Analysis Project:

Arts & Humanities

Lauren Norris

Morgan Burkett

Chandler Gardner

General Information

The New York Times (NYT) is daily paper that is issued around the country. The paper is published,

and also founded in September 18, 1851, in New York by The New York Times Company. The paper,

printed version, has the largest distribution of any metropolitan newspaper in the entire country. It is

also the second largest distributed paper around the globe, only behind The Wall Street Journal.

Since the mid ‘70’s, The New York Times has added special weekly sections alongside the

regular news, sports, editorials, and feature news to expand the paper. Because of this, the paper has

recently organized the different topics into sections: News, Editorials, Business, Sports, Arts, Science,

Style, Home, Review, etc. The paper has also begun to publish The New York Times Style Magazine,

which includes some of the same information as the Sunday paper as well as longer “style” articles.

Beginning in 2012, The New York Times raised the cost of its paper by 50 cents. The cost

for the Monday to Saturday issues is $2.50. Since the Sunday issue is much bigger than the rest of the

week, readers can buy the edition for $5 in New York and $6 anywhere else in the country.

Subscriber’s can also have The New York Times delivered to their home for the same price as well.

Purpose

The New York Times is one of the most diverse newspapers in terms of content. The Times is divided

into more than 15 sections. This includes the more serious topics like World News, Politics, Business,

US, Technology, Science, and Health. Along with the more “hard news” topics, the Times also

includes more feature sections like Arts, Sports, Style, Food, Home, Travel, Magazine, Obituaries, and

Real Estate.

The motto of The New York Times is “All the News That’s Fit to Print” and it can be seen in the

upper left corner on the front page of the paper. Since The New York Times can also be found online,

the online publication’s motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Click”.

In the Arts section of The New York Times it is divided into further sections as well. The different

topics include art & design, books, dance, movies, music, television, theater, video games, events,

and international arts. The type of articles that one will find include fan based reviews, informed

critiques, profiles of different people, etc.

Audience

The “Arts” section of “The New York Times” seems to attempt to appeal to a wide range of audiences solely

based upon the different types of content represented in the published articles. In the one single hard print

issue the topics include video games, plays/theatre, opera, more “poppy” music, orchestra and interpretive

music shows, television, movies, dance, books, and even Bridge. The section also, of course, contains the

daily crossword puzzle, and number puzzles. Simply judging by the wide range of topics covered in this

section shows that there is content that almost anybody can connect with and enjoy. By including the article

“Tantalizing Potential Outpaces Reality” which is based upon an emerging technology, that is as of now

centralized around gaming, called the Oculus Rift creates an access point for this section of the newspaper to

an audience that may be generally less interested in the bulk of the content.

Articles such as the show review of “Josephine and I” which is a tribute by Jumbo Cush; or the opening of a

new orchestra concert hall in New York occupy most of the space in this section of the newspaper. The

content in these articles is heavily geared towards a much more specific audience than that of the virtual

reality technology article. The prominence of these types of articles that gear toward such a specific audience

shows (ignoring the title of the paper) that the primary target audience of this section of the paper is art

consumers who live in or are frequent visitors of New York specifically.

Visual Identity

“The New York Times” Makes an effort through their visual aspects to appeal to a specific

audience and create a specific visual identity. In the print edition, it is clear just by looking at

the pages which articles are most important to the editors of this newspaper. There are very

few pictures that are in color but the select few that are, are attached to articles such as dance

and theatre review; articles that would generally draw in and appeal to an educated, wealthy,

and middle aged and older audience. The newspaper chooses to publish many more of these

articles than those that would appeal to a wider or different audience, and they take a much

larger portion of the page.They create their own visual identity through their primary target

audience.

Subjects and Genre: Needs

To be considered a critique, the articles need to fall into the qualifications

of subjects aimed towards enthusiasts over fans. Articles need to be more in-

depth and insightful than a simple review. The idealized desire of the targeted

audience is to be creatively informed of how a certain subject can satisfy their

interests as an enthusiast of the arts.

