Clothing the Paper : on the State of Newspaper Design, Redesigns, And
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Clothing the paper On the state of newspaper design, redesigns, and art directors’ perspectives in contemporary quality and popular newspapers Jasso J.J. Lamberg Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Typography & Graphic Communication December 2015 Declaration I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged. Jasso Lamberg December 2015 Note on images and copyright Some images from British newspapers have been removed from this public version of the thesis for copyright reasons. The British law allows the use of copyrighted images without permission for ‘examination purposes’. Thus, these images are included in the two copies of the thesis found at the Reading University library. In order to distribute the work in any manner outside the university permissions must be obtained for copyrighted images. However, this often means paying fees and possible restrictions to the distribution. Because of this I have omitted or replaced images for which permissions could not be reasonably obtained. Fortunately these images are not essential to reading the thesis. • All images from The Guardian have been reproduced with permission. (On pages 18, 105, and 111.) • Images from The Times, The Sun, and Daily Mirror have been omitted on pages 18, 105, and 109. • On page 111 the partial-cutout image has been substituted with my own example based on a photo by Dima Bushkov (Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0). • On page 194 the images of The Times covers have been substituted by diagrammatic drawings. All material from Finnish sources remains uncensored as the Finnish Copyright Law* allows the reproduction of copyrighted material in academic works, regardless of how these are distributed and/or published. * ‘Tekijänoikeuslaki’, available online at: <http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1961/19610404> ii Abstract This thesis contributes to understanding contemporary newspaper design and redesigns in quality and popular newspapers with a focus on art directors’ perspective. A triangu- lated multi-method investigation of newspapers in the United Kingdom and Finland produces several original contributions to knowledge. As little data exists on contemporary newspaper design in these countries, a content analysis of newspapers captures a snapshot of its current state. This reveals design elements that function as genre markers and cross-national differences in their use. Quality papers use a more rule-governed design employing a narrow range of expres- sion, while the populars employ a wider range of expression. Existing literature, largely ignoring popular papers, provides little knowledge about how art directors see their work and how redesigns are conducted. I investigate these issues through qualitative in-depth interviews with art directors. They reveal several differ- ences between the genres. Quality papers implement large scale redesigns with intervals of several years. Popular papers perform small gradual changes, evolving almost constantly. In both genres, art directors rely largely on their professional intuition in making design decisions. They might use metaphorical newspaper personalities, possibly as energy- saving devices similar to genre. They see several roles for newspaper design, including journalism and enhancing usability. They acknowledge a connection between design and branding, but no evidence is found that newspaper design has been taken over by branding. Art directors are shown to be the true gatekeepers of redesigns, as executives leading the process usually entrust them with final decisions. I present a naturalistic reconceptualisation of newspaper design, taking steps towards a conceptual framework for the currently pre-paradigmatic field. I propose using the concept of visual energy for summarising the effect of design features, which can be used to describe the relative positions of newspapers and their genres. iii Acknowledgements This thesis would not have happened without the help of numerous individuals and institutions. I benefited especially from the Graduate School at the University of Reading, as well as various libraries in the United Kingdom, Finland, and Germany, such as the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek. As it is impossible to individually thank everyone, I wish to express my gratitude to all those who helped me. But some names I must mention. I wish to thank my interviewees for making the research possible, including chief editor Heikki Hakala at Etelä-Suomen Sanomat, and chief editor Kari Vainio at Turun Sanomat. I am grateful to earlier newspaper design researchers Wilson Lowrey, John Knox, and Jennifer Palilonis for their time and support. My thanks