Evaluation

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

Newspaper

Since I was creating a local newspaper, I decided that this newspaper should only contain local news and not have any celebrity gossip or news from other areas of the country or world such as The Sun and The Independent newspapers have. Doing this would make my paper similar to other newspapers which I had set out to do in the first place.

I made sure that my articles were based around the North Tyneside are so all the text could be classed as local news and if somebody from another part of the country were to read it, they may not be able to make sense of some of the text.

As any other newspaper does I included the name of my newspaper, ‘Weekly Knowledge’ on all my pieces of work. Doing this would give my newspaper an identity that would become more and more recognisable as time went by

The use of space and planning on my newspaper pages is definitely one of the strengths of these two pieces as all the planning I did allowed me to easily fit things together in a way that did not make the pages look over crowded but also so that the page was not wasting any space. The planning also allowed me to have my main story from my front cover continue onto the next page as many top newspapers do, for me this was a must to do as it gave my paper that professional feel about it.

Having the date and price near the top of the page of the front cover was also a priority as this makes it easily accessible for the reader but it makes the paper look more realistic as well.

One thing I would criticise about my work is that the images I used were not the greatest or most eye catching, so to improve I would use more interesting and maybe more graphic pictures.

Website

I would say that the website is one of the weaker parts of my project as the software I was using to create the piece I was new to and struggled with on certain aspects. However I made my website similar to other local websites that I had viewed as they all seemed to use the same basic layout and techniques.

I had my headlines listed and they sent you to a different page to view the entire article which you had clicked on, I got this idea from the other sites.

I kept my mast head and the options bar at the top of every page as this makes the piece look very professional but also helps create the name as a brand name for newspapers.

It was important to have the date at the top of the website as it is important for any website displaying news to show when the news occurred so that it can be judged whether it is up to date or not.

Poster

Finding local newspapers that had posters advertising them proved impossible so I had to use national newspapers posters and results from my survey to create my own posters.

I created two different newspapers as both my research into other posters and my audience research with my survey came up with two different styles of poster, one using familiar scenery so that the poster and paper instantly get recognised as local, and the other poster to display an unusual image to grab the readers eye and make them analyse the full poster to see what it is about. I think that I managed to do both of these quite well as I used a very recognisable image for my first poster then I used an unusual image that not many people see on a day to day basis but making it still tie in with my newspaper theme.

The posters I analysed used very little text on them so I tried to mimic this technique however I feel that I did not put enough text onto the poster so it is not as effective as it could have been.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

Throughout my project I kept the same colour patterns throughout, I used a blue and white style on all my work so that it could all be tied together and these colours help link the newspaper to whitley Bay which is an area in North Tyneside.

I feel that my newspaper is very strong and well put together and with having my poster and website containing the same core things such as the mast head and colour techniques I believe that it helps strengthen my project overall.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From those that have seen my project I have had positive feedback especially directed at my actual newspaper pages as they thought it looked very realistic and professional.

Each person that has viewed my project lives locally so they all recognised the content of each of my pieces. On the posters there were mixed decisions about which poster was better as some liked the thought of keeping the image local but others like the random image to catch the eye.

The website received mixed feedback also as some people thought that the pages could have used a bit more detail (me included) and others thought that they looked good and would be simple to use which is a positive for any website.

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

To hold all my work on my project from the research to the planning to the production and evaluation I have used blogger which is entirely new to me as I am used to submitting coursework in on hardcopies by hand or by displaying all of my work on Microsoft OneNote. At times this proved difficult to use as the school network system had blocked the blogger website and my internet connection at home isn’t very reliable, but I have managed to get all of my work uploaded how I wanted it to be done so.

For the newspaper pages I mainly used Microsoft Publisher as I am used to using this when designing and producing pieces of work as it is very simple to use and can create interesting effects on texts and images which is vital when creating a newspaper. I also used Microsoft Word to create my newspaper articles that I included in my pieces.

The posters were entirely created on Microsoft Publisher as I have been using this software for many years now and feel confident enough to produce a poster on it. Publisher is a design software that helps to manipulate and edit images and text which is perfect for a poster

For the website I used Microsoft Web which is software based entirely upon website designing which was exactly what I was doing. I used Publisher again for parts of this task to create things that I was going to include on the pages of the website.

For the research stages I used the internet to find information on the other local newspapers and was able to see how their finished products looked giving me an idea of what mine should be like. I also used surveys for this stage as it helped me get first hand information on the exact questions that I wanted.

All my plans were put onto Publisher to manipulate and edit as easily as possible and all texts were typed on Word before they were applied to any other software so that I knew the spelling and sentence structure was all correct.

