Advanced Portfolio

Amelia Johnson

A2 Media Studies Evaluation

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

real media products?

NEWSPAPER

Masthead

Main Picture linked to article

Splash Headline

Menu

Puffs

Masthead

Puffs

Headline

Coloured photo with caption

Strap line

Splash

Display advertisement

Disp

lay

advertise

me

nt

FORMS AND CONVENTIONS OF REAL

MEDIA PRODUCTS

Price Website

Coloured photo with caption

Newspaper

The ways I used forms and conventions of a local newspaper were by annotating current existing local newspapers and comparing common values contained in each newspaper. Examples of this are shown on the previous page of the local newspapers in my area - the Camden New Journal and Ham & High.

The forms and conventions in which I found in both were:

The mast head

The splash

Photograph with caption

Headline

Puffs

Logo

Display Advertisements

The lure

Conventional use of mode of address

When writing news articles I adopted a colloquial mode of address that would appeal to a younger audience.

Addressing the audience as a friend

Using slang words familiar to my target audience

“After dark, take your cue from Prada, Matthew Williamson, Valentino and Max Mara, who all showed luxe versions for the cocktail hour”.

“It gives it more of a boy-meet-girl look than a sloppy army surplus look”.

“Fashionistas”

Conventional Use of Graphics

Trying to aim the the newspaper at a younger audience I used coloured and high mega pixel images and graphical hand drawn illustrations so the audience could identify with the newspaper. However, it is unconventional for community newspapers to use postmodern graphics in their publications.

Conventional Use of Display Adverts

This is an advert I created for the high-street store Habitat. I added the terms and conditions at the bottom of the advert to create a realistic look. The reason I chose to do a Habitat advert was its appeal to a target audience aged between 18-25. As this group is most likely to be moving away from home from the first time, they require new household supplies, including furniture which I also thought would go well with the fashion page.

This is an advert I used on my front page of a local pub in West Hampstead. As the newspaper is aimed at a young audience and most young people go to the pub I thought it would be an obvious choice to make.

As well as creating adverts for a younger audience I wanted to keep to the forms and conventions by creating an estate agency advert which are commonly seen in local newspapers.

How I challenged forms and conventions when producing

my Website

My objective was to aim my webpage at a younger audience so I asked 20 people aged between 16 – 30 to comment on how they would prefer a local newspaper website to be laid out. After showing them webpage's such as the Camden New Journal and the Ham and High (shown above), 16 out of 20 said they would prefer less writing on the home page as it was cluttered and unnecessary. I also added icons such as ‘Youtube best of the day’, a video selected each day showcasing Youtube’s top video clip. ‘Get this on your mobile’, allows the audience to receive ‘WHO’ news on their mobile, and icons allow news-sharing to friends/family using Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. I also have a ‘featured blog’ that would be changed weekly.

Ham

&

Hig

h

My

Webpage

WEBSITE

Aspects included on my webpage

Youtube best of the day – if my website was an ongoing process, I would change the video to the highest hitting video clip from Youtube each day.

‘Get this on your mobile’, was something I thought would appeal to the younger generation as most young people have high tech mobiles that can receive the internet and therefore the ‘WHO ‘ news.

I wanted to include social networking sites into my website as many young people communicate over the internet, thus making it more accessible to my target audience who would be able to share the news located on my website.

POSTER

Having researched local newspaper posters I found it difficult to discover posters aimed at local news, which led me to research main stream newspapers. It was difficult to follow any of the forms and conventions as there was little information available as none of the local newspapers appeared to use posters as a form of advertising. As I am also studying Graphic Design I am confident in illustrating my own graphics and have used a mixture digital media and analogue using Photoshop and cutting and pasting the newspaper clippings to create my poster.

Background created using clips from newspapers and cutting and sticking them onto a board. I created my logo on Photoshop

The by-line of the identity was created using the typography tool on Photoshop.

In order to create a conventional poster I added the copyright sign and Independent Newspaper Limited

By adding my website address it gave the audience a way of finding out more information about the newspaper. Most posters contain a website address and therefore I stuck to the conventions.

I drew this image, and took a picture to upload onto Photoshop where I then changed the image to black and white using the ‘threshold’ tool.

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

Main product – Local Newspaper Ancillary texts – Poster to advertise the newspaper and a published

Webpage. I think that the combination of the tasks worked well together. I

tried to create synergy by the wide use of brand identity across each medium and feel I achieved this with the use of my logo and formatting.

