Evaluation Questions First Draft

Evaluation Questions:

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

The media product I chose to use was a newspaper and specifically a local newspaper and I chose this because it was similar to the magazine I did in my AS coursework and I felt that the newspaper was more writing based rather than IT based which better benefitted my skill set and allowed me to create a better final product. In order to create a realistic and professional newspaper it was important that I did conform to certain newspaper conventions to achieve this aim.

As my newspaper was intended for a local audience it was better for it to be a broadsheet rather than a tabloid style because the new stories in local newspapers needed to be grounded in reality so that the audience can connect with them rather than the more ‘sensational’ stories that are found in the tabloids that populate the national press. This can be seen in my product with the main story being about more tedious things such as where the police decide to park their cars and other smaller stories being about local schools, housing estate, cinemas and sports teams which are more easily applied to a local audience.

In terms of a newspaper a masthead is the title of the newspaper which is on the first page of the newspaper and is usually located in the top left hand corner of the page, for example the masthead of my newspaper is ‘Bristol Chronicle’. The main requirement for a newspaper masthead is that it news to be eye-catching in order to get the attention of potential readers and conventionally most mastheads are usually in a different font compared to other writing in the newspaper and some others are even different colours. An example of this is the ‘North Somerset Times’ and the ‘Bristol Post’ which are predominately blue rather than black is considered to be the norm, and my newspaper follows this convention as my masthead, ‘Bristol Chronicle’ is also predominately blue. The masthead of my newspaper is also conventional because it is emboldened and not in Times New Roman font like the rest of the writing on the page. It is also common that mastheads are very large and are usually on the largest items on the page and this is so that the masthead sticks out so that it can grab the attention of the readers and make it a more recognisable brand.

Headlines are commonly one of the largest aspects of the front page and are slightly smaller than the masthead, however unlike the masthead they are normally in the same font as the writing in the news stories and this is commonly Times New Roman. Headlines can be used in a variety of ways for example these headlines from the North Somerset Times which read, “Villagers take to polls over ‘unacceptable’ housing” and “’Fury’ spurs on campaigners”. In these two headlines emphasis is placed on the words unacceptable and fury and this done through placing apostrophes on the individual words and this draws the reader’s attention to each respective word as they have been separated from the rest of the sentence. Some headlines are all capitalised which places more emphasis on the headline as the capitalised letters make the headline standout more to potential readers.

Other conventions that my product used are the more general conventions that are mainstays in newspapers and this includes things such as the masthead, the main headline, the main image and advertisements. The front page of my newspaper is a very conventional to the norms of newspapers with the lead story being near the centre of the page and it is accompanied by an image which has a caption linking it to the lead story and above these is an emboldened headline ‘Portishead Police Parking Controversy’ which would grab the attention of potential readers. The more prominent parts; such as the main and lead story, of the front page are in the centre of the page, with the exception of the masthead, which emphasises their importance which the other less important things, such as adverts and short previews for later news stories, being the periphery of the page.

On the other hand, page two is quite unconventional in comparison to its front page counterpart and this is because there are significantly less images and is more focused on the news stories rather the images which is more reminiscent of a magazine rather than a newspaper. In comparison to other more conventional local newspapers where on page two there is more of a focus on images rather than the actual stories which was the opposite to what I did.  I did this deliberately because I believed this approach would be better suit my skill set as I am better at writing news stories rather than taking photographs as I am an English Language student. Whilst my product is broadsheet newspaper it does take some elements of a tabloid newspaper, case in point how my newspaper frequently refers to things that could be considered to be not for a ‘local’ audience such as famous actors, TV shows, sports teams and films that are intended for a national audience and even the effects of the US presidential election. However, from what I learned in my research and planning this can be relatively common trope in local newspapers for example, local newspapers such as the Bristol Post and North Somerset times have films reviews and sports reports similar to my finished product.

