2. 1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? As my media product was a newspaper I used, developed and challenged the forms and conventions of real newspaper products. After analysing local newspapers in my area, I discovered that they all followed a similar layout with a limited range of formats which made them very recognisable. I chose to hold on to the layout that they used as I thought this would help my new newspaper be recognised however, I did move around a few key features as felt this would catch readers eyes and want them to pick up and read the newspaper. One of the ways in which I kept a form and convention of the newspaper was the bold title at the top of the page. However as you can see by the picture to the right, I chose to place my title in the centre of the page with the logo placed in the middle, unlike current newspapers where the title is placed on the right hand side. I felt this would be eye catching and that readers would be challenged by a new layout which they may find more interesting.
3. Another way in which I used the forms and conventions of a newspaper are the way in which they format the stories which are published. From the picture to the left you will be able to see that I kept this format as I felt my readers would be used to that particular way and if I had just written my stories in paragraphs then it wouldn't have looked like a newspaper and I wouldn't have achieved my task. I personally felt that I developed the forms and conventions of a newspaper by adding competitions to win a particular prize, e.g. becoming an interior designer. When designing the competition I felt that if I developed it by adding on a entry slip this would encourage readers to talk part as it would be easy to quickly fill out the slip and continue with what is necessary to complete the entry. (Picture to the right).
4. I aimed to challenge the forms and conventions of a newspaper by adding a sub title underneath the main titles of my stories. I felt that this would be a good idea as it gave the reader a chance to absorb the information and have an understanding of what the story is about before going straight into the main story. This is shown briefly in the extracts of stories to the left. I also felt I challenged the forms and conventions by including a annotated view of the newspapers website, which showed to readers how simple and informative the website is. A small extract about the website was also included which I felt promoted it well and challenged the original forms and conventions as this is not normally seen and readers would not be used to the guide. This is shown below in the picture.
5. 2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? I feel that both my ancillary tasks; website with two hyperlinked pages and radio advertisement, are effective when combining them together with my main product. As the local newspaper was a brand new newspaper, I felt it need as much advertising as possible. We felt that by choosing a radio advert this would be a good way of spreading the news that THE LINK had been released and it was going to be delivered to peoples doors weekly. We chose a radio advert because we thought that most people listen to the radio, whether it be in their cars whilst travelling somewhere, in a shopping centre or cafe, or simply at home. By creating a website we thought that this would allow people who are unable or out of the delivery range to be involved in THE LINK and go online and find out all the latest news, gossip, weather and find out more about THE LINK itself. We also felt that as technology has advanced so rapidly in the past few years by creating a website we could change and edit it as we please. All three products are uploaded onto my blog which is easy to access and view each one.
6. 3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback? All of the audience feedback which we have had, from researching into the target audience to people evaluating the final product has been very helpful. When receiving audience feedback from the questionnaire which I created when trying to find out our perfect target audience, it gave us a direct idea of who would be most interested in a new local newspaper. We had learnt from this questionnaire that lots of people have different views and habits and by receiving information from people who are going to be using your product allows you to go down the correct root and get the best out of the product so everyone enjoys it. After we had finished our newspaper, I then created another questionnaire asking people to rate what they thought of each the newspaper, website and radio advertisement. As most of this feedback was positive there were a few tips and pieces of advice which I would definitely take on board if I were to do this again. From receiving audience feedback it allows you to sit back and be proud of what you have achieved and look at what others thing about your project. Audience feedback has taught me that other peoples views and expectations are vitally important when creating a media product as many of these people will be using/viewing it and the aim of the product is to entertain as many people as well as your target audience.
7. 4. How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages? I used a wide variety of media technologies during construction, research , planning and evaluations stages. To begin I created a blog on www.blogger.com this was a site where I was able to date everything that I did and write about research and information that I had found out for the newspaper. This then allowed me keep everything organised and have everything handy when I needed to look back at something. When beginning my research I collected newspapers which I then scanned onto the computer and annotated on Microsoft Picture Manager. I used a digital camera to take pictures for the adverts and article pictures, after I was satisfied with the pictures that I had taken I uploaded them onto the computer, and again used Microsoft Picture Manager to edit them and allow them to look like adverts. I created the newspaper in Microsoft Word as I was able to create text boxes and place text where I wanted it and make it look like a newspaper. When it came to creating the website we used www.yola.com this was an internet site which allowed you to create free websites and publish them. On the website we used things like hyperlinks, adding pages and uploading information. .
8. For the radio advertisement we used the Apple Mac – Garage band to record the script we then transferred the clip into iMovie so we were able to add our jingle and music. Whilst on iMovie, we set the music to fade in and out, we overlapped and cut down music clips so that we could find the correct music to fit our advert. After finalizing our advert we then uploaded it to our blogs where it can be easily accessed and played.
9. The good and the bad. Throughout the entire process of our advanced portfolio there were many up and downs, and sections that we thought worked well and other which we felt didn’t work well. Newspaper – THE LINK: Positive actions: When researching into local newspapers we collect various different additions, such as ‘The Comet’, ‘The Advertiser’, by annotating these and scanning them onto the computer we were able to upload them to our blogs. This helped to give us an idea of the main features that were involved in a local newspaper. From this research when we began to plan we had clear ideas of what we needed to involved and what features we could remove/change. After collecting all our research on advert/articles when we came to create our own we found it simple and knew what the main features would be, for example, large title, with columned stories and a picture to help the reader understand the story. Negative actions: Some actions that didn't go so well are the contribution towards the newspaper. Before we began creating the newspaper, me and my partner should have created a timetable which evenly divided up the newspaper content such as who's writing what articles, photos which each person will be taking and editing into an advert if needed. I feel that majority of contribution came from myself, I created 5 out of the 7 stories that feature within the newspaper, I also created the layout, style and put together the newspaper.
10. Website with two hyperlinks: Positive actions: When designing the website we aimed to have 4 hyperlinks, 2 which worked. However, as it was so easy to create the link and edit the page we continued to have all 4 hyperlinks working allowing us to have 5 active pages on our website. Negative actions: When we first began to create our website we used a programme from the internet called www.weebly.com, when we came to start editing and creating the website the programme kept crashing causing us to loose anything that we had done. After this had happened a couple of times I made the decision to begin again on a different programme called www.yola.com, we found this site was good and allowed us to create and publish the whole website. Radio Advertisement: Positive actions: As we had prepared everything well, such as our script and music we were able to crack on a record the radio advertisement quickly. We used ‘garage band’ on the Apple Mac computers to record the advert, here we were able to add background music and also put effect onto the spoken voice such as ‘female voice or radio effect’ Negative actions: We hadn’t thoroughly planned who we were going to get to say the advert. We had an idea that we wanted it to be a female and had asked someone who we thought the part would fit perfectly, however, we were let down at last minute and had to quickly find someone else to step in.
11. What would I do differently.. If I had the opportunity to do this again, I personally feel I would work by myself as I would be able to work at my own pace and wouldn't have to rely on others. However, I think working as a pair is good as you are able to reflect ideas off of each other. I would also take more care in planning and preparations for each tasks and allow myself plenty of time when undertaking a task. I have thoroughly enjoyed designing this project and hope that this is conveyed when people view it.
