Departamento de ingls

Name:______________________________

Popular and quality newspapers In some countries as many as nine out of ten adults read at least one newspaper a day. Seen in purely business terms, few products can ever have been so successful in reaching as much of their potential market. Why do so many people read newspapers? There are five basic functions of a newspaper: to inform, to comment, to persuade, to instruct and to entertain. You may well think that this list of functions is in order of importance but, if so, you would not be in agreement with the majority of the reading public. Of the two broad categories of newspaper, the popular and the quality, the former have a readership of millions, while the latter, only hundreds of thousands. Yet, the popular papers seem largely designed for entertainment, with quizzes, competitions, cartoons and light-hearted human interest stories. Their news coverage contains a lot of comment and persuasive language; the information content is rather low, and instruction is very minor. The quality newspapers put a much higher value on information and a much lower one on entertainment. It is not only in content that the two types of paper differ. There is a difference too in the style in which the articles are written. The popular papers generally use more dramatic language with a lot of word-play. Their journalists tend to use shorter sentences and avoid less well-known vocabulary. This means that popular newspapers are easier for a native speaker to understand, though probably not for a non-native speaker. In order to decide whether a newspaper is a quality or a popular one is not even necessary to read it, since you can tell simply by the way it looks. Popular papers are generally smaller with fewer columns per page. They have bigger headlines and more photographs. There is a greater variety of typeface and printed symbols. The articles are shorter and there are fewer per page. Such devices are not only used to make the paper more attractive; they may also influence what the reader reads, large headlines,

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attention to one article rather than another. Since popular newspapers have a much larger readership than the apparently more neutral quality papers, it may be fair to conclude that him. I) Write True or False after each of the following statements. Then write down the words in the text that gave you the cue to the answer. 1.- We can say that 90% of adults read newspapers every day. 2.If you are a non-native speaker you should buy popular newspapers as they are easier to understand. 3.- Readers only want to be entertained. II) Answer the following questions in your own words. a) Which are the two basic types of newspapers? Mention, at least, five differences. b) What kind of things make a paper attractive? III) Rephrasing. a) The quality newspapers put a much higher value on information. A ________________________________________________________________ b) Their news coverage contains a lot of comment and persuasive language. THERE ____________________________________________________________ IV) Write a composition on the topic: The Press in Spain. (80 to 120 words) the average reader not only wants to be entertained by a newspaper, but prefers his reading to be guided and opinions given to