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

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How effective is the combination of my main

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

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Evaluation - What was the audience feedback?

Throughout the project I had feedback on my work from peers and my lecturer. For example, I was able to choose my logo and masthead design (which also was my title) through consulting people as to what they thought had the most room for scope, and looked like it would fit as a newspaper masthead.


I was able to get feedback on my poster through printing it on A3 and placing it on the wall amongst other posters, doing this allowed me to understand how effective it was (particularly amongst other posters). It got reasonably good response as it was selected originally out of three others which were deemed too overpowering in some elements  - and didn't match the elements of my newspaper.

Once I had completed all three of my texts, I was able to get feedback for the finished product.
To do this I used the social networking site, Facebook. I posted individually my jpeg images of the Poster, and Newspaper.

The feedback was on the whole very positive with praise focused on;

On the Front Page - The headline 'Snow way of Escape', the masthead (as it looks bold and eye catching), also the advertisements as they conveyed typical connections to the area- the D.I.Y advert used a local address, and the cross-channel ferry advert conveyed local connections (Portsmouth harbour) and human interest

The inside page - The organisation and use of 'negative' white space, so it wasn't overcrowded. Also in particular the clarity of the weather side bar. The pictures also got good feedback and the image of the child 'overlapping' the top news bar. Also the 'unconventional' place for the advert of the car company worked well.


The poster - The poster was praised for the bold text and colours used, as well as the choice of image.

Areas for improvement 

Front page - a  clearer justified font on the minor news stories on the right side bar, the sports section could be stand out a bit more. Also the 'you' in closer to you could stand out a bit more with colour etc. I improved on the slogan by making the you appear in red and stand out more than the black.

Inside Page - Separate the sections a little clearer by adding a line between each article.

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

After studying a range of local newspapers, I managed to pick out the general conventions employed by these.
Newspapers such as The News, Dorset Echo, Petersfield Post
These all supplied me with the forms and conventions of a local newspaper.

Evaluation of similar forms and conventions.pdf


Areas I challenged/developed

 

I added this advert in my inside page layout, this was unconventional as it was placed amongst the articles on the page, a feature that I have not come across in the News.












I developed on features on the news website, such as adding the image of the front cover on the home page. 

The front page headline was contrasted with a rather humourous image of the snow. The photo didn't have any direct human interest, however the gnomes represented the people in an interesting way.

 

Web Page

This is the link to my final web page for my Local newspaper

www.spinnews.co.uk Main Page - News


www.spinnews.co.uk/sport Sports Page


http://intranet.southdowns.ac.uk/studentweb/a2media/30046850/Spinnaker_News/News.html

Poster - Final

Inside Page Final

Front Page - Final

Images

I have uploaded all the images I have used in my Newspaper front page, inside page, poster and website onto Flikr. Flikr is a online photsharing website, one of the many websites which allows online media communication and social networking. I have presented the photostream at the side of the blog for easy access.

Here is the link to my image on Flikr - each image has a caption where I have written the features and reasons the photo is worthy for my newspaper.


My Photos

Poster design

These are the selection of posters I created each with audience feedback.

This design incorporates many of the aspects needed in a poster for the newspaper. I have included the front pages and used the Spinnaker tower to form a visual text image. The text features all of the words I consider important in Local News. The feedback  on this one was postive, and the words on the Spinnaker were well received. However it was felt that the image of the newspapers took up too much room and the way they were transformed and displayed didn't suit the theme.

These two received some postive feedback, and were praised on the Graphical elements featured in the images. With the image of the statue making it striking and instantly recognisable. The elements that are missing however, is the human interest (photos etc) and the local newspaper look.

I have chosen this as my final poster, as it used all the elements necessary to create a poster for a local newspaper. The bold writing in black and red, contrasted with the light grey background, does resemble my front page in some respects. The image, which I used on the front page of my paper, has the elements of human interest, humour and feel good in it. I felt this portrayed my newspaper in a positive light.

Inside Page Production

In this one I have followed my basic structure of how I intended in my floor plan construction of the inside page. I have included the traditional expected features within a newspaper and specifically the inside page - such as the Weather (both nationally and locally).