Subjects and Genre: Interest

● Theatre

o Broadway

o Documentaries

o Directors/Actors Biographies

● Movies

o Past and up-and-coming cinemas

o Actors

● Television Reviews

● Video Games

● Events

● Arts & Design

o Internation Arts

● Music Reviews

● Book Reviews

● Dance

Subjects and Genre: Purpose● The New York Times is successful in meeting the

needs of the enthusiasts that loyally return to the

publication. This can be seen in the way that The

New York Times has included 10 different sections

under the Arts.

● The recurring theme that can be seen in the Arts and

Leisure section is that it aims to show the

significance that one person, a single piece of art, or

a performance can have in the arts and humanities.

● The advertising that is seen in The New York Times,

both online and in the printed publication, is

successful in meeting the purpose of reaching the

target audience by catching their attention with an

intriguing photo and using ads that are relevant and

relatable to the audience.

Enticing All to See the Bigger Picture

The article linked above is an excellent example of the type of enthusiast geared articles

that “The New York Times” produces. The author is clearly an avid consumer of video

games yet he wishes to show other enthusiasts that there is something more to gaming

than just entertainment. In the article he expresses having what he calls digital anxiety.

By this he means that at times he feels and believes that other gamers feel like spending

time playing video games is a waste of time. He goes on to describe a video game (which

truthfully sounds terribly awful) that he has been playing that has a large amount of

philosophical and literary content that he feels creates a more fulfilling experience. This

article is an example of an enthusiast critique because the author examines aspects of a

non mainstream game in a unique way with a perspective that could change the way

people game. The author suggests through writing this article that through clever ideas

video games can be a thought provoking existential experience.

In the article, “In the Documentary ‘GTFO’, Female Video Gamers Fight Back”, Robert Ito writes

about the psychological and sexual harassment that female gamers are receiving from other

male gamers on a daily basis. This article is an excellent example of an enthusiast analysis

piece for The New York Times. The reason behind this is though Ito is speaking about the

subject video games, the article is focused more on the difficult journey that Jenny Haniver, the

main subject for the documentary, is taking in making this movie. The topic of the reaction to

the verbal abuse that female gamers experience has been one that has been gaining more

attention. In the documentary it tackles more than just the issue of verbal harassment; it also

looks at the body images issues that come from the way that female characters are drawn and

dressed in video games. Haniver explains in the article that she not only hopes to make people

aware of this kind of abuse, but also hopes to reach out and inspire female gamers, “I don’t

think that women just naturally aren’t interested in gaming,” she continued. “I think gaming

culture itself has driven women out”. This article is one that even if you’re not into the video

game scene, it’s good to know how women are being treated throughout multiple industries.

In the Documentary ‘GTFO’, Female Video

Gamers Fight Back

Unexpected Lessons from ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’A.O. Scott analyzes the worldwide cinema “Fifty Shades of Grey” with a

critical tone in The New York Times on February 28, 2015. Instead of simply

reviewing the basis of the film, he gives detailed opinions of how extremes

from the book compare to the cinema. For instance, Scott says that Ms.

Taylor-Johnson’s filmmaking “restores the aura of mystery”, thus improving

the author’s original text, which rode the line of a “bad pornography”. He

continues to argue that fans and critics aren’t always looking for the same

thing. This helps him to introduce his opinion that the movie was more

creative than the book. Scott goes further into his review and makes

connections to other films that aspired from a book series, such as Twilight

and Harry Potter. In addition, he addresses the idea that some films have the

power to completely transform a viewer’s mindset or openness to make them

perceive a cinema like a targeted viewer. By making these assumptions and

in-depth connections, Scott appeals more to enthusiasts as viewers over

fans by offering a more insightful analysis of the cinema.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/movies/unexpected-lessons-from-fifty-shades-of-grey.html?smid=pl-share

Works Cited

"Arts." The New York Times. The New York Times, n.d. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Robert. "In the Documentary ‘GTFO,’ Female Video Gamers Fight Back." The New York Times. The New

York Times, 07 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Scott, A.O. “Unexpected Lessons From Fifty Shades of Grey”. The New York Times. 28 Feb. 2015. Web. 09

Mar. 2015

Suellentrop, Chris. "Enticing All to See the Bigger Picture." The New York Times. The New York Times, 27 Jan.

2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.

Suellentrop, Chris. "Virtual Reality’s Potential Displayed at Game Developers Conference." The New York

Times. The New York Times, 08 Mar. 2015. Web. 13 Mar. 2015.