Questionnaire Analysis

In today's lesson, I collected back my first questionnaire and put all my results into a graph so I can easily see what my target audience like in a newspaper.

From this graph I can see that 8 of the people that answered my questionnaire were males, whilst there was one female, so I know that the majority of people who read newspapers are males.

This graph shows me that most of the people in my age range were 17 years old, whilst there was one 18 year old and one 19 year old person who answered my questionnaire.

For this question, I decided to ask how much people in my target audience would be willing to pay for my newspaper. The best response was £0.36+.

The information I can get from this graph shows me that, my target audience like reading newspapers on a weekly basis, instead of a daily or monthly, and this can help me decide on how often my newspaper should be produced.

I thought this would be an important question for me to ask my target audience, because I wanted to find out whether they would like to be able to send in their own stories or opinions to my newspaper. The majority of the people who answered my newspaper said they would like to be able to do this feature, so I know how to include a Contact Us box inside my newspaper.

I asked this question as it would be beneficial to me to find out how most people who read newspaper find out local news. This was a multiple choice question for my target audience as they could find out news in different ways. The two main options that my target audience chose were internet and TV. Newspapers was they least chose option as most main stories are published the next day but, T.V stories and internet pages can be published 24/7

. I decided to ask if most people read local or national newspapers, and if they did read local newspapers, I asked could they specify what those newspapers are actually called. 2 people said they read national newspapers over local newspapers, but 6 of the 7 people that said yes read the Liverpool Echo, and the other person said the Metro

For my last question I asked what interests people the most in a newspaper. This was another multiple choice question that I asked, and sport was the most popular topic people like to read, whilst news and entertainment were the second and third most popular topics. The least two popular topics were Gossip and Other. If anyone chose the other option I asked them to specify what that topic was, and they put Politics/Science.

Email to other newspapers

In todays lesson, I constructed an email to the Liverpool Echo. I felt I would have a better chance of getting a reply if I put myself across to who ever would read my email. Below is the email I sent to the Liverpool Echo.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Iam currently an A2 Media student at Knowsley Community College, and for my coursework, and for my coursework I have to create a local newspaper and I have to research other local newspapers, to find out certain things about local newspapers are distributed and how they appeal to the target audience. I have enclosed an attachment to this email containing a few questions which I hope you would be able to answer about the Liverpool Echo. It would be greatly appreciated if you could take some time to answer these questions as it could be really beneficial to me in the construction of my coursework.

Matthew Cox
A2 Media Student
Knowsley Community College

I knew I had to keep the email short because who ever read it wouldn't like to read a block of text as they have jobs to get on with. In the email I introduced myself and also why I decided to contact them. I will make another post with the reply soon, If I get one from the Liverpool Echo.

I attached a document to the email with six different questions, but I didn't want to include loads of questions as I feel this would increase my chances of a response. Below are the questions I have sent to the Liverpool Echo and hopefully the answers I recieve will help me with the production of my magazine.

Analysis of The Challenge

Today, I analyzed a second newspaper named The Challenge, and I noticed a couple of key elements that this newspaper included. I don't think that this newspaper is quite as appealing to my target audience as it seems very dull and boring.

The Front Cover

On The Challenge, the title was included in a big red banner, which is unusual as in other local magazines I have seen they seem to have a red and blue banner for the title. The Challenge like most other local newspapers has a banner advertisement along the bottom of the page, but this advertisement isn’t promoting a business, instead its promoting activities for the youth in the local area.

One unusual feature of the challenge is that, they have included the contents page and page numbers on the left hand side of the front page. Even though most other local newspapers do contain contents pages, they are usually on the inside page rather than the front cover. I think they have done this so that if the main headline doesn't appeal to you, you will then be able to see what other stories are included so that you might read the newspaper.

There is also a lot of text on the front cover of The Challenge compared to other newspapers like the Metro. I think there is more text on the front cover of this local newspaper because they have an older target audience, who are not generally interested in pictures and short paragraphs of news.

Second Page

There are not many things on the second page of a newspaper that you would find on other local newspapers, e.g. lottery numbers, weather, etc., but there is a lot of new stories for people to read. Again, I think this is down to the fact that the target audience would like to read longer stories, but these things could have been excluded from the paper as it isn’t a daily paper but a weekly/monthly paper. One thing that I did notice was in this paper was this crime update column, which I haven’t seen in any other local newspaper. This could have been down to the fact that old people read this newspaper and it informs about what has been happening in the community.

