When I first heard of the assignment to analyze wedding announcements, I was skeptical about how much it could actually reveal about a newspaper. To put this skepticism to the test, I decided to check my local newspaper’s wedding and milestone announcements because I have a fairly thorough understanding of the paper’s target audience. Choosing a random date for announcements in the Coeur d’Alene Press, led me to some fascinating findings.

For starters, I was instantly reminded of how small and well connected the Coeur d’Alene community really is. I had some sort of connection to both the wedding announcements and the only engagement announcement. For the weddings, I learned that a girl I grew up with as a family friend was married this summer and that a son of my dad’s coworkers also got married. The engagement announcement was for the son of my high school Spanish teacher who also happened to play on the same baseball team as my older brother. This connectedness in and of itself reveals that the audience of the paper is not only quite small, but quite connected to one another. The substance of announcements also reveals details about the audience. Almost all of the announcements emphasize the high school that each person attended, which further shows the connectedness of the community. Many of the announcements focus on military service and religion, which gives insight into the values of the paper’s readers. Both of these items reveal a more conservative constituency through the glorification of both church and military service. All of these details fit in with my preconceived understanding of the Coeur d’Alene Press’s audience.

In order to get a comparison I chose to look at a similarly small paper from San Juan Island, Washington where I interned two summers ago. After reading some wedding announcements in the San Juan Islander, it became much more obvious how much information about target audience can be found in wedding announcement. The San Juan Islander announcements all emphasized the local, small community as well with a focus on high schools and discussion of how each person is involved in the community. Another common theme in the wedding announcements was the type of employment each person was involved in. Most of the announcements mentioned employment by a local marine or aquatic store and some sort of environmentally focused career. These two facts reveal that the readers of the newspaper are nautically focused and environmentally concerned. While the political leanings are not as obvious as they were in the Coeur d’Alene Press, there are still subtle hints of the Islands’ left-leaning nature. One announcement in particular mentions the groom’s participation at the Catholic Worker House in South Bend (as an ND grad student, whom I met last winter), one of the radically liberal wings of the Catholic Church.

CDA Press Announcements: http://www.cdapress.com/lifestyles/article_1c40d353-499c-5ce3-b7a8-20d5c54db8f8.html

San Juan Islander Announcements: http://www.sanjuanislander.com/island-newshome/announcements/weddings

The two different newspapers I chose wedding announcements from were the Cape Cod Times, and the Hartford Courant. I decided to choose these two different papers because I live in Cape Cod during the summers and my home resident is in Essex CT, which is close to Hartford. These, other than the major newspapers such as New York Times and smaller news sources such as my local newspaper, are the only papers I have read consistently throughout my life. As I began to navigate their websites, I noticed the uncanny similarity between the two newspapers, especially within the wedding announcements. The formats were even similar. Both of the websites’ wedding announcement sections were “powered” by Legacy.com, which I furthered investigated to be the leading provider of obituaries to online newspaper sites all over the country. Legacy.com has also expanded their horizons to not only obituaries but also to general announcements, such as engagements, births and weddings. Based on a format assessment alone, I was able to judge that both of these newspapers and their wedding announcement sections in particular are similar. This means they are targeting a similar audience, an audience capable of using a search engine such as Legacy.com to find wedding announcements.
But within the content of the wedding announcements alone these two newspapers are similar as well. Both the bride and the groom on the entire first page of wedding announcements on both websites were middle age, white, Caucasian, and straight. This rules out the fact that these type of newspapers are targeting gay audiences, inner city, mostly black, audiences, and poorer audiences. Wedding announcements are a function within the newspaper for pure entertain of the people reading the article. Entertainment within the announcement section serves through readers reacting to exciting news of people like them, or people they might know. So if newspapers publish all white, all middle income, all straight, type of couples, these are the types of people they think their audiences will connect to, or possibly know. Why would a newspaper audience be interested in a wedding announcement of a couple that their readers cannot connect to? They wouldn’t. And this is why wedding announcements in both the Cape Cod Times and the Hartford Courant tell us that these are the type of people newspapers are targeting.

