1. Liam Keenan
Results from market research
I have constructed a primary research questionnaire to gain information about
content and preferred styles of newspapers. I have asked questions that are
relevant to the newspaper I wish to construct which will allow me to gain a
greater insight into what the target audience want to see in my paper. Most of
the questions I have asked give me useful statistics based around my ideas.
What gender are you?
Male
Female
My survey results allocated that the people I asked on my survey were
predominantly male. I only handed the survey to two females to complete. My
paper is aimed at the male gender primarily.
What age are you?
13-18
19-24
37-42
After gathering together the results from this question I found out that the
majority of the people I asked to complete the survey were teenagers aged 13-
18. This is the age group my newspaper will be aimed at so I plan to use
informal language and large photographs to attract this age group.

2. Liam Keenan
What is your current occupation
status?
Employed
Unemployed
sudent
My survey results show that most of my target audience will be students. It
also shows that more of the people I asked were unemployed and didn’t have
jobs so therefore the price of my paper will be affected like that. A weekly
newspaper would be better for this audience as they will have disposable
pocket money and more than likely live with their parents.I will also include
club nights and events news to inform my audience and attract them to the
newspaper.
Which local tabloid newspaper
would you prefer to read?
M.E.N
Salford Advertiser
The Metro
My results show that 50% of the people I asked preferred to read the
Manchester evening news than the other local papers I included. This paper
includes local news such as crime etc. I aim to make my paper similar to this.
The Metro is the least favourite of local papers probably because it’s free and
includes transport news. Most students won’t have the money to afford cars
so the traffic news won’t apply to them but they will read this for public
transport news such as trains and buses. The Salford advertiser is a more
informal paper for locals. I plan to include aspects of this in my product.

3. Liam Keenan
How much would you be willing
to pay for a daily newspaper?
30
35
40
45
50
My results allocate that 50% of my audience would pay the full 50p for a daily
newspaper so I could charge more for a weekly release but I’m going to lower
it to 45p to guarantee purchases. 40p was also a popular price so I have
decided I will use the middle price of 45p.
What colours would you prefer to
see on the paper?
red
blue
black and white
yellow
The colour scheme is very important for a newspaper as it can connote many
different things and attract a variety of audiences. The conventional black and
white colour scheme was most popular amongst the people I asked so I plan to
use this for my newspaper but I’m also going to use some red for stories about
danger, local crime, tragedies and death to attract the consumer’s eye. Blue
would also attract a male audience so I may use this for some stories.
Would you prefer the style of the
paper to be more formal or
informal?
formal
informal

4. Liam Keenan
My results show that out of the ten people I asked on my survey 5 would
prefer an informal style and 5 wanted more formal language included in the
paper. These equal results tell me that I need to use both to widen my
audience I plan to use a more informal tone to attract my targeted audience of
male teenagers as they would relate to the language. I will use some formality
for specific stories that would apply to an older audience such as holiday
offers, traffic news and weather updates etc.
Do you prefer your local news
delivered weekly or daily?
weekly
daily
The majority of my audience would rather my local newspaper delivered
weekly than daily so I am going to make it a weekly release though a small
minority preferred it to be delivered daily but most of these were employed
and older than my primary audience of 13 to 18 year olds. Teenagers with
limited pocket money would definitely be able to afford a weekly paper.
What stories would you prefer to
read about in your newspaper?
sport
local interest stories
advertisements
TV guide
crime
My survey results allocated that most people that read newspapers are most
interested in stories about local crime above all. I will include a crime story on
my front page. The majority of people I asked were males so sport stories were
quite popular. My target audience is primarily males so I plan to include some

5. Liam Keenan
sport stories in my paper such as football and rugby news. Local interest
stories were also popular linking in with the crime. The TV guide was least
popular as this would be directed at an older age group so I’m not sure if I
should include this or not.
would you rather have more photographs
than text in your newspaper?
Photographs
text
The people who filled out my survey would have rather seen more text than
photographs throughout my paper. This was strange because I thought a
younger audience would have preferred to look at more pictures and briefly
skim through the text to gain an idea of the story. I plan to still use large
photographs but an abundance of text for the older generation to widen the
demographics of my newspaper.
Overall my market research has given me a much greater insight into what I
need to include in my own production to attract my primary target audience
and keep them interested in the paper.Audiences could use my text for a
number of different purposes according to Blumler and Katz’ gratifications
theory.My coursework will attract the target audience through means of
diversion because whilst they read the stories and look at the photos in the
paper they can escape daily routines and everyday problems by relaxing and
reading about local news. They could respond in terms of their own personal
identity and put themselves in the position of the people involved in the
tragedies or aspire to be like the celebrity icons included. The audience could
also respond in terms of their own surveillance to gain information useful for
living such as holiday offers and adverts. They could also read up on traffic
news or check the TV and gig guide to find out what’s on. In terms of personal
relationships they could substitute some of the stories for daily life such as
father and son relationships or family related stories for example. According to

6. Liam Keenan
Stuart Halls encoding/decoding model I have encoded my text so it can be
decoded by my audience, creating apreferred reading by using informal
language and pictures or stories about teenagers. I could use more photos
than text and large headlines to draw and attract the consumers, so that they
will be anchored positively and use the text for diversion.The masthead will be
bold and Sans Serif following the usual style of a tabloid newspaper and as a
media producer I will be encoding it using a conventional house style and font.
They will identify with this as it is a newspaper for local people and they will
relate themselves to the community.