Thursday 15 March 2012

My Final Newspaper

To view my newspaper click here

My Final Newspaper Website

To view my newspaper's website click here
The two pages I have chosen to hyperlink are News and Local Info and the Home page is also linked so you can return to this page as it is the main page of the website

My Final Newspaper Poster

To view my newspaper poster click here

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

To view the document click here

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

To veiw the document click here

Evaluation - What have you learned from your audience feedback?









Evaluation - How did I use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Draft Posters

This is the first draft of what my newspaper poster was going to look like originally when I first designed it


I then changed the design to show what all the boxes would say or what the boxes would contain and what my poster would actually look like. For example, I have named what the aspects of the paper will be, news, sport and local info. I have also put in the newspaper name and what the logo will be. I have also said what the pictures will actually be about instead of just picture. I have also written in the slogan for the newspaper; 'local news for the local people'.  


Tuesday 13 March 2012

Venn Diagram to show the difference between broadsheet, local and tabloid newspapers

I have created a venn diagram to show the difference between the three main types of newspapers sold on a daily basis.



Newspaper Names

Most newspaper names are short and describe the area where it is sold such as The Braintree and Witham Times or The Halstead Gazette or it desrcibes when it is sold such as The Evening Gazette. Other newspapers don't do this and have names such as The Guardian or The Sun which maybe gives away the newspapers target audience. For example The Guardian sounds like it should be aimed at the upper class because of how it's name sounds whereas The Sun is just short and simple and sounds as though it's target audience would be more working class people.

For my newspaper, I decided the name should relate to something in the local area, for exmaple the name of the local area or something in that area.
I came up with the name Castle News because the word castle represents something in the local area, Hedingham Castle, which everyone in the local area would know about.

Examples of newspaper names
























My Newspaper Website Design

When designing my newspaper website, I used the Halstead Gazette's website as guide and used conventions of their website.
I used the pages news, sport, as they are the obvious categories as all newspapers have stories on these, and used a local info page which the Halstead Gazette have on their website. On the local info page they include information on weather, traffic news and events in the local area. I have used the De Vere crest as my newspaper logo as my newspaper is called 'Castle News', based on the local area of Hedingham. From using the De Vere crest, I have used the colour scheme red and yellow as these are the colours on the crest. I have also used some black in my colour but only because newspapers have the convention of being black and white.

On my website there is a home page and a news page. The home page includes the most recent news as does the news page but this also includes older news aswell.
I have used a different font for the smaller writing, times new roman, but this is similar to my main font for the titles.

The colour scheme of my newspaper based on the De Vere Crest logo.



My colour scheme also includes the colours black and white which are the stereotypical colours for a newspaper.






The logo I have included on all three of my products; the poster, website and newspaper. I have used this as the logo as it is the De Vere logo and as my newspaper is called 'Castle News' it relates to the newspaper title.

Monday 12 March 2012

My Masthead Ideas

I took the ideas for my masthead from all the other ones I had looked at, on the local newspapers and the national newspapers too. I wanted to include the date and the price as these are the main items people would look at when buying a newspaper. I decided to include the newspaper's website address in the masthead but instead of having it included in the bar with the price and date, I decided to put it above this so it was in a row of it's own.

Draft Mastheads







This is the first draft of my masthead. I decided to use all black font for all of the writing and use a font that was similar to the title font for the small writing as it needed to look the same but I didn't want to use the main font all the way through the newspaper. From the start I have put the website address in it's own row above the main bar for the price and date as it looked better. I have also decided to put the date and price at opposite ends of the main bar so they are not crammed in to the middle and it is easy to read. I did try to put the website in to the main bar with the date and price but it would not fit and this is another reason I have put it by itself above the main bar. If I made the font smaller for the website address, it would be too small toread so people wouldn't be able to use it. However, once I had made it in to a bigger font and put it above the date and price, I found it looked better than in the row with the date and price.