Newspaper Production

For my newspaper production I based the layout of my pages on the plans that I had already set out. To fill these plans I wrote up the different articles in order to fit the designated area on the page and then found images for the article or spaces that required them.

Front cover

This is the outcome of my production of my newspaper front cover. I stuck to the layout and planned storylines to fit so that the page was not wasting any space but at the same time was not over crowding the page. I did this so that the newspaper would look realistic but also that if someone were to look at the front cover of the paper they were not put off by having too much or too little on show.

the articles were also put into the clumns so that it made it look even more like a newspaper.

Inside cover

Again with this page I stuck to my planning and layouts as I believed they would work.

However I had to add some finishing touches such as the black banner across the top of the page to give the newspaper that classier, more professional look.

Website Production

Creating my website was the most difficult task I had to do, this is because it was the first time I have ever used this type of software before so it took me longer than I had expected.

Homepage of website

This is how my websites homepage ended up. It has a similar set up to other local newspapers websites, keeping the mast head at the top and having the main story lines as the first thing to read.

The idea of the website is to click on the story line that you like the look of and that will take you to a page where the full article is displayed.

I stole the idea of the background off the website I looked having a white box on top of a coloured background as this seemed to be what all the websites were doing and I wanted mine to look equally professional.

My homepage also uses a lot of advertisements like other websites. I also included a job/business finder onto the page as it came up on a number of websites that I had researched.

Hyperlinked page

The hyperlinked page I have above shows one of the articles from the main storyline. I wrote articles for each of the headlines that I placed on my website and on the newspaper that I would be creating.

I kept the background, mast head and option bar at the top of the page as a running theme for my website. This is down to it being used on every other website I viewed.

Once again there are more advertisements as this helps to fund the newspapers production and up keeping of the website.

Poster Production

For my poster I decided that since there wasn’t any local newspaper posters to base my poster on I would create two posters based on the national newspapers versions, but also from what my survey had came up with. this meant that i would create one poster that had a bit of local scenery within it so that it is familiar and then i would have one poster with an unusual image to catch the eye.

First poster

With this poster I have used an image I had of a very local landmark that is easily recognisable to anyone from the Whitley Bay area. This poster allows the audience to see that the newspaper is local because of the image and text, and from that they will realise that the paper is news from their local area.

Second poster

This second poster covers the people that wanted to see an unusual image that the person would have to look twice at to realise what it is about. I used an image of some folded up newspapers that I had to create this effect then added on the text which has the name of the newspaper in big bold font so that the person viewing this poster understands what the poster is advertising.

Newspaper Planning

Following all my research I began to plan my final pieces. i mind mapped a few ideas to have within my newspaper.

Although on this mind map i came up with the name 'The Daily Knowledge' i have decided that like many local newspapers this will be a weekly newspaper so i have decided on the name 'The Weekly Knowledge' for my newspaper

Front cover planning

I started by structuring the layout of my newspaper. I based my layout on other local newspapers in my area as all of them had a similar layout so I decided to make my front page realistic I would follow their general layouts.

This is the layout that I came up with, it is very similar to those of current newspaper front cover and that is what I was planning to do to make my piece look realistic.

Inside cover planning

The next part I planned was the inside cover. To plan the layout for this page I did exact same method as I did for my front cover and tried to make it similar to the layouts of current newspaper as this seems to be a successful way of laying the page out.

This is the design I ended up going with as once filled in with all the detail it will look very realistic.

Audience Research

For further research I decided to ask 30 of my friends, family and neighbours a few questions about the local newspaper.

Survey

How often do you read the local newspaper?

Never: 12

Everyday there is a new one: 8

Every now and then: 10

What do you expect to read inside the local newspaper?

Local news and sport: 30

Celebrity gossip and international happenings: 0

Have you ever seen a poster for the local newspaper?

Yes: 0

No: 30

What would you expect to see on a poster for the local newspaper?

Local scenery: 12

Something unusual and eye catching: 14

A copy of the newspaper: 4

Have you ever been on the local newspapers website?

Yes: 9

No: 21

What would/did you find on the local newspapers website?

The articles from the newspaper: 30

Different articles not included in the newspaper: 0

From the six questions that I asked I have found that the local newspaper that I am creating must include articles on local news and sport and not celebrity gossip or things that are happening in other places in the world. The poster should be of local scenery so that it is recognisable to the local area or of something unusual and eye catching so that it grabs your attention and makes you look at what its purpose is. The website is going to include all the articles from my newspaper and no different stories.

