Question 3

 Explain how the political context in which newspapers are produced, influence their ownership and regulation Refer to The Guardian and Daily Mail newspapers to support your answers

In the UK, as much as 80% of the national press is owned by just 3 companies, with these being Reach PLC, News corp LTD, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, and Viscount Rothermere. With such a large control over the market, these three corporations have a free reign to write whatever stories they want and can easily influence readers based. 

Due to most of the major papers being controlled by a handful of people, this gives those owners like Viscount Rothermere to subject their political belief through the papers. This is the case with one of his most prominent papers The Daily Mail which is well know for its right wing views in a quality tabloid. On the other side of the political spectrum is the Scott trust with their own left leaning broadsheet paper The Guardian. This paper's owners have much less editorial say in stories which leads to more informational stories being written rather than stories being biased or favouring a side based on any political agenda. This has lead to the guardian gaining a reputation for its quality journalism.

Over the years their have been many regulations brought into place in order to restrict what the press is able to do and give them a clear set of boundaries. A major event which caused more regulations to be brought in was the phone hacking scandal by News of the World, it was revealed that they had been illegally uncovering private information about celebrities, politicians and members of the public for news stories and all columnated when it was revealed that they had hacked the phones of the parents of missing teenager Milly Dowler. This eventually lead to many members of the New of the world paper being arrested as well as the newspaper being discontinued. This is not the only instance of regulation in the news as papers with to far of a bias towards one political party or ideology will face a penalty. 

In conclusion, the political ideology of a newspaper is greatly influenced by its ownership along with the regulations in place by the UK government. However due to the massive majority of the market being controlled by a handful of figures who are able to enforce their own belief onto the paper the industry will undoubtably stay divided.