This is a far more developed version, as I have included the main body of text for the inside page article. I decided to change the inside page article to my original front page image and headline. I felt the image of the gnomes in the snow was a striking image for the front cover and this image has more of a communal 'local' look which I can write in depth about and the audience can judge what they see in the image.

 This is the final design, I have included a weather section (a typical feature in local newspaper). The news stories are all finished and convey typical features in a local paper (micro politcs/ community spirit) etc.. Also the adverts and offers have been added - an important component of local newspapers.

First Page Progression

This is my first draft of my front page, the design follows my previous 'floor plan' design. I have created my news stories according to the photographs I have taken. The main story on here is based on Baffins Pond and the idea of 'keeping off'. The Masthead design was chosen and tweaked after the design was chosen in a classroom vote. The top of the masthead also includes other information including the district in which the newspaper is sold, the website for the newspaper and a smaller news story that would feature in the latter part of the paper.

In my next progression I have included more advertisements for local companies and included 'offers' a common part of local newspapers, which have offers of winning Holidays etc.... The main concern on this page however is the bottom advertisement, as the image would not appeal to many people because of the rust on the boat.

In this version I have changed the bottom advert and used a photograph I took on a trip to France using a cross channel ferry, the image has people value a necessary element of the front page.

This design uses a completely different main  story after I decided that using a photo with potential humour and human interest alongside a catchy headline would be more effective than the previous headline. The other stories on the front page must now conform to the main headline and the winter feel.

Final design, this is my intended final front cover.

Advertisements

Front cover adverts.

D.I.Y ADVERT 

This would be my top banner advertisement and is advertising a local DIY store, the store is local, promoting the idea that the newspaper is local. It includes the necessary information such as the address and pictures associated with advertisements.

Bottom Banner Advert

This draft advertisement uses a photograph of an existing Ferry company, the photo despite being relevant does not depict the company very well, with the rust on the side of the boat.

In my second attempt, I decided to promote a new cross channel ferry company "Le Manche". This relates to Portsmouth and it's connection with maritime and sea, as it includes sailings from Portsmouth.

Inside page Advert

This advert gives the feel of local life. A local business being advertised is one of the typical features of adverts. I blended two images together on photoshop, and out a image of a photo of a relatives' car and added in text to make it look like a real car sale.

Webpage Adverts

The Isle of Wight is one of the close easily accessible destinations for people in my local newspaper selling area. I have chosen to create a dinosaur museum poster for the Isle of Wight, by using the dinosaur sculpture that was down Southsea in 2010. I created a badge in photoshop and highlighted that the museum would be enjoyed by Children.

This advert is not of a local company, but instead promoting Spinnaker News, I have used the words important in my paper, and the newspaper slanted with the slightly opaque Spinnaker tower in the background.

Animated banner
I created an animated advert for my web page, as I found that many real  online newspapers, and websites in general use animated adverts to attract the attention of the visitor.

I created this through stop frame animation, and created a series of separate images and creates a GIF animation through photoshop. In photoshop I could fine tune the smoothness of the animation, and make any changes needed.

Then finally I brought the GIF animation into Adobe Flash, which is a industry standard piece of animation software, and used by advertisers. i imported the GIF to the stage and then exported it to a .mov file to be compatible on a Loop with Quicktime. Then I put it onto iPhoto and imported it as a movie to iWeb.

Spinnaker Tower News Logo

'The News' has a recognised logo on the masthead of a sailing boat, the boat reflects the maritime history of the city and is shown in a contrating red to the largely blue and black colour scheme of the newspaper. This link shows the logo on the top of the 'the News website'.

For my newspaper 'Spinnaker News' I will take a similar approach, using the simplified image and the turned red to  contrast well with the masthead.

The photo is taken from a photo of the Spinnaker tower and then I have edited the image in photoshop to give it the simplified look like the one on the news. The red, as dicussed in the 'colours in the news' post demonstrates a eyecatching appearance. This is my original photo I took to take my logo from.



