Evaluation Questions
1.
In what ways does your media product use,
develop or challenge form and conventions of media products?
For my media product I have tried to keep to as many
conventions as possible and the reason for this is because this is a new local
newspaper and I want people to buy the newspaper and recognise it is a
newspaper and continue to buy it as I don’t want people to buy the newspaper
for example thinking it was a comic and then be disappointed when the start to
read the content.
An example of how I have used the convention of a media
product would be for the colour palette as I originally had a yellow colour
scheme but after having a look at the affect of my product and having a look at
other media products similar to mine I realised that the colour wasn’t very
conventional as and it also would not appeal to my target audience as although
30+ people still want to have fun they don’t want to have a bright yellow smack
bang in the middle of a newspaper and when I looked at my product I could see
that it would be off-putting and unprofessional and so decided to change it to
be more conventional and opted for a dark blue and the reason for this is
because newspapers similar to mine uses this style for example The Mail Online
and The Daily Mail. They blue for their masthead and for key areas of their
product and I felt that this strong blue colour would although still be bold I
felt that it would be more subtle on the eyes and so decided to go for a more
conventional colour.
I looked at the Sunderland Echo for inspiration because the
Sunderland Echo is my local paper, but when looking at the newspaper and how
they use their conventions I noticed that they use the colour red for the main
colour for their colour palette and red represents the devil, evil and passion
which is the total binary opposite to what I want my product to represent I
want my product to represent happiness and I have researched that blue
signifies health and happiness.
I have also used conventional layout for all my products and
in particular the style for my poster as I looked at the Guardian’s poster and
found their playful and colourful styling inspiring and so decided to
reconstruct their poster and use their graphical approach and instead wrote
‘your positive paper’, placed ‘Everyday only 50p on the inside of positive and
paper and then placed the masthead, along with another slogan of ‘Your Positive
Paper and then finally at the bottom the information strip with the Publishing
company’s name, website/newspaper/twitter for the newspaper. This style layout
I know for certain is conventional as The Guardian use a similar style for
their poster. The front cover for the newspaper has also been reconstructed
using the Sunderland Echo for the conventional layout as I used the masthead in
the same place, the red strip for the advertisements, the bordering for the
second main story, the big font for the main article, the articles down the
right hand side of the page and finally a small advertisement in the bottom
right hand corner. As you know the Sunderland Echo paper was used to
reconstruct the page and so again know for certain that I am using the
conventional layout.
Another feature that I have used that is conventional to a
media product is the fact that on the front page there are little labels that
indicate that the remainder of the article is on the inside pages for example
on the front page I have used ‘Turn to page 5’ located at the bottom of the
article so that people reading the article would know that there is more of the
article inside.
One main convention that I have followed is the fact that I
have created 3 products: the newspaper (front page and inside page), the poster
and the website (two hyperlinked pages), these products have been created so
they are linked but also because it is the conventional thing to do as you want
people to have a better access
2.
How effective is the combination of your main
product and the ancillary texts?
My main product and my ancillary task of my poster and
website work together effectively and the reason for this is because I have
tried to stick to as many conventions for a newspaper as possible.
One thing that I have thought a lot on colouring for my
product and have even changed the colouring of my product to make the whole of
my product more effective. The running colour palette for my product is blue,
white and black and I think because of this colour scheme I have been able to
make a collection of products that work together to form one successful product.
Already in the media industry newspapers are not just a
stand alone product any more as they also have a products which promote the
newspaper and also allow a wider range of people to read the newspaper for
example they have the newspaper which the locals can get, they have the poster
to advertise the local newspaper product and then they have the website to help
make the product more viral and more known to people who don’t just live in the
area.
My main task, the front cover and the second page of a
newspaper needed to work together well as they would be seen one after another
and so I have used the same font, colour palette and simple layout for each.
The products also work together effectively in the sense that all of my
products, except the poster as that doesn’t have any articles on it, have the
same articles and the same headings to the articles which makes my product
consistent throughout.
For my poster I have used fun bright colours and have used
this throughout my products an example of this would be for the front cover of
my newspaper I have put ‘YOUR POSITIVE PAPER’, underneath the masthead and I
have chosen the same colours as the poster and I have also used this technique
of the multiple colours on my website.
Another element which makes my products work together
successfully is the fact that the theme of my newspaper products is that it is
a happy newspaper and even the slogan illustrates that ‘your positive paper’
and because of this all my products are combined together as all of the content
is about happy news.
