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, new
housing estates, cinemas and sports teams which are more easily applicable 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, which 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 thus 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 exemplar 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. This is generally used in order to provoke a reaction from the reader
and make them want to read on. Other headlines consist of rhetorical questions
such as “Weston’s best ever?” and
this urges readers to read on and make a judgement for themselves regarding the
headline. This can also been seen in my product both the headlines of my lead
stories on each page are both rhetorical questions; “Portishead Police Parking Controversy?” and “Potential Road Blockages nearby Gordano School?”, and this usage
of a rhetorical question urges to read on and make a judgement for themselves. Also,
one of the headlines on the second page
of my newspaper which is “Trump’s win creates uncertainty for Bristol
businesses” is also similar to the exemplar headlines.
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 and
this is a more common occurrence in a broadsheet rather than a tabloid. Case in
point, my lead story was about how local residents of Portishead who were
displeased with the police blocking the roads and this type of news story would
be less likely to appear in a national newspaper such as the Guardian or the
Sun and is more likely to appear in a local newspaper due to how tedious they
are. 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.
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 two main stories and only one of which had an
image to accompany it and the other two stories on the page were only previews
for news stories that would theoretically reappear later in the newspaper. In
this regard, the page two of the newspaper could be considered to be more reminiscent
of a magazine rather than a newspaper. The only other images present on my page
two are the main image linked with the lead story of page two and both of the
adverts on this page have accompany images to better help advertise their
products. 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. 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 and sports teams that are
intended for a national audience and even the effects of the US presidential
election. Despite this, there are still news stories on page two that are aimed
at a local audience, for example there is a news story about what’s on at a
local cinema, the Curzon, and a story about new housing estates being built in
Portishead nearby Gordano School. 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 at times
have films reviews and sports reports that could be aimed at a more national
audience and this is not too dissimilar to my finished product.
Question 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 other ancillary task I had to complete was the billboard
advertisement, this is a type of advertising that would be located outdoors,
usually on large buildings and walls, that are found in high-traffic areas so
that passersby that include pedestrians and drivers can easily view them.
Conventionally, these billboard advertisements are very large and contain witty
slogans and distinctive visuals. National newspapers are more likely to have
these billboards outside in the open where they are more easily viewed and this
is because they can more easily afford them, whilst on the other hand local newspapers
are more likely to have billboards on ‘sandwich boards’ which are composed of
two boards on each side and are usually set up in a triangular shape nearby
local stores on a high street.
The use of synergy that links the ancillary tasks to the
actual newspaper is crucial in making it a more believable and realistic
newspaper and my ancillaries do this because it refers to ‘film previews’ 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. Another
example of this is that my ancillary tasks, both the radio advert and the
billboard advert, both refer to a website link that is found on the second page
of my newspaper. This synergy in my ancillaries 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.
Question 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 male and between the ages of 25 to 35 and this was
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. This variation in stories would cause
members of the target audience to seek out certain stories in order to satisfy
their needs, as theorised by the uses and gratification model of audience
feedback.
From these results I was also able to conclude that it was
better to use a broadsheet for my newspaper because a newspaper format which
had more serious but less ‘sensational’ stories would be more beneficial to my
product 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 national 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 and that the audience of my
product would find it entertaining.
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. This could mean that if, theoretically,
my product were to be sold in stores then it is possible that my target audience
would find my newspaper to be not very interesting and possibly even boring, so
the usage of more tabloid elements in my newspaper was to make it more
entertaining to the audience.
Although the results of my audience survey determined that my
target audience would be more interested in tabloids rather than broadsheets,
the data from the local newspapers that 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.
Question 4:
How
did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and
evaluation stages?
