The Daily Mirror - Female Audiences

The Daily Mirror, founded in 1903, is a left-wing British National tabloid paper that is known as the UK’s oldest tabloid. The Mirror, generates on average, 3.3 million readers a day, covering mainly the C1, C2 and DE demographic social class. Their readers stereotypically tend to be between the ages of 25 and 34. The Mirror, launched originally for women and previously run by women, is predominately aimed at a female audience due to the content, features, images and advertisements found within the paper.

The Mirror focuses on certain aspects that will attract a female audience. When looking at the features in The Mirror, these tend to revolve around celebrity news and gossip, one of the main interests associated with women. Women are typically targeted as they want to know everything that is currently happening in the celebrity world and are drawn to the drama created through the media, almost as escapism into a more glamorous and exciting lifestyle. Other articles regarding fashion, health, beauty and relationship advice are all stereotypically known as key interests for women as well.

Most of the content within these particular articles seem to be written by women and involve a woman's experiences, opinions and comments. This helps to create an engagement with their target audience, offering a sense of comfort and reassurance as the female audience can relate to what is written in the article. An example being: “Get the look… Celeb Curves” featuring ways of achieving curves that celebrities are promoting, instead of size 0 models that have become the obsession of the “perfect body”. Instead the article shows women how they can create this look without having to diet or have plastic surgery, producing a healthier, more positive body image for women to embrace their natural shapes.

Another aspect that reinforces a female readership are the images chosen to be placed on Page 3. When Page 3 is mentioned in tabloid terms, we as an audience imagine a half-naked model with fake breasts, positioned in a sexual manner, typically seen in The Sun. Many women find this tasteless, disrespectful and immediately choose to distance themselves from the paper. However when looking at The Daily Mirror, we are greeted with respectful, decent and influential figures such as Kate Middleton and Martine McCutcheon. These women are seen as strong and successful individuals, pictured in a modest way that will gain the respect of other women, rather than promoting women as objects.

When looking at the advertisements displayed throughout the paper, a more “womanly” appeal is suggested, focusing particularly on the family lifestyle. Adverts for supermarkets, promoting offers on food, wine and chocolates as well as toys, kitchen appliances and clothing are frequently repeated, presenting the typical wants and needs of a woman. The adverts include money off deals, supporting the targeted social demographic audience as they are assumed to be on a lower income and are more likely to take advantage of the advertisements printed in the paper.

Features like sport and business, supposedly targeted at a male audience, are subsequently shorter and are dominated by more feminine aspects unlike in other tabloids, this promotes the idea that women are more likely to conform to what appeals to them and are more likely to be influenced to act on what they have read.