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

The Internet played a big part in the research section of my production. This allowed me to access paper’s websites easily for all across the country and assess the similarities and differences in the newspapers in different areas. This was restricted however due to not being able to view the whole paper online. It did allow me to look at different editions of the same paper and see the way house style is used. The main website I used for this was “www.newspaperarchive.com” which has all the days newspaper front covers from across the globe. I could then copy and paste these into a “Microsoft Word” document to save them. The Internet was also very useful when researching my radio advert as it gave me the opportunity to easily access adverts on demand instead of having to listening to the radio normally and waiting for the adverts. This made my research much easier and more efficient.

The Internet was also useful in the construction of my production, helping me in my newspaper and poster. In the production of my newspaper I used the Internet to gather a range of fonts for headings, text and adverts in my newspaper, for example in the banner for my supplements where I used a font called “Famous” from the website “www.101fonts.com”. I also used this in my poster. This was a good site to use because the ranges of fonts were better than the ones on the Microsoft software.

Digital software was very important when considering my pictures. First of all I used a digital camera to take the still images and transport them onto my computer. I then used a photo manipulating program called “Adobe Photoshop Elements” to edit the images, mostly just changing the brightness and contrast due to the tight conventions of a local newspaper. My skills were fairly good on this program because creating an magazine in my AS course which used this program a lot.

In each area of my production I used a range of software. The main piece of software I used was, “Microsoft Publisher”, a desktop publishing application that I created my newspaper and poster on. It allowed me to arrange text, using text boxes, and pictures on to templates or plain documents and add colours and backgrounds, using the fill tool. I also used this software in my AS coursework when creating my preliminary task, a magazine, and my main task, also a magazine. “Microsoft Publisher” allow you to choose from a number of layouts and easily arrange text and pictures.

While creating my radio advert the main program I used was “Garageband” which is a audio manipulation program. This allowed me to record voices and sounds and layer them using the track tool. I could also gather jingles and other sound effects from the library of sounds and copyright free music.

The final digital software I used was my blog, which was on “Blogshot.com”. This was useful because it allowed me to record my progress on a daily basis, showing all my findings and the decisions I made. It also allows me to easily present all my work in one place.

3. What have you learned from your advance feedback?

Audience feedback is a vital part of the pre-production and postproduction process. In every product that is sold it has to meet the needs of the target otherwise they will not want to purchase it.

To find this out I developed a questionairre, which would gather random members of the target audiene and get their opinions on the paper and ancillary tasks. This included these questions

Newspaper

In relation to local newspapers you have seen previously, does this one look authentic?

Poster

In your opinion, is this an effective local newspaper poster?

Does it link well with the supplement feature of the newspaper, if so why not?

Radio Advert

Is this radio advert, catchy and rememberable, if so why not?

Does it link well with the poster and supplement feature of the newspaper, if so why not?

Any other comments?

To display my results I put this into “Microsoft Excel” and turned the numeric data into graphs as shown below.

Aswell as this I asked 3 of the people for a more in depth response to get some more detalied audience response. The first person I asked was happy with the authenticity of the paper, “Id be happy to see this in the local newsadgents”, however, thought that the poster needed some work. They said that the text needed to stand out more and the picture quailty improved. They also said that the radio advert was humourous and served its purpose well. From this I worked on my poster, adding a background behind the text to help it stand out and kept the other productions the same.

The second person I asked for some more in depth feedback said that the newspaper was had a near authentic look but the supplement banner needed some work to make it look “more professional”. They also said the font needed to be bolder. They liked the synergy between all 3 productions and said the radio advert was “very catchy”.

The third and final person I asked for some more in depth feedback said it looked like your everyday local newspaper and commented on the range of stories being good. They liked the connections between all three productions and but suggested an extra piece to be added onto the end of the radio advert. This developed into adding the tagline and a final comment from the commentators in the advert.

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

The main product I chose to make was a local newspaper due to my experience writing in my school paper and due to my aspirations to become a journalist and also I wanted to develop the print skills I learnt last year in AS making my magazine. In real life media texts like newspapers need to build a brand image by having successful marketing strategies to raise awareness. This is important to increase awareness on what is on offer and most importently boost sales.

The ancillary texts I chose to make were a radio advert and a poster. I chose this combination because of what I found in my research. I found that a lot of local newspaper posters were advertising supplements such a property guides and football pullouts, like mine. By advertising the supplement available in my edition of the “Bristol City Times” it allowed me to link all three products together. My supplement was “Score” a 16-page pullout of local league football and this is what was advertised on my poster and in my radio advert. I used the name of the supplement to link them all together along with the tagline, “For people who are mad about football” which is visible in both my ancillary texts. I chose not to do a website because it would not link as well together with the other ancillary task as I wouldn’t be able to just advertise my supplement. Also I had some more exciting ideas for the poster and radio advert and overall it seemed a more attractive proposition. It was important to keep continuity throughout my three products to build a brand image so they all link together, this is called synergy.

