Semiotic Analysis of front cover (Harrogate Advertiser)

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The masthead includes the name of the local area that it reports for and has two different styles of font, although both serif, the ‘Harrogate’ is in bold while the ‘Advertiser’ is in italics. The writing is outlined with a large blue box to make it stand out to the reader, easily viewable from a shelf. This helps it stand out from the rest as some other broadsheets are black and white, while tabloids usually stick to red (The Sun etc). Just above the masthead but still within the blue box there is a small subtitle saying: “Voice of the town since 1836”, showing that it represents the town and has done so for a long time to become a household name. Beneath the blue box there is the date, website and price; a generic convention of all newspapers. Also at the bottom left above the advertisement there is also the recycling logo and barcode.

Above the masthead are two lures, created to ‘lure’ the reader into purchasing the paper with interesting features. Here it includes a ‘free DVD for every reader’ and ‘Starbeck Gala picture special’ with a dividing line down the middle to separate the two. Note how both these lure titles are the same colour as the masthead box to show consistency, but are all in capitals and sans-serif to make them stand out at the top. They also have picture cutouts from the gala and DVD to further entice the buyer.

In total there are five articles featured on the front page. They all follow the simple format of small columns , with a few of them interspersed with pictures relating to the story. The main article is surrounded by a thin black border (Hospital almost at full capacity) with other minor articles around this acting as another border. There are different types of titles here, two of them are large and bold while the other three are slightly smaller and the text is not bold. This is done to show which stories are more important for the community despite all of them being on the front page.

Each article starts with the first word capitalised, although in some cases where the story starts with an ‘A’ , the following word is also in capitals. This technique is used to draw the reader in and also to start the article confidently. The main story, ‘Hospital almost at full capacity’, finishes with a message from the editor requesting concerns about the article and the text is in bold and bullet pointed to stand out from the columned text of the story. The message provides an email address and street address, encouraging community-level interaction with the editor.

The pictures on the front cover range from medium to small size, saving the larger pictures for inside the paper. The pictures are straightforward, containing the person/place/problem the article is dealing with. Below the pictures there is a caption, for the most part they solely contain proper nouns to state the name or place of the picture.

On the right hand side of the front cover there is a smaller blue box tab with the words ‘inside...’ – with stories which could interest the public such as Leeds Festival news, the New Look library and free open days around the district. Below this there is another similar tab for the website, saying ‘online...’, which has a voting poll. This is an example of media coming together.

Located at the bottom of the page is a large advertisement from a carpeting company. This is an example of synergy as both gain from it; the company pays the newspaper for the ad space while the carpeters receive more customers as a result.