also go to Karen Ayres and Statistical Advisory Service at the University of Reading. To the Journalistisen kulttuurin edistämissäätiö (Foundation for advancement of journalistic culture) in Finland for their financial support. And to David Březina for the excellent Skolar typeface. I wish to thank all the academic and newspaper people who encouraged me to undertake postgraduate studies and supported me during them, including Sam Inkinen, Jaakko Suominen, Altti Kuusamo, Riitta Brusila, Ville Pohjonen, Carl Henning, and Petri Salmén. Greatest thanks of all go to the people who helped me out of pure friendship and love. Their support ranged from providing accommodation during my trips to courier service; from buying me lunch to listening to my worries. They are the ones who made it all happen and kept me (relatively) sane during these years, without getting even the proverbial t-shirt for it. Thank you Stewart Beresford, Karri Gardemeister, Lotta Haglund, Howard Kitson, Markku Metso, Eemeli Nieminen, Ashley Price, Teemu Soikkeli, Kati Välimäki, Rob Waller, and others. Most of all, thank you Kshipra Sathe and Seija Lamberg. I owe it all to you. « • » In memory of Keith Allison. iv Contents Note on images and copyright…………………………………………………………………………………ii Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………iii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………………………iv Contents ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………v List of figures………………………………………………………………………………………………………ix List of tables …………………………………………………………………………………………………………x 1. Introduction............................................................................................................1 1.1. Concentrating on redesigns of print papers from the designers’ perspective 3 1.2. Nature of newspapers 4 1.3. Newspaper design as a pre-paradigmatic field 5 1.4. Overview of the thesis 8 1.5. Note on the nature of design expertise and terminology 11 1.6. Note on sources in other languages and translations 13 2. Context: newspapers, genres, redesigns ................................................................14 2.1. Declining newspaper markets 14 2.2. Newspaper genres 17 2.2.1. Brief history of the genres 19 2.2.2. Newspaper genres today – audience and style 21 2.3. Tabloidisation 26 2.4. Newspaper formats 30 2.5. Newspaper design and redesigns 34 2.5.1. Organisation and gatekeeping in redesigns 38 2.5.2. Readers, redesigns, and feedback 39 2.6. After the redesign 41 3. Literature review..................................................................................................44 3.1. Histories and professional literature 45 3.2. Other newspaper design research 48 3.3. Traditional perspectives and metaphors of newspaper design 52 3.4. Newspaper design as branding 56 3.5. Other possible approaches to conceptualising newspaper design 58 3.5.1. Multimodal approach 59 3.5.2. Product semantics 61 3.6. Conceptualising genres 63 v 4. Reconceptualising newspaper design ....................................................................71 4.1. Naturalistic view as a basis 72 4.2. Newspapers from a naturalistic phenomenological perspective 76 4.2.1. Combining naturalism and phenomenology 77 4.2.2. Newspapers as intentional objects 78 4.3. Metaphoric newspaper personalities as anthropomorphism 81 4.4. Are newspaper personalities the same as brands? 85 5. Research design ....................................................................................................89 5.1. Overall goal 89 5.2. Research questions 91 5.2.1. RQ 1: What is the current state of newspaper design? 91 5.2.2. RQ 2: How do art directors see newspaper design? 92 5.2.3. RQ 3: How are redesigns conducted? 93 5.2.4. RQ 4: How is design knowledge controlled? 93 5.2.5. Additional goal: Reconceptualising newspaper design 94 5.3. Overview of methods 94 5.4. Stance on reliability and validity 96 5.5. Generalisation goal 97 5.6. Selection 98 5.6.1. British newspapers 99 5.6.2. Finnish newspapers 101 5.7. Resources 102 6. Analysing newspaper design ...............................................................................103 6.1. Genre features in the literature 103 6.2. Content analysis 105 6.2.1. Unit of analysis and sampling 106 6.2.2. Coding stories 108 6.2.3. Coding photographs 109 6.3. Results of content analysis 111 6.3.1. Story results 111 6.3.2. Photograph results 113 6.4. Discussion 115 7. Interview methods...............................................................................................119 7.1. Semi-structured qualitative interviews 119 7.2. Planning the interviews 121 7.2.1. Choosing the interviewees 121 7.2.2. Interview guide and question design 122 7.2.3. Pilot interviews 125 7.3. First round of interviews 126 7.4. Leaving out the editors 127 7.5. Second round of interviews 128 7.6. Method of analysing interviews