Before producing my ancillary texts I did some in depth research into all three options, the poster, radio advert and finally the one I didn’t choose the website. In my research I looked at posters from the “Evening Post” and the “Western Daily Press” and initally found they were quite hard to come by, which ment we had to write off for them. From the ones I did find I noticed that there is also one main phrase or tagline which the whole poster is built upon, for example “Accept No Substitute” taken from the poster from the “Evening Post’s” “Green-un”. I also noticed that they followed the papers house style, font colour and always including the newspapers title in the traditional manner in the footer of the poster. In the case of photos I noticed they are simple but still visually effective, for example a poster by the “Western Daily Press” shows a group of school children cheering to advertise support for local schools.

I also undertook some radio advert research from a number of sources. As I am doing a football supplement related radio advertisement I spent some time listening to “Talk Sport FM” and made some notes on the football and newspaper related adverts. I found that a main way to portray information in these adverts is by using the gimmick of sports commentators. I decided to use the idea as it is simple but allows humour to be added very easily and overall is very effective the listener immediately knows what the advertisement is likely to be about. I also looked at a number of other radio adverts just to access some ideas about how to present my radio advert. This gave me ideas about the structure of local newspaper adverts and persuaive devices they use. I found that humour is a main technique to make the message of the advert stick in the listeners mind also with repetition of the product name. These are the two main factors I tried to incorporate into my advertisement.

From all this research I wanted to create two ancillary tasks that were clearly connected together. By choosing to advertise my supplement in both my radio and newspaper it allowed me to easily connect my main task, the local newspaper, with the radio advert and poster. I was able to have a clear colour scheme connection between the paper and the poster and a catchy tagline, which connects the poster with the radio advert. Each ancillary task is clearly linked back to the paper and both can be seen to be part of the “Bristol City Times” collection. In the real market I think my products would fare very well as they connect well together and I believe the advertisement would be very effective due to my newspaper tagline and supplement, “Score”, tagline.

If I could remake my tasks I think there made me a few changes I would make. First of all I would have practiced more using “Garageband” before make my radio advert, as it was quite a quick and steep learning curve for me. If I was able to do this I may have been able to add extra features and improve the quality of my radio advert in the case of sound effects and jingles. I would also like to been able to take some more professional pictures with a high standard camera of football games, such as Bristol City’s home match, for a different version of my poster. As I don’t have a professional camera I can use freely I wasn’t able to get the quality of shots at these games.

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

Local newspapers have a number of defining forms and conventions. Throughout my research I studied these and discovered the common features of the layout, colour scheme, photography, articles, tone and language. Local newspapers play a much different role than a national press newspaper as they are much more specific to one area. Local newspapers are like the voice of the community and are used to provide information about local events and news. National press papers are not made for local people and the tone and language is very differerent. They are more for entertainment than to present necessary news. I looked at local newspaper from all across the country, as it is important to get a good representation of local newspapers. The newspapers I looked at are,

– Edinburgh Evening News

– London Evening Standard

– Bristol’s “Evening Post”

– North Somerset Times

All local newspapers have a similar target audience varrying on what region they are sold. For example the “Bristol Evening Post” is targeted at people who live in and around Bristol who are interested in the local community and are above the age of 35 in most cases.

The “Edinburgh Evening News” and “London Evening Standard” are more modern versions of local newspapers. They use bright colour schemes and on the “London Evening Standard” the “New look paper” is advertised on the front cover. Both of the newspapers are sold in capital cities, which could be the reason they are slightly more modern than the rest. This also effects the target audience by making it more appealing to younger readers than a traditional local newspaper. These two newspapers are the main newspapers of capital cities so they have more national stories in them than the other newspapers I looked at such as, “Brown joins ministers in admitting: we got it wrong”, which refer to the national government instead of maybe a local council. They have a much more serious tone and the upbeat stories seem absent. However, these papers still show that they are local newspapers by the range of stories specific to there region, for example in the “Edinburgh Evening News” the story “Happy To Be Living in Edinburgh”.

