Working Memory in Newspapers' Front Pages

Alan Baddley and Graham Hitch introduced the concept of working memory in 1974 with the purpose of providing the world with a more complex idea of short-term memory. Their theory involves the central executive and its slave systems, the phonological loop and the visuo-spatial sketchpad. The slave systems play an important role in short-term memory and make it possible for the central executive to process ideas more efficiently.

When considering the cover page of the National Enquirer, one can observe how marketing teams were provided with the opportunity to get a good grasp of short-term memory and the degree to which it shapes thinking in the masses. Today, the cover page of the National Enquirer lists, in capital letters and eye-grasping colors (red) the exclusive story for the day (the title "exclusive" is also listed in bright red).

The way the title is shaped is also revealing: the key words "revealing secret plan to meet" target the short-term memory and link the central executive and slave systems. The key about the Baddley and Hitch model is the fact that it proposes a combination of visual and phonological as the triggers of short-term memory and, subsequently, of long-term memory.

Translated to the front page of newspapers like the National Enquirer and The Sun, this would mean that the visual aids of the front page and the phonological instruments, such as the resonance of the words in the title, create an impact on the individual memory. This impact should mean that the reader will immediately resonate, via short-term memory, with the title and front page, and that he will also recall the title over a longer period of time, via the long-term memory.

Comparing this with the front page of The Sun, a well-known British tabloids, there are several similar aspects to be mentioned. The Sun uses a similar approach, although, in this case, the phonological component is more important than the visuo-spatial sketchpad. This is emphasized by the fact that the front page of The Sun prefers more titles on the front page than the Enquirer, all of them with stronger wording and impact in the phonological segment.

As such, some of the titles on the front page of The Sun reads "jaws scare for Benidorm Brits as boy is attacked." This title has no visual aid (there is only a photo of a beach), but the wording is strong in the phonological segment. There are at least two component to be mentioned, namely the fact that there is a jaw scare and the fact that a boy was attacked. The wording here is more likely to be retained by the reader.

It is stronger, with greater impact because of the nature of the text: the attack and the jaw scare will likely pass from the short to the long-term memory Given all these considerations, when designing a textbook, a combination of the two will be used. For a student,.