimed primarily at a kind of middle to upper class audience in the top left there is a kind of smaller headline that says what we miss about working in the office first of all that use of the word we is quite inclusive it makes the readers feel involved as though the guardian understands them and is in the same position as them secondly it obviously reflects the social cultural context at the time where we were in lockdown due to the pandemic and a lot of people were working from home the fact that this is talking about people working from home and missing being in the office suggests again that the readers of this newspaper are reasonably middle class they're not kind of working class people who are working on the front lines so they're not for example people who i don't know maybe nurses or working in supermarkets we're talking about people even more kind of like office related environments and the fact that they're saying what we miss about the office suggests that these are people who enjoy work it's representing work as being quite a good and fun thing we're seeing lots of images of parties you know people having a good time um and so representing work and work environment as being a positive thing although some people are also going to recognize the stereotype of work colleagues perhaps not getting on with each other um or not liking their job so for example the intertextual reference to the it's crowd at the top there in one of the images and that adds an element of comedy it makes it feel quite light-hearted as well these stereotypes like the office romance and the kind of colleagues sitting together in a quite a boring office they're quite easy to understand for audiences the use of the kind of photo style montage and the paper clips make the images in the top left feel quite kind of casual and fun as though kind of photos you might pin up on your wall um and that makes it feel again very it makes it a bit more real for audiences um as though this is something that they would have experienced themselves and this clearly suggests that the general public have missed out on parties which creates a nice binary opposite to the main story of course the main story is about dominic cummings accusing boris johnson of having parties within an office environment when they were banned so this binary opposition is created between the tory party and in particular boris johnson and that was pitted against the kind of general public and it's made to feel as though the general public have missed out whilst boris johnson has enjoyed all the things that were supposed to be banned the use of dominic cummings as a source for this article um it reflects the context that cummings was actually fired by boris johnson um and kind of let go from the tory party uh he used to work as one of the private secretaries for boris johnson um and so um it kind of reflects the fact that he obviously is not uh entirely committed and loyal to the tory party anymore and that's why he's potentially coming forward now there's a lot of small copy i.e text on this front cover and that suggests that the readers the guardian perhaps slightly more educated and slightly higher literacy levels and it's much more conventional for a more broad sheet style newspaper there are still some large images though and that will engage some readers in the use of the image to accompany this article um is is very bold it's obviously a picture of boris johnson out to kind of jogging with his dog it's quite an absurd image it's not the type of image you would expect for somebody who is the prime minister normally you would see images of them kind of looking quite statesmanlike in a tie in a suit um you know perhaps in an office environment to be out jogging in um fish shorts um and a kind of beanie and trainers and a jumper it seems very absurd or odd outfit and it kind of makes him seem quite silly or strange and of course that's adding to the representation um because of the fact that the guardian is politically um leaning to the left as a newspaper they're quite anti-tory anti-conservative anti-boris johnson and so this reflects their political values and contexts as well he seems quite scruffy quite mismatched it just seems a bit of a mess and i suppose that representation of boris johnson as a bit of a mess again reflects how the guardian tend to see him and how they position their audience to see him as well the main kind of article featured on the front cover is reasonably factual and objective um it's not quite as biased as you would find perhaps on a tabloid newspaper and they use quite unemotive language when describing the events one of the smaller articles in the bottom left is talking about the conflict within the ukraine with russia and that was obviously reflecting political context at the time the newspaper was published the article talks about how the uk is sending help and support in the form of resources to the ukraine and that represents the uk in a kind of savior role stepping in to kind of help and support the ukrainian people and government the use of these little page numbers with the arrow symbols act as a kind of enigma code to draw in audiences you don't get the full article on the front cover you just get a kind of teaser and that's very conventional on newspaper covers because they want to use the cover as almost like an advert and then you read a snippet you have to buy the newspaper to read the rest of the article inside there is another article in the bottom right about more tory members lying and being dishonest this time they're talking about a conservative peer michelle moan who is a kind of business owner but uh supposedly according to this article has lied in order to get a contract to produce ppe um and so again this ppe personal protective equipment reflects the context of the pandemic that that kind of acronym is going to be familiar to audiences at the time but also again reflects the conservative party as being dishonest and untrustworthy in the top right hand corner they've got a small kind of teaser for an article inside about art and wine and you know art and wine is quite middle-class lifestyle activities so again reflecting the target audience for the guardian the reference to andy warhol as well andy warhol was quite anti-capitalist you know quite left-wing rebellious artist and so um again tying in with the political values of the guardian so that was my easy to understand guide to the guardian front cover don't forget to check out my channel and subscribe for other videos relevant to you and if you do have any questions or you would like a video in particular that i don't already have and just leave a little comment below and i'll see what i can do