Ex.7. Answer the following questions

1. What is the role of mass media in society?

2. What evidence is given in the text to prove Britain is a nation of newspaper readers?

3. What is the oldest British newspaper? What newspapers was it followed by?

4. How are the British newspapers divided?

5. What are characteristic features of the heavy press? What can you say about its circulation?

6. What evidence can you get from the text to characterize the popular press?

7. Which of the national dailies has the largest circulation? How could you account for this fact?

8. Why do newspapers have to make a profit?

9. How can newspapers influence their readers?

10. Why do they do this?

11. What kind of paper is the Times?

12. What do you know about the Guardian?

13. What party does the Daily Telegraph support?

14. Why is the Daily Mirror a quick and easy paper to read?
What party does it support?

15. Which is the most successful paper of all?

16. What can you say about the rest of the papers?

17. Say all you possibly can about the Morning Star.

18. What kind of newspapers do you prefer: heavy or popu­lar? Account for your choice.


Ex.8. Insert the missing words.

1. To make a profit newspapers and magazines publish a lot of...

2. The ... of the newspaper "Arguments and Facts" is the largest in our country.

3. The main article in a newspaper is called ...

4. In its ... of the 20th of May The Times wrote about the general elections in Great Britain.

5. Do you always ... the events at home and abroad?

6. Many newspapers in Great Britain come out with ... at the week-end.

Ex.9. Give some brief information on the following periodicals.

1. The Guardian - to be a daily; to be national; to be pub­lished in London and Manchester; 28 pages; price - 60 p.; 4 sections: Home - to give full coverage to the political and eco­nomic affairs at home; International - to inform the readers of the major world affairs; Finance - to give full attention to the financial problems at home and abroad; Sport - to cover the latest sporting events to the country and abroad;

2. Today - to come out every day; to be a national daily; 40 pages; price - 22 p.; motto - For a Brighter Tomorrow; daily sales - over half a million copies; to give much space to the sensational news on the front pages; to give full attention to the private life of famous people; TV and radio guide; to inform the readers of the latest sporting news at home and abroad; weather forecast; crosswords; advertisements.

3. Early Times - to be an independent newspaper; to be a weekly; price - 45 p.; 16 pages; to be published in London; to be a national paper; to be addressed to young people; a lot of space to be taken up by the problems concerning teenagers; to cover educational problems; to give full attention to ecological prob­lems; to contain reviews of books, films, music and shows; to touch upon the teenagers' problems at school; crosswords and other brain-teasers.

4. Woman's Weekly - to come out once a week; to be the best-selling British women's magazine; price - 36 p.; to be published in London; to contain several sections: Gardening, Fic­tion, Knitting, Home, Travel, Fashion, Beauty, Cookery; to fea­ture family matters, health, horoscopes, advice of a sympathetic friend; to give some space to advertisements; to be intended for women of all ages and occupations.

(Vertogradova L.A., Fastovskaya T.B., Stepanova E.N. Practical English, 3 Year, 1998)

Ex.11. Read, translate and retell the text.

THE AMERICAN PRESS


The US press plays an important part in the business of government; the press conference is an American in­vention.

In the 20th century newspapers have ranged from «tabloids» featuring pictures and sensational news to «responsible journals». Their pages are varied and in­clude columns devoted to news, editorials, letters to the editor, business and finance, sports, entertainment, art, music, books, comics, fashions, food, society, television and radio. As the great newspaper chains and news agen­cies grew, America's press list its individualistic char­acter; many features are common to newspapers all over the country, which therefore have a uniform appearance.

Although there are no separate Sunday papers as there are in Great Britain, US daily papers do have special Sunday editions. Many of these are remarkable in size: The New York Times Sunday edition regularly has over 200 pages, and has had 946.

The New York Times has the largest circulation of any newspaper in the US, selling more than two million copies each day.

Aside from a few notable exceptions like The New York Times, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, the press is daily filled with sex and violence. It is a river of morbidity, murder, divorce and gang fights. It's a mix­ture of gossip columns, horoscopes, homemaking hints, comics, crossword puzzles and insane features like: «Are you happily married? Take the following test...».

Almost every American newspaper carries comic strips, usually at least a page of them.

In contrast to daily newspapers, many magazines in the USA are national and even international. Those with the widest circulation are Time, Reader's Digest, TV Guide, Woman’s Day, Better Home and Gardens, Fam­ily Circle, the National Geographic Magazine and Ladies' Home Journal.