It was of paramount importance that the news stories I used were ‘simplified’ for a local audience so that it could be considered a broadsheet and not a tabloid. I believed this was achieved because the news stories that were in full and not snippets of stories that would theoretically appear later in the newspaper had more in common with a broadsheet rather than a tabloid. Case in point, my lead story was about how local residents of Portishead were displeased with local police blocking the roads and I don’t think this type of news story would appear in a national newspaper such as the Guardian or the Sun and is more likely to appear in a local newspaper. Another example of this is the first large story on page two which is about how the results of the US presidential election have effected local businesses in Bristol and the emphasis is on the reactions of those living in a local area, such as Bristol, rather than on a national scale. The research and planning also identified what the conventions of my ancillary task was which are radio adverts that would come in conjunction with a newspaper.

The conventional radio advert was between 30 seconds to a minute long in order to maintain the interest of the reader and not go on for too long so that it would bore them. It was also more conventional that radio adverts that are associated with local newspapers are testimonial adverts due to the fact that they use endorsements from ‘ordinary citizens’ which means the target audience would be able to better apply themselves to the product. It was also common that these adverts urged listeners to go to external sources, such as online websites, to better understand the newspaper and my radio advert did this as well thus making a more conventional radio advert.

   

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary tasks?

In my research for the ancillary task which was radio adverts I had to identify the conventions of radio adverts that are in conjunction with newspapers and specifically local newspapers, as mentioned before in the above paragraph. The research and planning determined that conventional adverts found with newspapers are between 30 seconds to a minute and this means that in this aspect my radio advert is conventional because it just under 45 seconds long.

The length of the radio advert means that it has to brief and straight to the point so that it does not bore the viewer if it goes on for too long but if the advert is too short then the viewer would not get enough information to become interested in the newspaper so the advert has make the newspaper stand out to the potential readers and viewers. Radio adverts would be more appealing to a local audience because it is extremely common that people in more rural and local areas are more likely to the local radio rather the national radio on their way somewhere most likely on their way to work because, for example, they wish to know the state of traffic on their way to work.

 From my research and planning of radio adverts I concluded that the type of radio advert that would be best suited for a local newspaper would be a testimonial advertisement which contains endorsements from ‘ordinary citizens’ in order the benefit the product and this would be better for a local audience because the target audience which is made up of local and ordinary people would better apply themselves to the people in the advert and want to read the newspaper. Testimonial adverts are a type of ‘soft sell’ method of advertising that places more emphasis on a more subtle and friendly sales message as shown by how testimonial adverts have endorsements from ‘ordinary citizens’ in order to better apply themselves to the target audience.

It is especially common that radio adverts end with an endorsement that urges viewers to go to an external source and specifically a website to learn the benefits of reading their newspapers and this is more of a ‘hard sell’ method of advertising as it more overt and direct sales messages to get people to buy the product and my radio advertisement does this as well as it ends with the same type of message that urges viewers to go to the Bristol Chronicle website in order to learn more about the newspaper meaning that in this regard my radio advert is more conventional.

The use of synergy that links the radio advert to the actual newspaper is crucial in making it a more believable and realistic newspaper and my radio advert does this because it refers to ‘film reviews’ and ‘sports report’ which are things that referred to in the second page of my newspaper and these references are both brief stories that previews news stories that would theoretically appear later on in the newspaper. This synergy in my radio adverts and the newspaper creates a better sense of continuity between the main product and its ancillaries which makes it more conventional and more like a proper newspaper which in turn makes a better final product.

3. What have you learned from your audience feedback?

The audience survey I did for my researching and planning was one of the important things I did in my research and planning as it formed the basis for what would be in my newspaper. Using my research and planning I had already identified what the common conventions of local newspapers are and which ones I would use in my product but the audience survey assisted in determining how I would write the actual news stories in the product. The entire point of the audience survey was to see what the target audience, in this case a local audience, would think would be in a newspaper.

I used a website called SurveyMonkey to find the data for my audience survey and it contained 10 questions which ranged from how long it took for people to read newspapers to what type of newspapers they tended to read. From the results of my audience survey I concluded that my target audience would be people who were 40+ because they were more likely to get hard copies of the newspaper through a subscription rather than the alternative which is an online subscription using the newspaper’s online website.

