Evaluation

My group and I chose to construct a local newspaper and internet page along with a poster to publicise the new publication. We felt that there was a gap in the market for a quality local newspaper.

We discovered in our area most of the local news are focused on advertising rather than actual relevant local news. When making our practical project it was important for us to focus on three key areas; layout, product and target audience. The audience for our local newspaper varies due to the demographic of the area. Therefore there isn’t really a single target market to pin point our product at.

Our paper will first goal is to inform readers about news around the Enfield area, it includes more news and less adverts than the conventional local newspaper: this is so readers will acknowledge our paper is superior to the heavily sponsored other local papers. Our paper will balance out the amount adverts on a page rather than having them focused in one corner of the page.

Our printing presses will also be an environmental friendly based factory. This is to show our readers that we care about the environment. Lastly another unique aspect of our paper will be the “app” for smart phones. In the last couple of years, there has been a dramatic rise of people with I-phones and Blackberry’s, consequently, this is an opportunity for any media group to make a quick pound by having an application for users to download.

My media product uses conventions in the following ways:

Layout/format – My newspaper has a very similar format to other local and national newspapers, conventions such as the masthead and articles are where you would expect to find them on the page. Page numbers, date, logos were key conventions that we followed when we put together our paper and website as it is important that our readers know when and who the product was published by. As well as informing the audience how to navigate the website or find the articles in the paper.

Web address

Masthead

Date

Lure Bar

Main Headline

Adverts

Article in columns

Main Picture

Caption to picture

By-line


Poster – My poster has all of the essential elements that are needed for promotional purposes, it tells the audience everything they need to know. The audience can clearly tell what it is publishing due to the name and other key brand identity features such as use of colour and fonts. The audience can also quickly work out that we are a local news organisation focusing heavily new technologies such as the web. The use of Enfield landmarks also helps people identify with us as a brand.

Web address

Introducing Slogan

Brand Colour

Masthead/Name

Background of various pictures of the local area

Slogan to tell the potential audience about what the paper will be like

Brand logo

Price where sold


Colours - An important convention that we also followed was to limit our colour usage to under three as otherwise it would look messy and unprofessional.

I decided that this light two toned green colour would suit Enfield Extra different reasons;

Enfield is not a safe seat for the political Parties, there is no dominate ideology. Green is therefore a good choice as I would risk subliminally alienating some of my audience if I where to have chosen blue (Conservative), red (Labour) or yellow (Lib-Dem) The area is also largely made up of public parks, golf courses and wooded areas as well as being residential. So the colour green fits the area well.The colour also helps to boost our ‘green’ credentials


Brand Identity - An important convention that we also followed was to create our own brand identity as it helps to distinguish ourselves from other publication

For our brand identity we have created a number of different trade marks that are used in all of our work ;

I wanted a unique font to use on our newspaper so I chose ‘Shrewsbury’ I also decided this green colour suited the BrandI later decided thatour paper was missing, something so I created the logo consisting of a map of London with Enfield standing out in bold.


Journalistic style - In my research I found that almost all local newspaper stories have a very similar written style. Articles often start with ‘Who What Where When’ format. Similarly the journalists often uses quotes from an interviews with Officials, or the people connected to the article to help tell the story.

Sample from Enfield IndependentHealth campaigners are rejoicing after a pledge made by a health minister on Chase Farm Hospital last week. Save Chase Farm councillor Kate Wilkinson and Enfield North MP met with health minister Mike O’Brien last week to push for a further ministerial review of the decision to downgrade A&E at Chase Farm Hospital. Kate Wilkinson hoped that Mr O'Brien "did not rule out" the prospect of a review but was unable to act because a general election had been called. But in a letter, seen by the Enfield Independent, setting out what was agreed at the meeting, Mr O’Brien said: “I am assured by NHS London that no changes other than those in line with the Independent Reconfiguration Panel’s recommendations are planned.” The council is seeking judicial review, arguing the public consultation, whose results were published in June, was unlawful because it did not give residents the option of retaining a 24-hour emergency department.

‘Who What Where When’Introduction

Quote

Quote From official

Finishes with What might happen next

Sample from my Article


Adverts - As with all local news companies my paper will be heavily supported by advertisements. Due to this particular issue being a January issue, our adverts follow conventions of new year adverts such as; Gym memberships, financial help ‘cash for gold’ and department store sales.

the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is the regulator for advertising in the U.K. and has guidelines which all adverts must follow. All of my adverts follow the rules set out by the ASA codes.