What I have learnt from the audience feedback

Target Audience

•ABC1

•Male and female

•Aged16-25

•Residents in West Hampstead

What I have learnt from the

audience feedback

In order to receive my audience feedback I created a questionnaire inviting

constructive criticism.

I asked 20 people to fill in my questionnaire and got some some positive and negative feedback.

Would you read this newspaper

Sales

Yes No Maybe

90% - Yes 5% - No 5% - Maybe

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Do you think the newspaper would be enhanced by

including:

0-16 16-22 22-50 50+0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

What age group would you say this newspaper is aimed at?

Online Hard Copy On your mobile 0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

Would you prefer to see the news online, hard copy or on your

mobile?

Did you find the webpage clear and easy to navigate around?

Sales

Yes No Other

85% - Yes 10% - No 5% - Other

If you could, would you add any of the below features to the

webpage?

0

4

8

12

When looking at the poster did you understand what was being

advertised

Pie Chart

Yes No Other

95% - Yes 5% - No 0% - Other

Other comments that were made regarding my audience

feedback

Overall, having checked my results, there seems to be a good level of positive feedback, however the results outlined areas that could be be changed in order to improve my newspaper. The comments included:

Question - ‘Did you find the webpage clear and easy to navigate around’?Answer – “Everything was clear however would have liked the page to look more

full up.

Question – ‘When looking at the poster did you understand what was being advertised’?

Answer – “When looking at the poster I would have liked to see the writing bigger to stand out and grab my attention”

Question – ‘Would you read this local newspaper’?Answer - “ I would read this paper but would like have more information about

what’s going on in the community if it was a real newspaper”.

1.

How I used media technologies in the

planning, research and construction of my

coursework.

A website called www.blogger.com helped me to log and structure my research. I found this a useful way to maintain my planning and research as it helped me track my progress and have feedback from other bloggers.

I was able to embed video’s from Youtube and received tutorials on how to use the software that was previously unfamiliar. This was useful as I was able to return to my blog and refer to the video’s if needed without having to look for them on the internet all over again.

BLOGGER

You Tube

You tube was hugely useful not only in terms of distributing and marketing my product but also allowing me access to tutorials that dealt with the dearth of technologies that I had to become familiar with!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDkHFRqR5gE

GoogleGoogle was a good way of sourcing information from the internet as it gave me templates of:

• the front page • a double page spread • the last page • forms and conventions of a newspaper.

The search engine was also useful whilst looking for instructions on how to use the software to create my coursework, such as Indesign – creating columns, how to cut out an image from it’s background on Photoshop. It also gave me inspiration for my logo for my tasks.

MICROSOFT WORD Helped to create a time plan in order for to me follow a timescale to work off and complete my coursework by the deadline.

Time Plan

INDESIGN

Indesign helped me to plan and create templates for each newspaper page. It also allowed me to be creative in the construction as I was able to integrate text and graphics and create columns.

I used Photoshop to manipulate the images by changing the graphics of the illustration using the Threshold tool. I also cut out images from their backgrounds as seen in the train images, and layering each picture that I took, adding typography to create adverts such as the one below for Habitat.

Photoshop

I used the computer program Dreamweaver to build my website to form a working program that was clear and easy to navigate around.

I wanted the home page to be clear, uncluttered and easy on-the-eye. As a teenager I understand the need for simplicity and good graphics as most people of my age can’t be bothered to read lots of writing or small print, therefore I used this knowledge to target my young audience.

Using an existing website from the internet, I transferred it to Dreamweaver where I was able to change the html format, which determines the contents of the website. I also used a Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) which determines the presentation semantics, which is the look and format of the webpage. Using Flashplayer I embedded a video from Youtube onto my website. I also made a featured blog and created my own adverts to go on the web page.

Dreamweaver

Using a digital Camera I used a digital camera to take all the imagery used in my coursework. The images were used in:

•Main article stories

•Adverts

•Logo’s

•Poster

Conclusion

Overall, I am happy with the outcome of my coursework. Having invested a considerable amount of time and effort over the past three months to research and complete each of the 3 tasks as well as learning how to use the computer software, I

now feel more confident in creating websites, posters or local newspapers. With the benefit of hindsight, there are things that I would have done differently. However, it has been a huge learning curve in terms of how to create a website from scratch,enhance my Photoshop skills and teach myself with the support of internettutorials how to competently use the software Indesign and Dreamweaver.

Perhaps what I should have done is add more space for adverts, use conventional detail on my front page and have a greater understanding of the software before starting my coursework.

Taking everything into consideration, I would keep everything the same except for adding in the details above.

Thank You

For Your Time