The other newspapers I researched in detail were from Bristol and the surrounding area. These were “The Evening Post” which is Bristol’s and the surrounding area’s main local newspaper and the “North Somerset Times” which is one a few local newspapers in North Somerset. The “North Somerset Times” is the smallest scale local newspaper I looked at which meant the stories were very local scale. This paper is a weekly paper, like most local newspapers, which means there has to be a range of stories to fill the paper due to the possible lack of events in such a small area. This along with the stereotype associated with local newspapers mean a very different type of stories than regional or international papers. The stories tend to be based around things like local politics, education, sport and buisness activity in the local community. They also act as a method of campaign for change and celebrating success. Local newspapers like the “North Somerset Times” and the “Evening Post” base there stories on local people and events and the papers are known for running campaigns in the local area, these are called features. An example of one of these is in the “North Somerset Times” which is running a campaign on “Buses for the disabled”. This is typical of a campaign run by a local newspaper, helping a local disabled lady’s voice be heard and increases the chances of action being made. These campaigns act as a voice of the local people. The “Evening Post” also uses a lot of campaigns but in a slightly more wide spread area, however it still manages to be specific to certain areas due to the “Edition” system. Some papers may have three editions with certain updates and changes from the previous ones. So there may be several editions of one issue of a paper. The Evening Post is a daily local newspaper and this “Edition” system allows it to have more specific stories to the area it is being sold in. This is important because Bristol and the surrounding towns is a vast area so some stories would be of no interest to people who don’t live in that area.

[Quick video or audio talk about one of the papers?]

From all this research many conventions of format, narrative, camera angles, layouts and so on can be identified. It is easy to see a trend in the format of local newspapers. They usually include the title of the newspaper in the masthead, which always includes the newspapers logo that usually represents a symbol of the history or something that is associated with the area. For example the “Evening Post’s” logo is a ship, relating to Bristol’s well-known history in the shipping industry. Also in the masthead there is normally the price, date, web address and sometimes the tagline. The papers usually have one lead story on the front cover with a big title and picture with other sub stories in a column on the left third of the page. There is nearly always a banner advertising supplements available in the newspaper like the supplement “trends”, “All That is New in London” advertised on the “London Evening Standard”. The large number of adverts is needed to keep the paper going and make it money.

The narrative in local newspapers takes a more friendly and upbeat tone than a regional or international paper. A perfect example of this is “A restaurant and takeaway boss is back in business after a remarkable effort by his loyal customers to make sure they can still get their favorite Chinese food”. It is easy to take this tone due to the nature of the stories in local newspaper; they are usually catastrophes that have a happy ending. In this case it is a local Chinese that is going out of business until the local residents raise some money, which keeps it open.

Another defining feature of local newspapers is the photography in them. Local newspapers are full of shots of people displaying the emotion conveyed in the story. These are usually medium close up, showing the emotion on the persons face but longer shots can also be used showing a person in a location that is important to the story. The photos don’t always have to be of people but can be showing something important to the story for instance the photo of a traffic light shown on the front cover of the “Evening Post” above. Photography in local newspapers is not usually artisitcally challenging, it is unlikely for any tilt to be used but rarely it is, also showing in the traffic light picture above.

In my product, a local newspaper called the “Bristol City Times”, I tried to follow a number of these conventions typical of this genre. The format and layout of my newspaper is based entirely on my research, I created my own logo representative to Bristol, the famous Suspension Bridge, and created a supplement advertising banner. I also created an advert and situated it in the left third along with a sub-story. My main story I used a large main picture and Big title with a sub heading building upon main heading. I chose a long shot of Ashton Gate, which is Bristol City FC’s home ground. I thought this was a well taken shot because it shows “Bristol City” in big writing on the stand and relates directly to the story. I continued the main story on the second page and added another large image with a smaller picture in the corner. For this picture I used a picture of a player with the emotion of the story shown by the smile on his face. The smaller picture shows the location of the new stadium, I didn’t use this as the main picture because not much can be seen, as work has no started yet. In each of the pictures on this page I used small captions as I found all the newspapers in my research did and it helps explain what is shown in the picture. I also used a quote box that I found in the “Evening Post” and the “North Somerset Times”. This allows the views of some important players in the campaign to be highlighted.

On my second page I used a header with date, website, title and logo and page number which I used from the “Evening Post”, however they put this in the footer instead. I noticed in my research that the layout is very cluttered. No space is wasted in a newspaper and this was very influential in the layout of my second page. It is important to fill all the blank space because each area of the paper can be sold to advertising companies for extra revunue towards the running of the paper. I managed to fit my main story with 3 other sub-stories on this page and filled the extra space with an advert I created. I split the stories using thin line that is very effective and makes it look neat and professional, I took this from the “London Evening Standard”.

It was important to closely follow some of the conventions of local newspapers to ensure that I produced a recognizable media product. In every part of my product from the newspaper to the poster to the radio advert I was always thinking, “would this been seen in a real local newspaper?” and I believe because of this I have created an accurate product, which could be passed as a genuine local newspaper in the real world. However, there were some things I found in my research that I chose not to include. I had a bias towards the “Evening Post” and the “North Somerset Times” as they were from my newspapers area but also because some of the other newspapers I looked at did were closer to national papers and did not have some of the attributes of local newspapers (the local focus) such as stories like, “City Tycoon: My secret love life”. This seems too much like a story that would be seen in “The Sun” or “The Daily Star” which are national papers and are very different to a normal local newspaper.

