Journalism, political change and front-page design.

Abstract

This paper examines the development of journalism norms by investigating the transformation of newspaper's front page design, its content and elements, over a century. The study (of daily Politika, Belgrade) analyses the types of stories and elements that typically appear on the front page of a newspaper and investigates how headlines, use of visuals, layout, selection of topics, proportion of facts and opinions, and journalism self- referentiality, serve the purpose of attracting and engaging readers. The working assumption is that the first page of a newspaper reflects not only the most important events of a previous day (social reality) but it reveals journalism approach to those events (newspaper's interpretation and construction of reality).