The ASA states that it “ensure that advertising does not mislead, harm or offend”. It continues to state that “Ads must also be socially responsible and prepared in line with the principles of fair competition. These broad principles apply regardless of the product being advertised”.

The types of adverting in local newspapers can vary. Typically local companies tend to dominate the local news adverts, however there isn’t anything to stop multi-national corporations (Send us your Gold)

The reader many have certain needs, which the paper can help address. So it is important for our local newspaper to have local adverts. For example a reader may want a local building company and may turn to local papers for information. This adheres to the uses and gratifications theory.

In addition local papers often have large sections devoted to second hand cars and housing.

During my research I found that many of the adverts for local businesses were of low quality, this was due to the companies’ very small budged compared to national advertising campaigns. I have tried to continue this convention by not making the local department store advert (bottom left) look too professional.


Expanded media platform – My newspaper also follows the 21st century necessity of an accompanying website. This is an essential as from my research it was clear that the people of Enfield don’t want to be limited to just getting the news that is important to them from the printed publication. Weather

Masthead/logo

Link bars to other areas of site

Latest Headlines

Links to stories

Most read feature

Adverts

logo

Keeps the same format on each page

Headline

Most read feature

Adverts

My media product develops conventions in the following ways:

Hyper local Blogger– During my research I came across hyperlocalism, it describes journalism which focuses on a very specific, local area. In the UK, local news usually relates to a particular town, or often a wider geographical location such as a county. Hyperlocal news is much narrower, relating to a suburb or even a particular postcode. As a group we decided that our local news brand will try to tap into the success of hyperlocal bloggers and translated it back into the print medium. This means that unlike other local media, our product will just cover Enfield postcodes area (EN1–EN3) therefore news is more Enfield related unlike other local news that covers the hole borough and the outskirts of the surrounding boroughs.

http://map.hyperlocal.co.uk/


Apps – From my research I found that only National and international news institutions such as Fox news, Sky News, BBC News and the Guardian News had applications for mobile handsets such as Android or i-phone or i-pod touch. Also from my questionnaire research I concluded that people in the Enfield area had a need for a local news app. It will also help to bring in money as I can choose to charge for a one off payment or subscription for users as well as income from adverts.

I took inspiration from the Sky News and Guardian apps as they allowed you to;Click on the tag icons to uncover a list of related subjects for every story as well as listing all the latest news on thousands of subjects using the search engine


Website – Most local news websites are very simplistic, we have developed our website do be more like the Guardian’s in that it has a strong online presence that is updated regularly (not just updated with the same news from the paper once a week). Like national news sites it will have flash video player showing exclusive Enfield Extra news content as well as user generated content, adverts and Enfield council promotional videos. Enfieldextra.co.uk will also feature forums, have your say section and blogs so that the community can get involved and feel connected to the local news and events.

flash video player showing exclusive Enfield Extra news content, and much more…

‘Have your say section’

Mobile version

regularly updated news


Environmentally friendly – Our paper has developed conventions by being eco friendly, this is shown to the reader by the eco-paper logo at the top of the front page of the paper. Our paper will be fully recyclable as well as being printed on already recycled paper. Our newspaper will also require less paper due to its smaller size.

Eco logo

My media product challenges conventions in the following ways:

Size – Enfield Extra also challenges conventions by its size. Broadsheets: 600 mm by 380 mm. Tabloids: half the size of broadsheets at 380 mm by 300 mm. "Microdaily" is infrequently used to refer to a tabloid-sized free daily newspaper. Berliner or Midi: 470 mm by 315 mm. We however chose to resized to smaller A4 size, as it would be easier to read and store especially when using mass transit or even for normal use.

Traditional local pager size 380mm by 300mm

Our new size 210mm by 297mm


Limited Adverts - I thought it was important that Enfield Extra was lees focused on advertising and more focused on the news that local people need. As a result Enfield extra features less advertising than is traditional for local paper. When we looked at the ‘Enfield Advertiser’ and ‘Enfield Independent’ we saw that 60%-80% of each page is filled up with advertising. Advertising is however a very important source of income however on average advertising takes up about 30% per page. Classified advertising it traditionally a very large part of local paper, however I felt that people no longer require this due to the internet. People can now easily find out about local firms by a quick search of the internet. People similarly are more likely to visit eBaymotors.co.uk for second hand cars then having to look though all of the paper.

