1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms
and conventions.
My newspaper use conventions of which many local newspapers use such
as the Bromley Metro. These conventions are things like a 5-column
layout, which my newspaper uses making it similar to most local
newspapers. I have used a 5-column layout because it is what my target
audience is use to, and to change it would be to confuse them by putting
more columns in or to make the paper look un-professional. Sporting
newspaper like the Sun fills their pages with big pictures and short stories
as this criteria fits their target audience, who are similar to my target
audience. For my newspaper my target audience I think my chosen layout
suits them well as it was similar to other sporting newspapers with
conventions for more up market newspapers such as the Independent with
a column layout of 7 or 8. This layout is for a small percentage of the public
the higher educated so I feel that my 5-column layout suits my target
audience.
The main headline for my newspaper is of a sporting achievement about
boys at a school near where the reader lives. I believe that will help to
draw in readers as it has relevance to them, because it is about people
who live near them and encourages support for the team. My newspaper
also contains similar aspects to other papers by using similar gutter
spaces, by lines and jump lines. I did this because I feel that all papers
should follow the same conventions.
The adverts in my newspaper have been edited by me so I could make
them exactly how i wanted them to be. The most of them have the same
theme of sports this is because it is relevant to my readers as the paper is
about sport. They all are quite big this is because in many main local
newspapers such as the metro use big advertising for funds so i decided to
do the same it as it is conventional. One of my adverts is showing the
franchise Nando's with the comedic value to it saying "eat mor chicken"
with cow hooves, i used them as a one of my advertisements as this is a
place where many young people go to eat and have fun with friends so this
will also encourage people to read my paper to see what the

2. advertisement is about. Another advert I used was Nike as this is one of
the most well known sporting brands which with this ad will reinforce the
view of it being a serious sporting newspaper. The font used in my
newspaper is different to that seen in all newspapers, it is a Sans Serif font
which is more appealing to the younger audience as it does not have any
extra bits on the end of the letters. This is also more appealing to the
younger audience, as it does not seem to be fancy or to extravagant.
How effective is the combination of your main product and your ancillary
tasks.
My ancillary tasks where for me to produce a radio advert and a poster to
help advertise my Newspaper. These were aimed at my target audience,
which was the younger generation.
When I started to design my poster I looked at different types of poster
form different newspapers but they all did seem to follow similar
conventions. I decided to use the conventions so that it didn't make my
target audience go off my newspaper and look for different papers. I used
such things as the same colouring with the fonts and with the background,
with my main story picture on the front of it these are such conventions
seen in newspaper advertising.
My poster consists of a picture of a rugby players competing for the ball in
a line out. I edited it using Photoshop to make cut out the unnecessary
parts of the photo such so i was left with the main part of it for my eye-
catching photo. I did this to try and show what my paper is about rather
than show what it has in it.
Overall I feel that my Poster is successful in terms of being aesthetically
pleasing with my targeted audience, the poster shows what the newspaper
offers and is about just from one image. It was also beneficial as I used the
same colour scheme that was in my newspaper as well as in my poster.
The making of my Radio Advert i believed to be the most difficult of all
three tasks. I did some research on other newspaper radio adverts and i
thought the best ones where the funny ones so i decide to put this aspect

3. into my radio ad. For this I used GarageBand to produce the music for the
backing track of my advert. I decided to produce an advert that had a
charity type of feel to it but with a spoof type of aspect with this i believe
that people will relate to this which also got straight to the point and made
it sound pleasing so my target audience could remember it.
My newspaper named “Sport Bromley” took the most amount of time out of
the all the tasks, but I think that this shows my newspaper was my best
produced media product. I am happy with most aspects of my paper,
including the theme, colours, layouts and photos. The photos used in
newspaper where easy for me to take as it was a local game for me which
was played just down the road from my school however i had taken a lot of
photos which i had to get 25 photos to choose from to be my main story
picture. I feel that the effort shows as the picture used shows clearly what
the newspapers about and what the story is about.
The stories that I chose to write were targeted at my audience as my paper
is all about people from the ages of 18-30. I feel that my stories where
could have been a little bit better in terms of length by such as with my last
story I wasn’t able to write as much as i could about it as i did not have
enough room with all my photos and advertising which was put into the
paper. The language i used in my stories was not conventional of many
local newspapers as i was not going for the same target audience as they
are I found it difficult using language you would expect to read in a
newspaper to write with than the normal style of text I would write. But I
feel that I tackled this problem well by looking at other similar papers and
studied how their types of text were worded.
In conclusion to this, I feel that my three tasks have linked well with each
other. By this I mean that I am happy with in which the ways of my Radio
Advert and my Poster have helped advertise my Newspaper. I do feel that
if I had more time I could produce a much better and poster but i believe
that my radio advert was one of my best parts of my tasks.
What have you learnt from your audience feedback?
From my audience feedback I have had some very positive feedback with

4. also a few negatives. I am please with my responses I received, and I will
alter my newspaper to the ways in which I have been criticized for, i
believe that this will make my newspaper better than what it was whilst
also making the paper easier for my target audience to relate with. The
positive feedback included comments about my layouts, colours, main title,
photography and my adverts. The feedback I received on my stories is
beneficial, as I know what to change now in terms of language. And I have
now changed my newspapers language as I feel that doing this is for the
best as my language that I used was too formal and did not suit my target
audience correctly.
How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research
planning and the evaluation stages?
Media Technologies is the way in which we can view different things using
technology, for instance reading a newspaper on the internet Bromley
Times, looking at images online Google images. The ways in which I used
new media technologies to use in the construction and research and
planning varies from using different online facilities. I researched other
newspapers online to help decide what my paper i would base my
newspaper on, in terms of conventions and layouts. I decided to look at the
Bromley Times online as i was planning to base my newspaper in the
Bromley area. This was a page to page newspaper that you could
interactively use, you can flip the pages so you still have the original
feeling of a paper in terms of turning the pages. This made me think about
how I could make my paper seem more modern and technological but by
using its original form.
I decided to use a Blackberry Barcode which Blackberry phone users can
use by just scanning it. This will then connect you to the newspaper and
will allow the newspaper to send news of what ever topic straight to your
Blackberry smartphone. I added this feature as I know a large percentage
of people of my age own a BlackBerry smart phone so they can interact
with my paper.
Another form of using media technologies for my research and planning
was the radio adverts on youtube. This helped me decide what type of

5. radio advert I would produce. I listened to various adverts, with advertising
different newspapers such as the daily sport the sun and many more. This
helped me to decide what type of radio advert I had to make to get straight
to the point in advertising my newspaper.
I also used Google images to help to look at past posters, which were
advertising newspapers. I did this for my research to try and see what
posters professional papers could produce. I feel that my poster is like
conventional newspapers poster which i believe was key to advertise my
newspaper. I tried to make it fit my target audience’s needs by making it
aesthetically pleasing and by using colours and text that would draw in my
audience.
The music that I used for my radio advert was found on GarageBand, after
I recorded my advert using a peer doing a different voice, I had to decide
what type of music would suit my advert perfectly, as I said I decided to
make me newspaper a type of charity spoof i used sad music to get that
charity feel across to my audience. I feel that this was the right choice, as I
want my advert to attract viewers and not seem like another boring advert
that you hear on the radios.