Website Research

For my second ancillary task I am to produce a website for my newspaper. I looked at a few different local newspapers websites from near to where I live, these included the two below; The Chronicle newspaper and the News Guardian newspaper website.

Website research

The first thing that I recognised instantly was the mast head on both websites are the same colour and font as on the newspaper itself. This helps to make the mast head more recognisable and as these papers do this I feel that my website should be done in the same way.

These local websites both used the same layout format also where the page is divided into three main columns for the text. The text in these columns doesn’t have the full articles displayed, it has the heading of the article and in some cases a brief description follows.

There are a lot more images used on the website than on the newspapers. These images aren’t big and are always next to the story that they match up to.

Poster Research

For my first ancillary task I have to create a poster for my local newspaper. This task was difficult to research for as finding a poster for a local newspaper was proving impossible so I decided to look at national newspaper to see if they had posters that advertised them, this was a lot more successful and I found a few posters to analyse.

Poster research

From the few posters that I found for newspaper I discovered that each one of them contained very little detail, as you can see in the examples above.

The main focus of the poster is either the bright colours or the picture as this draws the audiences’ eye towards the poster and gets them to look at the full thing which allows them to discover which newspaper it is for

The images on the poster often are very basic yet at the same time unusual which helps draw the audience in.

From the poster research I have decided that my poster will follow these guidelines of having little text with an unusual image that gets you attention.



Inside Cover Research

I also analysed the inside cover of the newspaper samples I had collected, this helped me begin to develop ideas about how this page should be set up.

Inside cover research

This page often has a continued story from the front cover as the main article. This article has a picture included the majority of the time.

The text for this page again sticks to the six column format and designates the 4 centre columns to the main story on this page. The two columns at the sides have little stories in that are deemed to be less important.

This page doesn’t normally have any pictures apart from the image to go with this pages main article.

This page uses more adverts than the front cover and they are often bigger in size as well. The sponsors are normally locally based companies as this is a good way to gain publicity to their companies target audience since the newspaper is local.

Since the newspaper is a local one, all the stories involved in the papers I collected are about things to do with what is happening in the local area such as schools and sports events or other local news such as council information.

Front Cover Research

Before I started creating my coursework pieces I thoroughly researched each aspect of the task.

I researched local newspapers and their websites, however I found that there was a lack of posters for local newspapers and was only able to research posters for national newspapers.

Front cover research

From the above newspaper front covers you can see some obvious similarities straight away such as the mast head being positioned in the exact same place at the top of the page and it remains the same size colour and font for every paper I collected. this is done to make the newspaper more recognisable to its audience.

Just beneath the mast head, in the folio are the newspapers date, issue number and price. This is positioned in the same place constantly throughout the majority of newspapers in the world as it makes it easy to find.

The front cover always has one major story and is usually positioned in the centre of the page as you can see in the examples above. This main story always has a large headline which is roughly the same size as the mast head. This is done to draw the eye of the reader to the big important news which the paper is using as its main story.

The text for the articles on the front cover is set into a six column format and every page in the newspaper also follows this format.

The articles use fairly basic language but not in a way where it crosses over into the extreme, this is to cater for a wider target audience including all the people within the local area.

On the majority of newspaper I have analysed one of the stories from the front cover always has a kicker sending the story to the inside cover. This seems to be a common aspect of local newspapers, so to make my piece realistic I will aim to do the same.

Two local companies often have advertisements in the top corners either side of the mast head, this helps show that the paper is local but also helps fund the production of the paper itself.

Around each article is a thin faint grey line, this determines where the stories are on the page so there is no confusion when reading.

Brief

For my coursework I decided to work on my own as I thought that I would be able to control what I was producing better and didn’t have to rely on others to complete the work set to them.

This also allows me to design what I am planning to do on my own so the coursework is just how I want it to be.

I was given 5 options of what I could do as potential coursework projects and told to pick 3 of them and develop each until I had decided which I would rather do.

The 3 options that I chose to develop were:

1.       The first two pages of a new local newspaper, together with a poster for the newspaper and two hyperlinked pages from the papers website

2.       A promotion package for a new film, to include a teaser trailer, together with a film magazine front cover featuring the film and a poster for the film

3.       A short film in its entirety, lasting approximately five minutes, which may be live action or animated or a combination of both, together with a poster of the film and a film magazine review page featuring the film

From these 3 options I’ve chosen to do the first one; the first two pages of a local newspaper, together with a poster for the newspaper and two hyperlinked pages from the papers website.

I chose this option because it is similar to our last coursework task and I enjoyed creating our last coursework (magazine)