The main masthead, including the newspaper name and logo, the date, price, and a possible slogan

 

The Masthead Design

Firstly, I need to think of a name for my Newspaper. I have chosen a few names such as;

Copnor Chronicle - Aliterateration use makes this title stand out the most

Spinnaker News - Using the 'south's' most iconic modern landmark makes the news seem modern

Portsmouth Press  - Use of aliteration again, and the wide area it covers gives it flexibility

Portsea Island News - The idea behind this on was to shorten it to PIN and have that as a recognisable name.

I feel that Copnor Chronicle is possibly the best name out of the three here because of the alliteration, but it's limiting the area of Copnor. The others cover a wider area, so I have designed all four mastheads to see which would look the best.

I have conducted a vote from my peers on the three masthead designs.

The opinion on this one is that the colour scheme is original and it looks the most 'proffesional'. However the 'Copnor' area is restricted and the logo doesn't demonstrate the area's points of interest.

 

This idea was the least favoured in the vote out of three, but the idea of using initialism of P.I.N was favoured by a few participants.

 

The Spinnaker News was considered the best out of the three I have chosen to work with, the use of the image and blue colour gives a modern look I was orgininally hoping to achieve.

Basic Layout

The Layout of my Newspaper.

<--- The masthead box, (includes title, logo, tagline, and news)

<--- Would include usually one advertisement

<--- The Main story and title go here

<--- Divided into 3 or so sections and has mix of news and adverts

<--- One Advert

<--- A very small snippet of news

<---Contains news and information

<---The inside page has Contents and Weather

and the main story of the paper

Alternative Layouts

Colours in 'The News'

Complimentary Colours



 Colours I am interested in using need to compliment well with one another, I am using a complimentary colour wheel to help choose my colour scheme. The News currently uses a number of shades of blue, and I am considering using the same. If I was to use blue then the comlimentary colour would be a red/orange. The red/orange would be appropriate as it was make certain elements of my newspaper stand out from the rest.

Also I must consider the economic cost of using colour print, newspapers often restrict their colours to the four (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black)

What is the 'Inverted Triangle'?

The inverted triangle is a metaphoric term coined by Journalists and it illustrates the significance of article content. See the inverted triangle to the right, as it shows the hierarchy of the content inside the article.

Dorset Echo Link

See below for the annotated article which highlights what stages of the inverted triangle it covers.

Human Interest

A Human interest story focuses on the human issues, such as a story of a childs battle with a life threatening disease and how they overcome it. The story is very emotionally charged and tries to get the audience to interact and become involved with the issue by making it seem they are following the story closely.

Stories such as this one concerning of a local soldier receiving a bravery award in 'The news' and this reflects the idea of human interest perfectly. Also in my previous post looking at locality the story of the pensioner graduating shows Human interest.

Human Interest stories are often considered to be very soft and manipulative, as they are often very emotionally charged.

Information on 'The News'

What area does it sell in?

'The News' is the title of the only daily local newspaper in the Portsmouth area. It covers an area of City, Fareham & Gosport, and Havant & Waterlooville. This improves its editorial content and gives it a wider focus. The content will be more varied and appeal to its large area. The editorial content which ranges from Motors, to news, to local notices, to community events and significant dates all the way to

...to sport.

The contrasting genres may appeal to completely different audiences but the inclusion of both of them makes it a more appealing paper to buy.

Also the large area it sells in allows a reasonably large community to get involved in The News giving 'average joe's' a claim to fame.

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/community.aspx

The Portsmouth Community page demonstrates the importance of community in local newspapers. The range shows how large the area is of 'The News' coverage. From Portsmouth to small regions like Meon, the appeal is even broader.

Here is the general area in which 'The News' sell on a map.

'The News' for Portsmouth has three editions (Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport, Havant and Waterlooville) and costs 45p per issue, in comparison a local newspaper cost almost half of that of say something like a leading national Broadsheet like the 'Guardian' but that unlike most local papers have more news quantity and less third party attributions.

The weekly Monday to Saturday circulation for paid editions of The News is around 48,191.

What is a Local Newspaper?

What makes a Local Newspaper local depends on a number of factors. Most newspapers are daily in the UK very rarely do you get weekly newspapers in the UK. Newspapers like broadsheets (Telegraph, Guardian and the Independent) are national newspapers and only touch upon the very important issues and not so much the novelty value stories.