Final Masthead







This is my final masthead design. I chose to have the date and price in the bar in white and have the barn filled in black as it made the date and price stand out more from everything else. Also the bar looked a bit simple and plain without it filled in black so decided to fill in in. It also goes with the stereotypical colours of a newspaper being black and white. I have left the website address above this bar as it still looks better here but I have not filled in the bar with black as I think this looks better as it makes this stand out as it is above the black bar so it makes it stand out.

Friday 9 March 2012

Time Plan

Research
September - October
- looking at different newspaper stories
- colours schemes of newspapers
- prices of small, local town/village newspapers compared with national newspapers
- if there were any newspaper posters and their layouts
- different newspaper websites - the features and pages they included
- looked at the mastheads of different newspapers (local and national) to see how they were laid out
- researched and looked at different fonts to see which would look best as a font for my newspaper
- Questionnaire about what people expect of a local town/village newspaper
- looked at different newspaper from the local areas, for example the Halstead Gazette and the Suffolk Free Press to see the kinds of stories they included, colour schemes and prices
- asked different age groups what they thought the typical conventions of a newspaper were

Creating the Products
November - December
- took different pictures of places in my village e.g. the church, lake, village shop to be able to include them in my products I was going to make
- started to make the website first as this task would take the longest to complete
- during making the website, I started making the poster as this was a short task and wouldn't take very long so I could complete this while making the website
- made the actual newspaper last as this was the main task and I would then be able to take the stories and pictures I had included on the poster and on my website in my newspaper so they would all link together

Evaluation
January - February
- I started with the question 'How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?' I did this first as I did this as a PowerPoint presentation and these are quite easy to make and I also found it wouldn't take me long to complete this task as I only had to list the programmes and technologies I used along with how they helped me in creating, planning, researching and evaluating.
- The next question i did for the evaulation was 'In what ways does your media product use, develop, or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?' I did this question next as I decided I would do this as a collage/moodboard of pictures as to which parts of my newspaper use, challenge or develop the conventions of real newspapers already
- The next question I completed for the evaluation was 'How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?' I did this next by linking all the pictures together with arrows to show that they all link together and then explained the features which linked them together
- The last question I completed was 'What have you learned from your audience feedback?' For this, I took the people I asked at the beginning what they thought the typical conventions of a newspaper were and asked them again if they thought my newspaper used, developed or challenged the conventions of newspapers already and why.

Results of my Questionnaire

1. What do you expect the colour scheme of a local newspaper to be?







This pie chart shows that most people would expect the newspaper to contain both black and white and colour in the colour scheme of the newspaper. Very few people would expect the newspaper to have thew stereotypical colours of black and white on their own all the way through the newspaper. When I created my newspaper I decided to use both colour and black and white and not go with the stereotypical colours of black and white for a newspaper.

2. How much do you expect a local town/village newspaper to cost?





For my next question I asked people how much they would expect a local town/village newspaper such as the 'Halstead Gazette' to cost. The majority of people who answered the questionnaire said 26p-50p. There wasn't anyone who answered the questionnaire that said it should cost more than £1.00. As the majority of people who answered my questionnaire said a local newspaper should be priced between 26p-50p, I looked at other newspapers such as the 'Halstead Gazette' and the 'Braintree and Witham Times' and decided that I would price my newspaper at 40p.

3. From the stories below, which would you expect to be more likely to appear in a small, local town/village newspaper?







I also asked the people who answered my questionnaire what type of stories they would expect to see. I gave them a list of stories that could appear in a newspaper and gave them a multiple choice answer of which ones they thought would appear in a local newspaper and not a national one. Most people decided a popular story to include and would appear in a local newspaper would be destructive weather conditions in the local area. As the majority of people voted this to be likely to appear in a local newspaper I chose to have this story as the main story on my newspaper but I also included it on the website too. Another two stories which people thought would appear in a local newspaper would be a local place appearing on television and a person turning 100. I therefore chose to included these stories too. I put both on my website but only the local place on television in the newspaper.