To give my products thier own identity I used a house style of font and color scheme. This consisted of a dark blue for the banners and logo and a set font for my title and supplements. Along with this I had the tagline “Local news for Local People”, the repition of local giving it emphasis. I also created my own newspaper specific supplements such as “score” the local football supplement. This supplement is a conventional thing to have as it deplays local information about sport that wouldn’t be presented anywhere else.

Radio Advert Script

Andy: It’s full time here at Ashton Gate. John a fabulous 90 minutes of football.

John: Tell me about it Andy, never seen anything like it! I can imagine the headlines already, “Maynard slots home from 40 yards”

Andy: Only one way to find out John! By picking up a copy of the Bristol City Times, free with Score, fresh off the press Monday morning! With match reports and exclusive interviews from all our local team for just 50p!

John: You know what Andy there can only be one man of the match today, It has to be Score free in the Bristol City Times.

BCT: Score FREE every Monday in the Bristol City Times, 16 page of local football league action. For people who are mad about football!
Bristol City Times, in store and online Local News for Local People. More online at Bristolcitytimes.co.uk

John: Thinks its time for a pint Andy!

Andy: Right you are John!

Supplements and Adverts

This was the first advert i created and its purpose is to advertise one of my supplements. I decided to put a "Free Banksy Poster" in my newspaper because of the links Banksy has to Bristol and due to the new Banksy exhibition being opened in Bristol to. I put the word "FREE" in big red writing as I noticed that a lot of local newspapers did this. I thought it was a good idea to emphasise this to reader because it makes it sound like they are getting more for there money.

This is my second supplement, a local football league pull out, advertisement. I chose to do this because it was easy to link to local people and is a common interest of local newspaper readers, found in my research.

I Started off with the top design and in the end developed it into the second design. I ended up making these changes while making my poster. I wanted to make it look eye catching and stylish and be able to link my newspaper and poster together.

Used Photos

I took this picture for the quote boxes on the second page of my main story. This was a idea I took from my research and I think it is a good way to present it because it highlights the opinions that the readers will care about. This model is posing as the Bristol City captain as is taken in the same place as the real portrait pictures of the squad for authenticity.


As you can see there are two versions of this photo. The top picture is the original and the the bottom one is the adapted version. I cropped the original to cut down on the unnecessary amount of background and to centre the subject more in the picture. It also turns the shot into more of a close up instead of a more medium shot. This also helped it fit into the "vox pop" format. I tried not to use to much photo editing software such as Adobe Photoshop in my pictures because it is unrealistic to see this in a local newspaper. However, i edited the brightness and contrast of the photo to make it look more crisp and professional.

This is a picture of the actual area where the new Bristol City stadium is being built. I took this picture from a number of different locations and this is the one that turned out best. A high level of zoom was required in the taking of this shot as the public cannot get any closer than where I was stood at this moment in time. This picture has good lighting and is a good example of a extreme long shot and use of a zoom shot. It serves its purpose, giving the reader a idea of where the new stadium is and what stage of development it is at.















This picture was used as the main picture on my second page. It shows the Bristol City captain standing outside of the old stadium. I used a low angle on this shot to make him look bigger and more dominant showing his power as captain of the team. The picture was taken just outside of the entry gates to the Bristol City Stadium showing that its time is coming to an end. I also used a world cup football in the captains hands to connect it to the story and Bristol City’s future.















The picture above is another extreme longshot and was used for the main picture on my front page and my main story. I decided to use a picture like this because it links to the story really well. It shows the dolman stand at the current Bristol City stadium and also shows in the writing on the stand “Bristol City”. I thought this was good because it is a familiar site to the fans and immediately shows the reader what the story will be about.
I went along at about 17:00 in the day so that the shadow would be covering the pitch and the sun would be shinning on the stand, highlighting “Bristol City” on the stand. This also helps catch the reader’s eye and any passersby to the newspaper stand will hopefully want to pick the paper up.














I think this is my most interesting photo out of all that I have taken for this project. It is an action shot at medium range taken of my local photo team in the league cup. It was a great shot to use for my supplement advertisement because it shows the hustle and passion of local league football.










This photo was used for the sub story on my second page. It is a medium shot but was taken on a camera phone so the quality has been affected. Again I changed the brightness and contrast of the photo to attempt to make it look sharper. I took this during the later stages of the Bristol Half Marathon as the runner was more likely to be look like he had been working hard but still have a determined expression on his face. This was important because in my article he is the winner of the race so it is important to catch him at the right point and make sure the model looked athletic and fit.

I used this picture for my advertisement on my newspaper second page. The advert is advertising accommodation so it was important to make the place look as desirable as possible. I took the photo at about 11:00 in the morning when the skies were clear and it was sunny to make the harbour look more attractive. I used a extreme longshot which allowed me show a good overview of the area.