A2 Media EvaluationMatt Sampson

www.MattSampsonA2Media.blogspot.com

IntroductionFor my A2 Media project, I chose to make a local newspaper as well as a poster and website for the paper. This presentation will evaluate the developmental process and will include the following 4 questions:

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

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

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

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

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

LayoutI have set the layout of my newspaper similar to what a usual newspaper layout is like. I have retained all of the important and usual features of a newspaper such as a big black bold font for the headlines and use of pictures related to the news article. I have used columns for the news articles and on the front page as it separates each story and makes it easier for reading.

Masthead

Date

Price

Website

Main Headline

Main Photo

Articles in Columns

Adverts

My NewspaperMy Newspaper

ColoursIt is important to have a recognizable colour for a newspaper logo. For example in newspapers when we think of red, we think of The Sun or The Daily Echo and with blue there is the Portsmouth News. I have chosen to go with blue for my newspaper as it is different from other local papers such as the echo. I also think as The Daily Echo is a Southampton based paper, the red is for its football team colours. So as my paper is mainly the Portsmouth area their team colours are blue. It is also good to use one main colour as too many would make the paper look unprofessional and more like a magazine.

AdvertisementsAll local newspapers include adverts. This benefits both the newspaper and the advertisers.By using adverts in the newspaper, we will receive money from the company advertising and that will be able to cover the costs of the paper and can then being able to reduce the price of the paper and not losing any profit.The companies that are using the paper to advertise will receive more publicity and can advertise for a lower cost than using TV advertisements or radio. Also using a local paper, they can target a specific area of their audience.After research into local newspaper advertisements, most of them seem to be of a lower quality than what would be found in a national newspaper. This is because local business are likely to have smaller budgets for advertising and rely on cheaper ways to get their business noticed.

AdvertisementsAll adverts have to follow the Advertising Standards Authority Code. The ASA is the UK’s independent advertising watchdog committed to maintains high standards for the benefit of consumers and advertisers.They do this by applying mandatory advertising codes to ensure that advertisements remain legal, decent, honest and truthful.The advertising Codes lay down rules for advertisers to follow. They include general rules that state advertising must be responsible, must not mislead, or offend, and specific rules that cover advertising to children and adverts for alcohol, gambling, motoring, health and financial products.

AdvertisementsI created the adverts in Photoshop. When first creating the layout of my newspaper I knew that I had to leave space for adverts as most papers have them and It was a good source of funding. I thought the most convenient layout was to have a long banner for adverts at the top or bottom of the page. After my research on newspaper adverts I found that these were the style that would be found in most local newspapers.

WebsiteAfter researching local news website it was found that they were quite simple in terms of design penis and features. A simple layout is also a lot easier for people who are not used to computers to navigate around the site. One of the major advantages to a website is that with today's technology, internet can be accessed from almost anywhere on mobile devices. Also the news articles can be regularly updated, whilst once a newspaper is published, the article cannot be edited until the next day or week etc. Newspaper readers would also not be wanting to read the same article every day with a few extra details added in.

The News – www.portsmouth.co.uk National

Headlines

Main Headlines

Adverts

Other news stories

Journalistic writingDuring my very early research into newspapers and articles I discovered that a lot of papers use The Inverted Triangle. It is a metaphor used by journalists to illustrate the placing of the most important information first within a text. This is the Main Idea – Who? What? When? Where? & How?

TESCO plc, is hoping to bring a new foodstore to Fareham which will create 240 much needed jobs.

Building work for the 70,000 sq ft store was originally going to start in December but due to disputes over the land it is now stated to start in March and will by completed by early 2012. Jamie Skey, legal affairs manager for Tesco, said that any problems and disputes preventing the development have now been resolved.

ROAD safety campaigners have warned Portsmouth City Council it risks increasing the number of deaths on the roads by axing its speed cameras.The council has pulled out of the Hampshire Road Safety Partnership, which owns the six fixed speed cameras in the city.As a result, the cameras were all switched off yesterday.The move has been criticised by the Royal Society for the Protection of Accidents.Its head of road safety, Kevin Clinton, said: ‘Speed cameras help save lives because speeding increases the risk of an accident happening and increases the severity of injuries in an accident.

Who, What, When, Where?

Quote

After researching current article styles, I discovered ‘Human Interest’ stories which are more common in local newspapers than national.

Human interest stories are generally soft news. Examples of this would be a man who makes a cart so that his two-legged dog can move around again. On a slow news day even a story of fire fighters getting a cat out of a tree might make a suitable story. I believe that using these types of articles would make the paper feel more local to the reader as they can relate to the story if its in a location nearby.

Font

Building work for the 70,000 sq ft store was

originally going to start in December but

due to disputes over the land it is now stated

to start in March and will by completed by

early 2012.

Times Arial

Building work for the 70,000 sq ft store

was originally going to start in

December but due to disputes over the

land it is now stated to start in March

and will by completed by early 2012.

From my research it was found that newspapers mostly use “Times New Roman” as their main font. After experimenting with different fonts I had to decide which font looked most suited for my newspaper.

I had narrowed my search down to Times and Arial as I thought these two fonts looked most professional for a published piece of writing. Arial is a sans-serif font which doesn’t include the features at the end of a letter, which is included in Times New Roman. This challenges current media products as newspapers usually use a serif font, and would give my newspaper something different from other papers.I decided that Times New Roman should be used for my newspaper as it is traditional and looks professional. I believe that Arial would be ideal for magazines or on a website, which is why I didn’t use it.