I come from a norther suburb of Philadelphia, where news coverage is often a frustrating mixture of (sometimes seemingly pointless) local stories and national news.  One would think that an established Philadelphia area newspaper, in one of the most recognizable cities on the east coast, would be able to stand up to other major east coast papers, such as the New York Times in many ways.  The differences between the Philadelphia Intelligencer and the New York Times are far more numerous than this blog post leaves room for.  However, one of the most interesting sections of the papers that zooms in on this disparity is the Wedding Announcements.  The New York Times is famous (infamous?) for their selectivity in which announcements actually make it to print.  An article published by The Atlantic takes  an interesting, analytical look at this, entitled “The Odds of Getting into The New York Times Wedding Section”.  In this article, we find that many factors exponentially increase a couple’s chances of making it in The Times, down to the very number.  Certain factors that are almost criteria for making it, according to this article, are family ties to Greenwich, CT, a Harvard/Princeton/Yale degree, ties to Congress, same-sex marriage, or a prestigious career in law or investment banking.  It is obvious that the demographic in the NYT wedding section is overwhelmingly the white, upper-class elite.  On the other hand, our good ol’ Philly Burbs paper features a wedding and news hybrid, almost blocking out any other wedding announcements. This article, called “Paralyzed Bride-to-Be Plans to Walk Down the Aisle,” features a long segment on a young woman and her fiancee’s love prevailing in the face of hardship.  The couple featured hold middle-class jobs – Alissa is a nurse and Nathan is in the military.  This highly personalized and publicized story is quite a stretch from the selective NYT, who’s who couples of American society.

Sources:
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2011/12/odds-getting-new-york-times-wedding-section/45440/
http://www.phillyburbs.com/lifestyle/celebrations/paralyzed-bride-to-be-plans-to-walk-down-aisle/article_7eb867be-08bb-11e2-b46b-0019bb30f31a.html

I compared the wedding announcements from the South Bend Tribune and Chicago Tribune, and it seemed to me that there was a significant difference in both the style of the announcements and the background of the people whose marriage was being reported. In some ways, the announcements in the Chicago Tribune seemed to aim at publicizing family and educational accomplishments as much as marriages.

Looking at the recent wedding announcements from the South Bend Tribune, the information provided is generally much less detailed than the write-ups in the Chicago Tribune, and often the South Bend Tribune provides just the most basic personal information on the bride and groom and location of the ceremony. The South Bend Tribune may provide the hometown, occupation, and former school(s) of the bride and groom, but often only the names of the bride and groom will be mentioned in a 2-3 sentence description of the marriage. The occupations and educational degrees that were mentioned by the South Bend Tribune were all respectable and impressive, but probably don’t have the same “social polish” or appeal as many listed in the Chicago Tribune.

The marriages announced in the Chicago Tribune almost always featured one or both of the bride and groom having received a postgraduate degree of some kind. Many of the universities attended are recognizable as prestigious institutions, such as Virginia, Georgetown, Notre Dame, and Northwestern. A large proportion of the recent marriages I read about featured at least one medical doctor, and there was also mention of individuals practicing business and law. One announcement even provided a description of the groom’s family members that were former distinguished officials or businessmen in Chicago. The marriage announcements in the Chicago Tribune definitely seemed to aim at unions between upper class families with backgrounds of public influence or reputable education.

Marriage announcements likely do not speak directly to the readership demographic of a particular newspaper, but they do seem to suggest that particularly “high-profile” marriages aim to announce their unions in chief papers in big cities like the Chicago Tribune. I would speculate that both the South Bend Tribune and Chicago Tribune have audiences from across the class spectrum, but the larger papers appear to contain spaces that are reserved for upper classes.

Weddings are a majority of the time an excuse for extravagance and going way over a set budget. But in the case of celebrities, going over budget is not an issue. We see these displays of diamonds, fine wine, caviar (which is nasty), and exclusivity unlike those of the common folk. Although “upstaged” in extravagance, strong attention – no, obsession – is given to those wed locked celebrities and their celebration. I look at one celebrity wedding in particular, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s, and compare two sources (one English, the other Spanish) and how the monumental event is described.
One source is the LA Times, in which the article is titled “Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds’ Chic Southern Wedding.” Right off the bat one can tell an emphasis would be put on the fashion/extravagance of the wedding. This is confirmed with words such as “stylish” in regards to the event and “A-list talent” in regards to the entertainment. The article continues to describe the ambiance of the wedding and what kinds of extravagances were incorporated. Names of designers and jewelers are basic in such articles.
My next choice was Univision.com, a prominent Spanish-language source. The word choice used leads to a more intimate understanding of the couple. Descriptions of the couple as having a “relación sentimental” (sentimental relationship) and referring to the fact that the entertainment was a good friend of the actress; all are indications of the personable aspect the source is trying to portray. Not so much concentrating on the extravagance. It even references where the couple first met. This essentially focused on their persons.
By comparing the two I am in no way saying English sources are focused on materialistic aspects while Spanish on personal, but this gives some insight as to how the sources, both covering the same event, present differing aspects in accordance to the wants of their readership. This then goes back to the idea of that journalism maintains a strong tie to its profit-focused being while maintaining credibility.