4. Do you expect a local newspaper to include adverts?
100% of people on my questionnaire said that they would expect adverts in a newspaper. I also asked people if they thought yes to a newspaper including adverts, what would they expect the adverts to be about? The people who answered this question said they would expect the adverts to be for or about local businesses or local events. I then decided the adverts I would include in my newspaper would be about local businesses or for a local event. I made my advert about a local kitchen company as when I looked through the 'Halstead Gazette' I found that a lot of adverts were about these type businesses such as builders and decorators.

5. Would you expect the stories to have pictures relating to them?
With this question, again 100% of the people who answered this question said yes they would expect the stories to have pictures linked or relating to them. This made it easier to decide on what stories I would include as I would be able to take the pictures first so I knew I would have pictures for the stories and then come up with the stories based on the pictures I had taken.

6. Would you expect a newspaper to have a logo?
Although before asking this question I had looked at other local newspapers such as the 'Halstead Gazette' I saw that they hadn't got a logo to go with their newspaper and this why I asked this question. However, when looking at the results, I found that everyone who answered the questionnaire said they would expect a newspaper to have a logo.
After I had asked people if they thought the newspaper should have a logo, I added a question to this one asking that if thhought yes to a newspaper having a logo, would they expect the logo to be related to the newspaper name and again everyone who answered the questionnaire said yes to this question. As I had chosen the name of 'Castle News' for my newspaper, I decided to use the De Vere logo as the logo for my newspaper as De Vere is linked with the castle in Hedingham.

7. How often do you think a local newspaper should be published?








Even though I wouldn't be publishing my newspaper as an actual newspaper and would only be making one week's copy I decided that I should still ask people how often they would expect a newspaper to be published. Most people answered that they thought a local newspaper for a town/village would be published weekly. I thought I should have this in mind especially when creating stories for the website as most newspaper website I had looked at, included stories from a week or month ago even though the latest newspaper had only been published that day or a day before for example. When creating stories for the website, I added the dates the stories so that it looked as though the newspapewr had published stories the week before but also included the stories that were in that week's edition of the newspaper.

8. Do you think a local newspaper should also have a website?










Most of the local newspapers I looked at did also have a website. I would make a website for my newspaper anyway but I wanteds to see if people thought a small local newspaper should have one. 9/10 people who answered the questionnaire said they thought a newspaper should have a website. However, one person answered no. If someone answered no to the newspaper not having a website, I asked them why they thought a newspaper wouldn't have one. Their answer to this question would because they thought that there wouldn't be enough demand to have a website to accompany the newspaper.

9. Who do you think is the typical audience for a local newspaper?






One question I asked people is who they thought would be the typical audience for a local newspaper. The majority of people answered older people but middle aged people also had quite a majority of the vote too. This audience is reflected in the stories when the people who are interviewed for different things are aged between 40 - 60. This shows that I had already created my newspaper with a target group in mind or thought of the stereotypical newspaper readers which was reflected in the questionnaire results as the people who answered this also had a stereotypical target audience for a newspaper in mind too.

10. If you saw the front page of a newspaper, what would make you want to buy it?











I asked people in the questionnaire what would want to make them buy a newspaper if they saw the front page of it. I gave them an option to choose from pictures, title of the main story, adverts, name of the newspaper or other. As they could choose more than one answer, different people said different things would attract them to a newspaper to buy it. Everyone who answered the questionnaire put title of the main story as one of things that would make them want to buy a newspaper with the next most popular answer being the pictures that were also featured on the front page. Only one person answered that the name of the newspaper would want to make them buy it.

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Questionnaire - Page 2

Questionnaire - Page 1

I created a questionnaire with questions about what people would expect of a local newspaper and got people to fill it out to see what they thought.