The difference between the two front covers above is apparent, the Independent shown above left is selling to a national audience and the circulation is national, so therefore it concentrates on important national news and often news around the globe, the use of the word global also clarifies this.

However the one above right which is The News is a local newspaper and covers the area of Portsmouth and surrounding districts such as Fareham and Southsea. The issues are primarily focused on local issues and thus distinguishes the difference between the two, it is unlikely to feature news on issues from London as the idea of Local and close proximity News Values are then lost.

What are News values and Bias?

What are News Values?

Looking at the term 'News Values' we refer to the ideas or assumptions which form an ideological background to the role of the journalist.

A list of values can be summerised as follows:

Newspaper Frequency a lengthy, structural event which would occur over a long period of time and is considered outside the frequency of daily newspapers it is generally not favoured and instead events that happen suddenly

Negativity a well known term in the media 'Bad news is Good news'

Unambiguity keeping the story simple is essential, newspapers try to avoid stories which has more than one meaning.

Unexpectedness or a 'surprise' is a where a rare event leads to its circulation in the public domain. The unexpectedness is more effective to something that is considered to be predictable.

Composition The newspapers need to have a good balance of news if the main story is a 'gloomy' stories of a more positive nature will be added, keeping the balance.

Personalisation Events are generally focussed on the actions of individuals so an institution or group maybe 'personalised' by referring to the prominent individual in the group.

Meaningfulness if a story reflects upon similar values to that of the audience through its similar cultural scenario its more appealing.

Reference to Elite Persons and Nations a tactic employed more by national newspapers and generally ignored by local newspapers unless it includes something local. A reference to an elite person locally could be (the town mayor, local MPs, or Football Club managers/players) http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/MP-faces-suspension-call-over.6551850.jp This story looks at Lib Dem Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock over claims he indecently assaulted a woman.

For elite Nation a disaster that could happen in the Western Countries could achieve recognition if it resulted in a loss of a few lives where as an equivilant event in the third world would be less likely to become news unless it resulted in large scale death.

Finally, How how do local newspapers use 'bias'?

A bias is very important for newspapers; numerous newspapers (mainly national) hold a huge bias towards certain beliefs and issues. One of the biggest biases in newspapers is politics. Newspapers like ‘The Sun’ can have a bias towards the Conservative party. Also in connection with The Sun which is owned by Media Tycoon Rupert Murdock who has a huge impact in the media world with his ownership of Fox in America and some English newspapers can have a very influential effect on the audience through a number of media platforms.

Bias can is seen in;

Mode of address, headline, photo angle/position and the selection and omission of certain facts and stats.

What is Newsworthiness?

What is newsworthiness?

If something is newsworthy it means it is worth covering, generally something newsworthy would base itself around numerous factors. If the story has a big impact on someone and is shocking then it is regarded as newsworthy – a well-known phrase is “Good news is bad news”.

These are the things considered to create a newsworthy story.

Impact or Consequences an effective story is one that can have a real long-lasting effect on it's audience if the consequence is real then the bigger the story.

Conflict We are all naturally interest in 'conflict' as it can add drama to our lives. If a story ran smoothly without little conflict or background conflict then it would be considered dull (for example if development of a huge residential area was proposed in picturesque countryside and went ahead without problem that would not be newsworthy, however if a disagreement between local people and the developers took place it would be far more interesting.)

Loss of life or possession As horrible and as inconsiderate as it sounds we are all intrigued by the idea of loss and death. A saying in the industry is 'if it bleeds it leads'. An example of loss of possession can be a house fire. Here is an example in my local newspaper of a injury that relates to this;

Proximity (how close the story has taken place). Proximity is very important in making news more interesting. If someone was robbed in an area considered local to you. For example a house robbery locally is more likely to be the main news in a local paper where as its less important in a national one.

Prominance The idea of a famous or well known person being injured or involved in a crash its likely to make not only national but international headlines. However if the person involved is just an average person then its less likely it will make the local news let alone the national news.

Timelessness a recent story is likely to be more newsworthy than a story that happened a week ago. If its new then its more likely to hit the headlines.

Novelty Novelty value is another element which could help attribute to a newsworthy story.