Assignment 1 Part 2 Lydia 10am-1pm Tues
Introduction: This study will analyze and compare two news articles from BBC and Axios. Both of them describe the views and concerns of some European countries, such as Estonia, regarding the changes in the relations between Russia and the United States, as well as the countermeasures they have taken.
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New story 1:Russia’s next move? The countries trying to Putin-proof themselves（BBC）LINK: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ceqjd11l55wo
The full name of BBC is British Broadcasting Corporation, it is the oldest and largest broadcasting company in the world. The digital services of this company not only cover news, weather, sports, but also CBBC and CBeebies, iPlayer and BBC Sounds, BBC Red Button. According to the official website information of BBC and the annual reports and accounts of BBC Group for the period of 2023-2024, one third of adult British people watch BBC, and it has 450 million viewers worldwide. In its latest annual summary, the BBC claims that it can be regarded as the centre of British citizens’ lives. It will continue to provide information, education and entertainment for British citizens, and will aim to convey more local stories as the main purpose of its future work and activities.
Based on the audience information provided by the website Similarweb. The data from January to March 2025 shows that the top three countries contributing to the traffic of the BBC website are the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, accounting for 23.99%, 11.20% and 7.64% respectively. The data of the website also shows that the audience of BBC is relatively more male-oriented, with a proportion of 56.4%, while the female audience accounts for 43.6%. Regarding age, the audience aged 25-34 has the highest proportion, reaching 23.84%, followed by those aged 35-44, accounting for 20.67%.
Figure 1: A screenshot from the website showing the geographical data of BBC News viewers.
Figure 2: A screenshot from the website showing the gender and age data of BBC News viewers.
Writing and content production :
Just as was mentioned in the first part of the assignment, this news article provides information about the concerns of the small Baltic states bordering Russia: Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia about the changes in international form brought about by the detente between the United States and Russia. It should be noted that this news article fails to provide any textual description for the group photo of the national leaders which occupies a large space at the beginning. As a result, readers have no way to know the identities of the people in the photo and it is very likely to cause confusion. Meanwhile, this news article begins by citing a statement from a British Air Force officer, rather than from “the tiny Baltic nations”mentioned in the article’s title. The same situation also occurs at the end of the article, about Estonia’s Plan B, The main subjects of this part’s description and interview are the British troops stationed in Estonia. Although seeking help from the UK is only a small part of Estonia’s measures to deal with the possible invasion threat from Russia.In my opinion, the news article does a good job of presenting the current situation of Estonia’s national defense, the change in the US attitude after Trump took office, and the unity among Nordic countries as background information. The use of the subtitle enables readers to quickly understand the content of each section. However, it is very scattered in describing the specific countermeasures and attitudes of each small country. As a British news media, BBC inevitably places the UK in an important position in this report, such as at the beginning and the end. This might cause the news focus to be unclear in my content layout.
Figure 3: A screenshot from this BBC News.
Each part of this news article is accompanied by relevant pictures of people or places, which breaks the monotony of the text. However, there are no links provided and no indication of the sources of the data cited within the text.
Figure 4: A screenshot from this BBC News.
Online delivery：
BBC News has added the tags of “Russia”, “Estonia” and “Vladimir Putin” to this article, along with links to related news for readers to browse them in association. Moreover,This news has a journalist’s byline and beside the attribution, there is a link to the journalist’s Twitter account. This news can also be shared on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, but BBC News does not provide a comment section, so users cannot have discussions, which limits the interactivity of the website. Excessive insertion of advertisements can also cause certain visual discomfort.
New story 2:“Uncomfortable” to hear Trump take Russia’s side: EU foreign policy chief (Axios)
Link:https://www..com/2025/02/28/eu-ukraine-russia-kaja-kallas-interview-trump
The audience analysis data of Axios is also sourced from Similarweb website. From January to March in 2025, the top three countries providing the main traffic for it are the same as those of BBC. The difference is that browsing from the United States accounted for almost the entire proportion, reaching 89.74%, while Canada accounted for 3.02% and the United Kingdom only accounted for 0.93%.
Figure 5: A screenshot from the website showing the geographical data of Axios News viewers.
Figure 6: A screenshot from the website showing the gender and age data of Axios News viewers.
Writing and content production :
Unlike the headline of the above-mentioned BBC news which merely states the facts, this headline of Axios expresses a clear emotion: Uncomfortable. Meanwhile, this news piece also placed an image of the EU’s diplomatic chief frowning and speaking at the beginning, emphasizing this uncomfortable mood.
Figure 7: A screenshot from this Axios News.
This Axios article uses bold font for the key points, such as “Why it matters”, “State of play”, and divides the content into several key points for listing, making the information very clear and providing a good browsing experience for the audience.This news directly quotes Kallas’ remarks in several places to avoid causing readers’ misunderstandings. This approach also more directly conveys the emotions and expresses her strong dissatisfaction with the US government and Trump’s words and deeds. As mentioned in the news, Kallas has another identity as the former Prime Minister of Estonia. Based on her two identities, her remarks can clearly reflect the national stance and attitude. Regarding the news about the changing relations between the United States and Russia and the attitudes of small European countries, it is obvious that Kallas’ remarks are more appropriate than the statements made by British soldiers in the BBC news.
Under this piece of news, there are relevant news items about NATO, the United States and Trump set up by GO deep. Readers can directly scroll down to browse the related information.
Online delivery：
Like the BBC News, this piece of news also provides the name of the reporter (but no information about the reporter’s social media or email link), and readers can share this news on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter.What makes this news article better than the BBC news it is compared with is that it provides more hyperlinks to related topics. Readers can conveniently browse the content of related topics as well as the sources of the data provided in the news, which makes the news report more persuasive and extensible.
As this news piece is relatively short and mainly focuses on the remarks made by Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, during an interview with Axios News website, only one photo of Kallas is provided as a caption, without any additional diverse media.
Besides, on this news page, there are no extensive advertisements or other irrelevant contents. Compared with BBC News, the page of Axios appears to be cleaner and tidier, providing readers with a better reading experience. Meanwhile, AXIOS also has the problem that it lacks a user discussion area, which limits its interactivity.
Conclusion：
The contents of the two news reports both demonstrate the concerns of small European countries regarding the changes in the international situation. They focus on the attitude of the Trump administration of the United States towards Europe and Russia, and propose countermeasures accordingly.In terms of expression, BBC News presents facts more objectively and leans towards stating the facts. In contrast, Axios News expresses strong emotional tendencies in its headlines.
After comparison, the news provided by BBC offers more objective information and picture materials, but the page layout is not as neat as that of AXIOS. The extraction of key information points is not clear. AXIOS obviously does better in providing related information of the news, offering hyperlinks and data sources, which is very important for news.
It should be noted that the differences in language style, length and page layout are determined by the scale of the news website. As the largest broadcasting company globally, BBC is inevitably involved in advertising placement business. However, in this news article, BBC inserted too many advertisements, causing a reading gap and objectively affecting the reading experience of readers.
Reference：
- (2024). BBC Group Annual Report and Accounts 2023/24. https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/ara-2023-24.pdf
- Silvery, R.J.E. (2016). Who’s Listening? Routledge eBooks. Informa. doi:https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315444246.
- SimilarWeb (2024). SimilarWeb.com – Competitive Intelligence Tool. [online] SimilarWeb.com. Available at: https://pro.similarweb.com/.
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