PosterAny new product will need advertising to get noticed. During my research I could not find any existing examples of Newspaper posters. I had to develop my own poster without any inspiration from existing products.

This is the original photo I used as the background for my poster. I thought it would be effective as it gives a huge view Portsmouth from Portsdown Hill. I started thinking of titles and tag lines to use to go with the poster. I decided on ‘Find out whats happening in Portsmouth with the Hampshire Express’

PhotographyWhilst researching for article ideas, I noticed that most of the photography for articles were of the person or location involved with the story. I took a number of pictures in Southampton to go along with the main headline.

“Dream Cruise is back - thanks to The News”

“20mph zones”

These are existing headline with pictures from the Portsmouth News www.portsmouth.co.uk

2 of the pictures taken for the main newspaper article

I straightened out the image as the original was at an angle. I also made a mini version of my newspaper front page to put on the poster so viewers can recognize it.

I have also challenged regular media conventions and created and added a QR code to my poster. QR is short for Quick Response and is a 2D barcode readable by QR readers or camera phones. The technology was developed in Japan and is now slowly being adopted in the UK. Once scanned by one of the mentioned devices, information can be read including text, URL and other data. My QR code contains the newspaper website – www.HampshireExpress.co.uk.

This is my readable QR code for the newspaper, website and poster

How my media product challenges forms and conventions of real media products

For my titles in my paper I used a font called Stone Sans ITC TT-Bold. I thought this would be a good font to use as it is different from other fonts and it is bold so it can attract peoples attention.

For my website I used different fonts to what I used in my newspaper. I used Stone Sans ITC TT-Bold for my main titles and Arial for my main text.

The size paper size I have set my newspaper to be printed on is thinner and taller than a normal tabloid, which is around 300mm x 380mm.

For my paper I have used a page size of 280 x 430. I believe that since the paper will be thinner, it will be easier to read instead of holding the paper with your arms far apart, which is the case with a lot of bigger papers.

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

The main product and ancillary texts are effective by keeping the paper simple and following current media conventions and develop them further.

I used different fonts from usual newspapers which will make my paper stand out from the other local papers. It has created a brand image that will get the paper recognized and remembered.

The layout compares to other newspapers and gives it a professional look. From my research/questionnaire it was pointed out that the paper looks like it was made in a professional environment and using expensive computer programmes.

My paper encourages readers to write in as their letters and stories will be frequently published, which does not happen often in many papers.

I have used a continuous choice of colours throughout the whole paper and website. This will keep the paper looking professional and simple. If I used anymore colours it would look unprofessional and more like a magazine.

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

I posted the link to my blog on my twitter account so I would be able to receive feedback from my newspaper creation. I have made a table with the good and bad points I have received.

From my feedback I have discovered that people would want more national and worldwide news. I did not include this in my paper as there are already many national newspapers and mine would not be able to compete. I will include national news in my full newspaper, but just a little bit so it wouldn’t take up the paper.

I learnt that viewers were happy with the simple layout and found it very easy to navigate around the site and easiness of reading the paper. After receiving my feedback I was pleased to see that I had succeeded in what I wanted to achieve - A local newspaper in which readers could feel involved with.

Negative Positive

•Articles could be more exciting•No news on world events

•Nice use of the city colours•Involves the readers a lot•Simple layout effective

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

Whilst developing my newspaper and conducting my research, I used many new media technologies including Adobe InDesign & Photoshop, iWeb, Blogging websites and digital cameras. All of these were essential in the making of the newspaper.

All of my development has been recorded onto my blog on blogger.com. This internet is still a recent piece of technology and is highly accessible in today's world. It has helped greatly in researching existing papers and finding out facts I would not have been able to find without it. To receive quick feedback for my newspaper, I used Twitter to contact all my followers and ask for their feedback.

I used Microsoft PowerPoint to create my evaluation. It is an easy programme to use and receive very professional looking presentations.

I have uploaded the evaluation using Slideshare at www.slideshare.net

For the creation of my newspaper, I used Adobe InDesign CS3. This programme was difficult to get used to at first, but I soon got the hang of it. It is very useful for creating printed media and is used widely by professionals today as it has many features for writing such as columns and a wide range of fonts.

I used iWeb to create my newspaper website. I had no experience before using iWeb so it was very confusing at first. After a while I had got used to the programme. I found it to be very limited in creating attractive websites.

Once my paper was created, I made my poster in Adobe Photoshop CS3 which is a creative programme. I used this as I gives me a lot of creativity and is very useful in creating posters. I already had experience using Photoshop with my photography work, so I found it easy to create my poster.

I used my Canon EOS 500D digital SLR camera to take the picture for my poster. I used a photography technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range) which captures the light and dark details in an image and merges them together.

This technique is very effective and can make a poster really stand out from the others.

ConclusionOverall, I am happy with the way this project turned out. I created a local

newspaper, poster and website which took a lot of time and effort. I used many technologies and computer programmes which were new to me and learnt how to use them effectively. I believe it has improved my writing and journalistic skills and have a larger understanding of the newspaper industry.

Now when I look at a newspaper, I realise how much time and effort goes into creating that and right down to the smallest detail.

Here are images of my final product...

Newspaper front and 2nd page

Newspaper poster

Website homepage Bargate news tory page