Large percentage of page

Much less obtrusive allowing more room for content


Fonts - We chose ‘Arial’ not the industry norm of ‘Times New Roman’ as we wanted to put as much as we can on a page without making it hard to read. Arial we found to be the best for this situation.

Arial Verdana Times New Roman

From this test, it was clear to see that Arial was the best font as it was easy to read as well as taking up a small amount of room.

Followed brand identity – An important convention that we also followed was to create our own brand identity as it helps to distinguish ourselves from other publication. Our product is effective as it has an over all identity that is easily recognisable throughout all of the products.

Format - My newspaper has a very similar format to other local and national newspapers, conventions such as the masthead and articles are where you would expect to find them on the page. Page numbers, date, logos were key conventions that we followed when we put together our paper and website as it is important that our readers know when and who the product was published by. As well as informing the audience how to navigate the website or find the articles in the paper.

Colours - An important convention that we also followed was to limit our colour usage to under three as otherwise it would look messy and unprofessional.

Journalistic style – my product like other local newspaper stories have a very similar written style. All of my articles start with ‘Who What Where When’ format. Similarly the journalists often uses quotes from an interviews with Officials, or the people connected to the article to help tell the story.

Size - Enfield Extra is also successful as it challenges conventions by its size. A4 size, is muchld be easier to read and store especially when using mass transit or even for normal use.

Audience feedback for the newspaper

Realistic, professional. Different size fits in your hand nicely, very practical. Informative articles, issues you want to read about. Nice that adverts aren’t obtrusive or get in the way. Not too cluttered, easy to read. Good layout, flows from article to article.

Audience feedback for the website

Simplistic layout, effective, not to messy can easily navigate from page to page.

Follows the same style as the paper, e.g. colours, fonts, adverts and pictures.

Informative articles, issues you want to read about. Nice that adverts aren’t obtrusive. Search bar makes a nice addition, also can easily navigate. Video feature adds another dimension to the local news. “I can now

watch the local news rather than just reading it”

Audience feedback for the poster Gets message across, quickly and simply. Nice collage of different pictures of Enfield town Attention grabbing Colourful without being overpowering.

Digital cameras – We used digital cameras to take images for our newspaper, website and poster. We used a variety of different cameras depending on what we had to hand at the time. Primarily I used Sony Cyber-shot 7.2 Megapixel for its picture clarity and easy of use. We did also use the iPhone 3G’s a built-in Fixed focus 2.0 megapixel camera for the Editorial Team pictures on the second page.

Pagesuite - We used pagesuite.com to view and research about existing local pages as well as nation ones. Pagesuite's technology is used paid-for digital editions of the Daily Express, Daily Star, Guardian Weekly and South London Press. Users of the sites are given headlines and extracts of stories but encouraged to sign-up to a paid-for digital replica of the print edition.

Photoshop - Used Photoshop for the production of all three products. In addition we use Photoshop to manipulate ours pictures to create adverts as well as images for the articles. Due to the strict rules that we had to take all of our own pictures sometimes we had to adapt things to what wee needed.

Cheese reshaped in Photoshop was than coloured using colour from another picture to be used as a gold bar in the ‘cash for gold advert’.

Photoshop allowed me to built up several different layers in the poster. I also chose to use Photoshop's transparency feature to make to collage of pictures less in your face by making them 50% Transparent.

Similarly Photoshop allowed me to edit this picture of an i-phone (left) to make it appear as if it were running our Enfield Extra app.

Windows Movie Maker– for the YouTube videos embedded in this PowerPoint presentation I used video capture software and a video camera to get the video I required then edited them and added audio in movie maker.

YouTube.com – to upload my videos to my PowerPoint presentations so that we could by viewed on my blog site.

Microsoft PowerPoint – We used PowerPoint to present our written section of the coursework so that we could present to people.

Slideshare.net – We used slideshare.net to upload our PowerPoint presentations so that we could enable them to be view on my blog site.

Blogger – We used Bloggger to host our slide presentations for people to view.

In conclusion I feel my products have achieved their purpose. The newspaper follows existing conventions as well as developing on and challenging others. the mise-en-scene of colours, layout and quality effectively replicates and improves upon the local news genre. The website combines text, images that is appropriate and supports the style of the other products. I feel the page communicates clearly and effectively, allowing the reader to navigate easily though the pages. The audience feedback was very positive, the majority are pleased with my final products and we impressed with how lifelike the paper and website were. I am personally pleased with all my produced products and I feel I have effectively carried out my original brief as well as adding some extra work in the form of a application for mobile handsets.

Alex Kingham

Education

Evaluation