The results of my audience survey also told me that my target audience took between 11 to 20 minutes to read their newspapers and this meant that my newspaper would have a variety of news stories in order to keep people interested in the newspapers and that these news stories also had to stand out in order for my audience to read them.

From my results I was also able to conclude that it was better to use a broadsheet for my newspaper which a larger newspaper format which had more serious but less ‘sensational’ stories and I felt that this would be better for a localised audience because the more serious news stories would better apply to them rather than the more sensationalist stories that are commonly found in local newspapers. Also, the results of the audience survey told me that my newspaper would have to contain elements of both tabloids and broadsheets so that my target audience would be more interested in reading my newspaper.

 From the results of my media survey I was able to conclude that much of my target preferred national newspapers over local newspaper which give credence to why I chose to have elements of a tabloids in my broadsheet newspaper in order to them interested in my newspaper because it’s possible that the more serious type of news stories commonly found in local newspapers may have been more menial and tedious to them.

 Although the results of my audience survey determined that my target audience would be more interested in tabloids rather than broadsheets, the data of local newspapers I found in my research and planning suggested that it was more conventional for my local newspaper to be a broadsheet as local people would be able to easier apply themselves to the less sensational stories that are found in broadsheets so it was because of the information I found in my research and planning that determined that my local newspaper should be a broadsheet because it makes it more conventional and therefore more realistic to what a real local newspaper would be like.

4.      How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

I used various media technologies in order to create my media product and the research and planning that went into it.  The main part of my research and planning was done on Blogger which is unsurprisingly a blogging site and my personal blog contained 15 blogs which were frequently added over the time in which I completed my coursework. Even though my blog from A2 coursework contained less blogs compared to my AS coursework the amount of detail that went into them makes up for that flaw. Multiple media technologies were used on this blog in order to make it more interesting and display my understanding of these media technologies.

The technologies that were used most repeatedly used on my blog were Prezi and SlideShare with my blog containing 6 blogs that contained either a prezi or a slideshare and this is just under half of the blogs on my Blogger. SlideShare is basically an online PowerPoint presentation that is derived from the PowerPoint’s I made on Microsoft PowerPoint and on the other hand, Prezi is another online presentation format that contains elements from a mind map. I frequently used websites, such as Google, to find information that was relevant to my research and planning and later I used the aforementioned SurveyMonkey to create my audience survey.

To create my radio advert I used the microphone on my iPhone to record my voice and later downloaded it onto my computer so that I could turn it an Audacity file. I also used the internet in my research and planning in order to find exemplar local newspapers and the common conventions that were associated with them. In the production of my local newspaper I also used several media technologies in order to create my final product. I started first using Microsoft Publisher and Microsoft PowerPoint to create the first templates of my newspaper and this was in conjunction with the first drafts of the stories that would later be developed and put onto my newspaper and this was done on Microsoft Word. In order to get the images I used in my newspaper I used both the camera on my phone and cameras that had been provided to me by the school and the images I took were later sent to my computer so that they could be put onto my newspaper. Also, most of the images that I took to be used later in the adverts were placed on PhotoShop so that I could cut away the background of them so that they only contained the product.

The media technology that I used the most extensively was probably InDesign as it formed the basis of the creation of my newspaper. InDesign was similar to documents that are used in Microsoft Word with the major difference between being that InDesign allowed me to use layers which made my newspaper look more professional and more like a real-life newspaper as it was formatted properly. The size of these layers could also vary in size so that it didn’t look as if all the elements of my newspaper were crammed into one page. Also, the layers also had different colours associated with them so that it was easier to organise what was on the pages of my product. InDesign was very effective in creating a realistic newspaper which was crucial in making the best possible final product and the usage of InDesign meant that the newspaper pages were better organised and formatted which made the newspaper appear more professional and didn’t make it appear as if all the features of my newspaper were all crammed onto one page.