Tuesday 21 February 2012

Newspaper Poster

When researching newspaper posters, I didn't really find any examples as this is not a way which newspapers really advertise anymore. I therefore, had to use my own ideas on how to layout the poster and what to include as there were not any examples I could take ideas from.
The pictures I inlcuded on the poster were ones from the news stories I had included on the website for my newspaper. I put sub-headings next to them such as news and sport as these are the main stories people look at when they read a newspaper or visit a newspaper website.
I also made up a slogan for my newspaper and included this on my poster; 'local news by the local people'. I chose this as my slogan because the news included in my paper is obviously for the local and surrounding areas and also because quite a few members of the public sometimes contact the newspaper with the stories as they are things they have to encounter in every day life and that's why I used 'by the local people'.

Pages on the Website

By looking at other local newspaper websites, I took the pages they had included on theirs as inspiration as to what pages to include on my website.Most of the local newspaper wesbsites had pages that included sport and news as these would be the most popular stories that people find interesting and would read about, I therefore decided to definitely have the news page as one of my hyperlinked pages as this would be the msot popular page as this is what people would expect to see on the website and also what most people would go on the website to do; read the news. Even though sport is a popular subject to write news about, I put this as a button on my website as a proposed page if I were to make the whole website but I did not include it as one of my hyperlinked pages.
The second hyperlinked page I chose to include was a local info page. Most of the local newspaper websites I looked at, such the Halstead Gazette and the Braintree and Witham Times, had a local info page with information about local events coming up and subjects such as the local weather for that day and also the week and also subjects such as the traffic news for the roads in and around that area. I chose to have a local info page as one of my hyperlinked pages as I thought it would be useful to the local people with the information that they really need to see as it is for their area and things that might need to use such as the traffic and what time and date events are taking place.

This shows the pages that the Halstead Gazette have decided to include on their website. This is where I took my inspiration from for decinding which pages on my website should be hyperlinked. I took the most obvious page of news as one hyperlinked page and then the idea of a local info page as I thought this would a useful and relevant page for the people that would use this website.

Local Newspapers - Typical Stories

When designing my newspaper, I researched the typical stories they include and the kind of stories they include so I knew what I should put in my newspaper. I found that all the stories are about things in the surrounding area and are about things what local people think are bad and good. Most of the stories also feature people from the local area and this is what the story is based on.

Halstead Gazette
I looked for typical stories on the Halstead Gazette website which had a lot of stories based on things in Halstead but also stories on things happening in the surrounding areas such as Braintree.

This story is not about Halstead but is about the surrounding area, Tiptree. This would be the kind of story people would read it about because it's not an everyday story but it is about something local so people would want to know.

This story is good for the local area as in the news recently all young people have been seen as bad people and do a lot of bad things whereas as this young person has done something good. This means people would want to read about it because it is not something they read about everyday with a young person doing something good for the area but also the country.

 All of these stories are based on things in Halstead. People would read about these because it is a story about something happening in their area. The story about the
hospital would interest people as the people in Halstead would use this as it is their local hospital and they would want to know what is going on with it. The stories about the salt bin
and the crossing would interest people in Halstead because it is again something in their area, and they would want to know what, for example the police, would be doing about
disappearance of the salt bin and the crossing is probably something a lot of people used so to have it reopened would be a good thing for them as they will be able to use it again and will be able to cross the road without worrying. The last story about the CAB, (Citizen's Advice Bureau), in Halstead would interest them as CAB had been told they were allowed to have funding for it for three years and have now only been given one and this was probably their local one and now they will not be able to use and will have to travel further to be able to use one.


These stories are about the surrounding area, Braintree. People would want to know about these stories, especially the one about the gales, as Braintree isn't far away from Halstead and this may affect the people living in Halstead. Also, the story about the Guildhall restoration is included in the Halstead Gazette as people in Halstead may be involved with this and as again it isn't far away from Halstead people may want to know about it.

As this story is from the website and not the actual paper itself, it is one that can be updated and is not just from the local area but for the whole region. People will want to read this because it is about the weather and everyone always wants to know about that. As it is updated, people will be able to get the latest weather from wherver they are to know about the latest storms expected or just general weather.