Personally I could care less which celebrities get married with the exception of my celebrity crush, Salma Hayek.

LA Times Article: http://lat.ms/S4YfKo
Univision Article: http://bit.ly/QDVAHi

My brother-in-law is from a small town in upstate Wisconsin, where the population numbers in the thousands. I had always heard about this small town from my sister, who would describe the kindness of the people and its cute downtown. After years of hearing about Merrill, WI, I finally got the chance to see it for myself, and it was, of all honesty, a great town. My brother-in-law and his family have always been such kind people, so I was not surprised at the kind feeling of the town. I traveled up there a few weekends ago for the bridal shower of my brother-in-law’s sister (or my sister’s sister-in-law, which ever is the correct term), at their parent’s home. I arrived a little on the late side, but upon my arrival, I realized the large crowd of people at the gathering. It was packed in the living room! And as I traveled around after the presents had been opened, I saw their wedding announcement hung on the refrigerator. It was a big announcement, cut from the local paper.I ventured to that website of the local paper, thinking of this question of wedding announcements, and upon arrival to the home page, found a link at the top of the page to announcements, as well as that of engagement and wedding forms to fill out and send to the paper. I think in smaller towns, much like that of Merrill, WI, wedding announcements are such a huge part of their paper because of the close-knit community. It’s interesting, then, to go to a southern newspaper in Milwaukee in Wisconsin an realize it is harder to find wedding announcements, as well the form to will out wedding announcements. When a member of a smaller community (or their child) gets engaged and married, the people like to share in the celebration of this event and the happiness of the couple. It was done in a similar manner in my hometown, a little larger than that of Merrill, but still a place where people like to hear the news of community members and friends and share in the celebration.

News Source: http://www.merrillcourier.net/index.html

http://hinsdale.suntimes.com/

http://search.jsonline.com/Search.aspx?k=wedding&s.x=26&s.y=13

While trying to brainstorm two newspapers that can be used to compare wedding announcements, I found myself looking back to my experience in Idaho and how different that area was from my hometown, Chicago. This summer I
Interned with the Nez Perce Reservation near Lewiston, Idaho and I discovered in my old backpack a weathered copy of the reservation newspaper, known as the Tac Tito’oqan. During my time there I had written several articles relating to the region’s environmental and social concerns and read it whenever I could. The Tac Tito’oqan differed greatly from my “hometown” newspaper, the Chicago Tribune. This becomes most evident when reading the wedding announcements. In the Tac Tito’oqan, wedding announcements submitted by the readers are long, detailed and personal. Essentially, they are mini biographies about the two people coming together to be married. A small newspaper with limited readership has the room for such detailed announcements because of lack of potential advertisers and writers. The newspaper itself is very personal, less focused on professionalism. The reservation is large for most reservations but the population is still around 5,000. Everyone knows everybody and the few publics that make up the reservation all overlap. When looking at the wedding announcements I wasn’t surprised to see that every couple was not only Native American but they were all Nez Perce Indian. Non-natives do live on the land but their relationship with the tribe is very stressed and therefore they would never read a native newspaper. Compare all of this to the Chicago Tribune. The first noticeable difference is the length of the announcements. All are very short, factual and to the point. It is also important to point out that I read the wedding announcements in the Tribune on their own web page. Not only does the Tac Tito’oqan lack a separate page for wedding announcements, they lack an entire website. The paper is also distributed monthly. The weddings you see are after an entire month has passed by – the immediacy of information is not as vital. As far as those represented in the announcement, the Tribune displays a diverse constituency. The first three announcements are about a Columbian-american couple, a teacher and a venture capitalist, and a national guardsman marrying his high school sweetheart. The Chicago Tribune is a national, metropolitan newspaper and its readership is very large. It represents thousands of different publics. The Tac Tito’oqan represents small, secluded publics that all interrelate within a culturally separate nation.

Although I know the assignment was intended to be a comparison of wedding announcements from two different sources, this proved to be challenging for me, as neither the Minneapolis Star Tribune nor the St. Paul Pioneer Press post these announcements online, and I wanted to compare wedding announcements at my local and state level.  Instead, I found a related article from the Stillwater Gazette, my hometown newspaper, that I thought could prove to be an interesting study to tie together with an analysis of wedding announcements.

When I searched “wedding announcements” on the Stillwater Gazette website, I stumbled upon an article from July entitled, “Weddings on a stick: County Fair offers free weddings, vow renewals.” The Washington County Fair Board Director John Rheinberger boasts, “We are the only county in the United States to offer fair-sponsored free weddings and vow renewals every day of our fair to every qualified person without any pre-registration or contest involved, and in a very open setting on the fairgrounds so that all other fairgoers can witness the ceremonies.” The fact that Washington County is the only county in the nation to offer this “service” speaks to its small-town vibe, as only in such a town would people be interested in this event, with chances actually being good that one may know someone who is getting married or renewing vows.