Further more all my products have been promoted effectively
as all my products promote one another in some way for example the poster has
the website details on the bottom of it, the front of the newspaper has a big
advertisement for the website, the second page also has a link for the website
at the top of the page and the website itself is promoting the newspaper.
After looking through my products I can say that I have
created a professional product that would not stand out if put along side
professional products as being a media students work as I feel I have followed
conventions correctly and in doing so have linked my products together to
create a successful product.
3.
What have you learned from your audience
feedback?
I have had some peer assessment of my work which has made
the development of my product a lot easier as peers can give advice on how to
make my products look better. I have also had feedback from my lecturer’s which
has been most valuable as both my Lecturer’s Chris and Kaye are in the same age
group I want my target audience to be and so not only will they be able to tell
me what people in their age category would like to see in my product, they can
also give a critical analysis of what needs changing in my work as they have
Media Studies knowledge.
An example of this would be a sheet of paper which gives an
analysis of strengths and weaknesses with my products during the process of
making my product.
Peer Improvements
To change this you could have a different colour for the
background of the adverts to make it stand out more and could use your blue colour
palette more to your advantage for example the headlines. I agree with this
feedback as parts of my product in particular my advertisements, they seem to
blend in with the rest of my articles because there are no borders are
backgrounds to differentiate however to counteract this argument I did at the
time have heading for each article and so when it came down to the
advertisement I labelled it Local Advertisement however I have learnt from this
feedback that I need to add a background colour to put behind or around the
advertisement to show that it is not a article.
On the What’s On page there is too much blank space between
the articles and from this feedback I now know that I need to change the layout
of my articles as it obviously looks like I haven’t though a lot about the
layout of my products but I have and so I need to re-arrange the products so
that there is no or as little as possible white space without it looking
cluttered.
Peer Strengths
I like the colours you have used, as they are striking and
very eye catching, you have taken good images, which link to the text and are
of a good quality, I like the little tag-line with the images as it helps the
readers know where the images were taken and what the article is about, I also
like the LN publishing at the website and the articles are long enough to be
informative, yet short enough so as to bore people. From this feedback I can
see areas that I don’t need to worry about.
Lecturer Improvements
Unsure of suitably for target audience, as at this stage I
was planning having a young target audience for the paper from around 17-30 and
I can see why my lecturer has given me this feedback as stereotypically older
people read the paper and so picking an age range which doesn’t stereotypically
read a newspaper is already a risky move for my new product as there would only
be a small amount of people who would actually want to read and buy my products
not enough to make a profit for my business and so from this feedback I have
learned that I need to re-evaluate the age for my product and have since
changed my target audience so that it is now 30+, as people in their 30’s want
to know more about their local area and I have left the age bracket open for
people older that 30 as people in their retirement like to read newspapers and
so closing that bracket retirement age would seem odd. So from this one
feedback I have learnt that I need to change my target audience to suit my
product.
From these strengths and weaknesses I can see the areas of
improvements to change my product for the better as from the list you can see
these are only minor changes to help develop my product.
4.
How did you use new media technology in the
construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?
I used new media technology in the construction stages of my
website product as I used a website to help me to build my product as I used
the site called
www.wix.com, this has allowed
me to focus on the layout and context of my product without having to worry
about the technical side of actually building a website from scratch.
In addition to this I have used technology in the research
of the product as I looked a the e-editions of newspapers as well as print
copies to have a look at a wider range of product for example the Metro
newspaper is one of the many newspapers I looked at the gain ideas.
To plan my product I used Photoshop to plan the layout of my
work as without crucial planning you could be lost as you could be going out
and taking images that may or may not fit into the required spacing of the
newspaper for example a portrait orientation image might need to fit into a
landscape orientation image and this may mean that the image would have to be
smaller than planned and then that would also mean there will be empty space,
which could lead to me then having to stretch the image which would ruin the
quality of the photographs.
When evaluating my work I would send copies of my work to
other class mates as well as my lecture for feedback and I have also created an
account on survey monkey which allowed me to gain responses to questions about
my product and also as my blog can be seen any where this means that I can have
anonymous comments to give feedback on my work.
As you can see I have used a range of products when
constructing, researching, planning and evaluating my product and as well as
this I have also had experience with using a video software called Premiere Pro
to help me get to grips with using the software if I was to use that brief
later on.
