A2 Media CourseworkLocal Newspaper

Evaluation

Jessica Battle

Blog: www.nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.

com

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

products? Research into conventions:

I first looked at the differences between national and local newspapers. I annotated a local newspaper and this helped me to think about what I would need to include in my own work.

I wanted to recreate a similar look with my work, I looked at the usual layout of these newspapers and the simplistic style that was often used.

http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/02/research.html

Examples of ResearchI used the internet and my own examples of local and national newspaper and used them to identify differences and similarities. I applied this knowledge to my own newspaper and tried to follow my plan by creating a checklist.

How effective is the combination of your main

product and ancillary texts? My poster for my newspaper and my newspaper itself fit together well. I aimed to

use the same sort of design, fonts and colors to attract readers and boost interest in the newspaper. It is clear that the two of these documents are part of the same thing and link into each other in regards to the newspaper.

Poster link: http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/03/promotional-poster.html

Newspaper link: http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/03/newspaper.html

Radio Advertisement Along with my promotional poster for my newspaper.

Another ancillary task I have completed is to make a promotional radio advertisement.

Planning: Before making my radio advert I thought about radio

advertisements for newspapers I had heard before. I listened to more recent adverts such as the national advertisement of a new independent newspaper called ‘I’. I thought about the audio aspects of the advert and decided that I wanted to base my advert on an example like this. The difference to this, is that for my radio advert I wanted to include a music track behind the speech in my advert, to grab the listeners attention.

http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/05/planning-for-task.html

Making the Radio AdvertisementSoftware Used: For this part of the task I have used a programme called Audacity v1.2.4The Process: To make the radio advertisement I selected the music track I wanted and cut

it down to the part of the track that I wanted to use. I then used a microphone to record my voice.

http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/05/making-my-radio-ad-and-use-of-software.html

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

From the feedback I gathered from my target audience, (which is young adults to the elderly) I have found out what is most desired in a newspaper and what people want to read about. Throughout my project I asked my peers what they thought about the newspaper and they said that the layout and color used made the newspaper simple to understand yet eye-catching with the use of adverts and images and that it was overall consumer friendly.

Blogger link: http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/02/research.html

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

Programmes used:Adobe InDesignAdobe PhotoshopMicrosoft word- used to import text, write up questionnaires and to type up evaluative work.blogger.com

During the construction part of my project I used Adobe Photoshop to create my main title for my magazine and to edit all of the images that I produced. To create the actual newspaper and plan its layout I used Adobe In Design. Using this programme allowed me to import different types of media onto one document. I was able to use Microsoft Word to type up all of my newspaper articles, I then was able to import these onto the neat columns onto the front page and double page spread of my newspaper. I was also able to do something similar with my photo-shopped images. By creating several layers I could simply drag a piece of work from Photoshop straight onto my In Design document.

Blogger link: http://nowitsanewspaper.blogspot.com/2011/03/using-software.html

The Finished Product

Once I had completed the project I looked at both my ancillary tasks and my newspaper. There are things whish I completed well and there are things I could have done to a higher standard.

THINGS I DID WELL:

•Researched into what I wanted to create.

•Thought about my target audience and looked at their responses.

•Used the software usefully and gained new knowledge about the subject.

THINGS I COULD IMPROVE ON:

•Keeping to deadlines.

•Correct use of advertisements.

•Possible better use of layout and planning.