The article quotes Judge Greg Galler, who performs the ceremonies: “I love the demographics of the fair. It is a good gathering spot and the ceremonies are something everyone can enjoy whether they participate or observe.” His characterization speaks to the public of those who live in Washington County, as within this area, the Washington County Fair is obviously a community-gathering place. He also characterizes the public as one that enjoys participating in such events, which obviously indicates some value placed on a sense of kinship and community. This story, albeit rather corny, indicates a great deal about the public of Washington County residents and Stillwater Gazette readers.

Furthermore, the actual engagement announcements in the Stillwater Gazette provide similar information about the public that is Stillwater residents. There are very few engagement announcements featured in the paper, which speaks to the fact that it is for a small town audience in which engagements are likely infrequent. In fact, there was a nearly two-month gap between the two most recent announcements featured on the site. The announcements are quite standard, with information including the names of the parents of the couple, where they attended high school, where they attended college, current place of residence, and occupation. All of the announcements I looked at included a white, heterosexual couple. The fact that no gay couples were featured is indicative of the “traditional” values of the small town, as well as of Minnesota, which does not yet permit gay marriage. The fact that these couples are all white and have attended college indicates a readership that is generally white, middle-class, and suburban families.

http://stillwatergazette.com/2012/07/20/weddings-on-a-stick-county-fair-offers-free-weddings-vow-renewals/

http://stillwatergazette.com/2012/09/14/myrvold-gleason/

​Comparing the wedding announcements from a big city newspaper to those published in a community post offers a lot of insight into the difference in intended audiences. The Chicago Tribune publishes, on average, short paragraphs that offer the necessary information about the bride and groom. Generally, it touches on their name, age, job, schooling, date and location of the wedding, and where they plan to go for their honeymoon. A picture is included with each announcement as well. This matter-of-fact reporting style shows that The Chicago Tribune understand that their readers are not purchasing the paper in hopes of catching up on the local gossip or social happenings, but rather interested in serious news happening in their city. Also, given the large audience that the Chicago Tribune is catering to, it is understood that many of the readers will not know anyone mentioned in the wedding announcements and are therefore not concerned with the information given in these articles. For this reason, they keep the wedding announcements short and to the point.
​This is not the case for the wedding announcements published in The Connecticut Post, however. Utilizing much space for their celebration section, this newspaper publishes multi-paragraph articles covering each wedding. Every detail about the function is included. In addition to the basic facts covered in the Tribune’s articles, the Post discusses the parents of the bride and groom, names the maid of honor, best man and ring bearer, and touches on how the bride and groom met each other. The Post understands their audience well. Many of the readers of this newspaper will know the families of the bride and groom and are very interested to know the details of their wedding. By including such facts, the Post is catering to the interests of their audience very well. Also, one can assume that the readers of the Connecticut Post have a genuine interest in the members of their community more than you would find in a large city such as Chicago. To them, news about weddings and celebrations may be equally relevant to serious news regarding events going on worldwide.

Connecticut Post example: http://www.ctpost.com/weddings/article/Perry-Procaccini-3881763.php
Chicago Tribune example: http://www.legacy.com/celebration/chicagotribune/celebrations-announcement.aspx?n=ricardo-garcia&aid=155565097

This is a post regarding out “Documenting Publics” Assignment:

Rather than document my publics over the weekend, I decided to compile my information so that I would be able to reflect on it all at once.

I realize that it’s not necessarily ‘democracy’, but I decided to take an approach of viewing publics right on our own campus. A football weekend brings out many, many different publics, and a variety of different types of reporting. With thousands of people on campus, it’s hard for there to not be so many publics.

This weekend was especially different because of the movement to support Manti Te’o through wearing leis. I thought it was incredible how people could come together to do something like that. It was a simple gesture, yes, but that news had to spread somehow. Twitter and Facebook were (and, I can’t believe I’m about to write this) essential in disseminating this information.

Video served in a big way for pre-game hype – on Friday and Saturday there were youtube links abound, showing highlights of the Michigan State game as well as previews for the Michigan game. One of my favorites was this one, which served to highlight the MSU game as well as promote the group who sings the background music, who performed at Friday’s pep rally: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcqRC5gHKpY&feature=g-all-u

Just walking around the parking lot on Saturday, it was hard not to notice the co-mingling of various communities. Alumni, students, fans who never went here, friends, Michigan fans, professors, faculty, all came together to support one team. It always amazes me how Notre Dame gets like that on football weekends; there are just so many people. Rather than some type of media, the game itself served as interaction for various publics.

On Sunday, an article was published that focused not so much on Notre Dame’s victory, but rather on Manti Te’o, who has recently suffered some personal losses. The article was informative, compelling, and did more than simply scratch the surface of the importance of the game from an athletic standpoint. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/pete_thamel/09/22/notre-dame-michigan-week-4/index.html?sct=cf_t13_a0

On Monday, it was “back to normal” as it always is, but that doesn’t mean that Notre Dame stops being a part of other various publics. We are a university. We are catholic. We are nationally and internationally renowned. We will always be watched by the eyes of various publics who also belong to groups that fit these descriptions. On Monday, the university announced that they have invited both President Obama and Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney to speak on campus during their campaigns: http://www.indystar.com/viewart/20120925/NEWS0502/209250340/Notre-Dame-invites-Obama-Romeny-speak

Of course, I couldn’t avoid using FlipBoard (it’s just so cool!) so here were my favorites from over the weekend (unrelated to Notre Dame):

TIME’s 50 best websites of 2012: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/18/50-best-websites-2012/#introduction-2

Consumer reporting on a serious issue: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/health/new-system-for-patients-to-report-medical-mistakes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0moc.semityn.www

The Obama campaign is not satisfied with being ahead in the polls: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/decision2012/obama-campaign-redoubling-efforts-amid-fears-of-voter-complacency/2012/09/22/4945776e-0264-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html

The online wedding page for the New York Times differs vastly from that of the Providence Journal.

The Providence Journal (http://www.providencejournal.com/arts-entertainment/weddings/content/) focuses mainly on announcing weddings, and nothing more. They publish announcements for what seem to be upper-middle-class white families (based on the last names and venues of the weddings), which makes sense because this is a large demographic of the New England region.

In contrast, the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/fashion/weddings/index.html) has announcements, along with stories about weddings, articles about planning weddings, and links to politically charged articles about gay weddings.

The difference between the two papers and their wedding announcement tells us a lot about the publics they respectively serve. Clearly, the New York Times is a high-budget paper that can afford to feature specific weddings, as well as other stories of love and wedding preparation. Even the little-known names have fascinating stories. These range from, “The bride is an actress, the groom is a comedy writer” to, “They met on the subway, but not before taking many rides together.” The idea of the wedding section of the Times is not only to provide information about weddings that will occur, but also to provide entertaining stories to their readers. Thus, the Times reaches a public of many people who may not even know or have heard of the weddings they announce, but will care anyway because at the end of the day it’s still a good human interest story.

The Journal only seems to announce weddings. There is no section that includes human interest-type pieces on which dresses are trendy or what to do to make planning a wedding easier. It is likely that local readers have heard of the couples, or at least one member of each couple, who are being announced. The journal reaches a much closer public than the Times, and along with a smaller budget, is the type of paper that serves more local areas rather than a national scale.

I chose to compare the wedding announcements of two, well-known papers with large circulation, but in very different areas of the country. My hypothesis in class was that the target audience of a newspaper would be most evident through the wedding announcements it chooses to print.

First I looked at an announcement in The Dallas Morning News. In this paper there was a photo of the bride but not the groom. Monique Lhuillier designed the gown (as I found out from the story). The announcement began with a detailed description of the wedding ceremony, all of the events related to it, and everyone who did anything of note in the wedding. It listed the parents of the bride and groom, as well as a detailed and long wedding party. At the end it mentioned their degrees and jobs as well as where they plan to honeymoon.

Next I looked at an announcement in The New York Times. In this paper there was a photo of both the bride and groom but they were not dressed in their wedding attire; instead the photo appears to be from an engagement photo shoot. The story was about half the size of the one in the Morning News and began with a short, two sentence summary of the event. It then launched into a more detailed description of the bride, a television and film actress, and her parents, both retired from positions at Nabisco and I.B.M. Finally was the groom, who is a sketch comedy writer for a show on Comedy Central and his parents, both also of elite positions.

One notable difference between the two is that the announcement in the Times focused much more on the “who” and what those individuals have done whereas the Morning News focused on the “what” and the extravagance of the ceremony in its entirety. I think in this case my hypothesis is proven to be true, in that I know from a story I did about the Texas Club at ND that many Texans love planning events and throwing huge celebrations, whereas I think from what I have heard about New York, the people who live there are more interested in the who’s who of daily life. I would be interested to see if other papers throughout the country also reveal their target audience through the facts they choose to write about in the wedding announcements.