Second Questionnaire

Today, I finished producing my questionnaire, which is ready to be handed out to my target audience, but I'm going to produce a second questionnaire to hand out to people who don't actually read newspapers, and see why they don't appeal to them and how I could get them interested in reading my newspaper.

I have came up with a list of a few questions to ask.

What is your age?

I think its important to know the age of the person I am asking, as my target audience is 16 - 24 years old, but different ages might like different topics, e.g. 16 year olds might be interested in sports but then 18 year olds might be interesed in News or Gossip.

What is your gender?

I would like to know what gender the majority of people who don't read magazines are as I could target the stories at the opposite gender.

Do you read anything else like Magazines or Web Pages?

I would like to ask my target audience this question as I would like to know if they don't like reading newspapers or they dislike reading in general.

If so, what are they called?

I would like to study the content, layout and colour scheme of these magazines if my target audience reads them as I could try and make my newspaper appeal to them.

Why don't newspapers appeal to you?

If my target audience don't like reading newspapers, I think its important to know why they don't appeal to them, e.g. They might not like the stories or layout, etc.

What would it take for you to consider reading a newspaper?

I would like some feedback from people in my age range, but who don't read newspapers as I feel this could help me, as a certain colour scheme might appeal to them, so it will help me attract them to reading my newspaper.

Planning of Questionnaire

In today's lesson, I started to plan my questionnaire. I have decided my target audience will be my age group (16-24) and when I collate the results of the questionnaires into a graph I will be able to see what makes newspapers attractive to my target audience. I have come up with a list of questions that I think would be suitable to ask my target audience. I have also asked some basic questions to my target audience like their gender and age.

Price-

I think it’s important that I ask what price my target audience would be willing to pay for a local newspaper because if I set the price too high most/ all of my target audience will not purchase my newspaper.

How often my target audience reads local newspapers-

I would like to know how often my target audience read newspapers, because it is not worth producing a daily newspaper if most of my target audience only read newspapers weekly.

Interactive-

I’ am going to ask whether my target audience would like newspapers to be interactive, so that they could give their opinion on stories that are included in my newspaper or if they like sending their own stories into the newspaper.

How do you currently find out local news?-

I think this is a good question to ask my target audience because if they find the majority off the internet, I could look out for different news stories that I think will attract my target audience to read my newspaper.

What newspapers do you currently read?

If I could find out what newspapers my target audience reads the most I could then analyse those newspapers and look at those codes and conventions and find out how I could then make them appeal to my target audience.

What news topic do my target audience find the most interesting?-

I would like to find out what stories my target audience find most appealing, because if the headline isn't something that doesn't appeal to the majority of my target audience, I doubt they would pick it up and read it.

Newspaper Analysis

In today’s lesson, I spent time analysing "The Metro" which is another local newspaper. When I looked at the front page of the Metro, I noticed a couple of key things that they had.

Metro Front Cover

I noticed the main headline of the Metro is in bold letters, and this is what makes it stand out to the audience. There are also 4 other stories that readers can find on the front cover and these stories will also intrigue the reader to look inside the newspaper. The main logo of the Metro uses the colours blue and red, which I have noticed a lot of local newspapers do, because it resembles the colours of the cities two main football clubs Liverpool and Everton.

The Metro is advertising the fact that it is currently a free newspaper by having the word 'FREE' next to the current logo, so it will attract more people to pick up a copy and read it. They also have a big banner advertisement on the bottom of the front page for cheap broadband which is another revenue stream for the newspaper.

The stories on the left hand side of the Metro start with the topic of what the story is about. They also have different coloured text for the different topics. For example, news has an orange font, sports has a blue font and fame stories have a purple coloured text. I think this is used so people can find the topic that interests them the most quickly and move to that section of the paper. Also between the two stories there is a comic sketch that is very short but mocks things in current news headlines, and I think it has been placed their as light hearted humour for all the commuters travelling to work.

Second Page

On the first page of the Metro I noticed that there was a large advert located in the bottom left of the page. I think this advert is a way for the paper to make a lot of money as it is quite large and people will read the first page of the newspaper as it has a contents section. The Metro also has a contact us section, and this makes the newspaper more interactive for readers as they can give their own opinion on stories and also feedback on the newspaper itself.

There is also an advert promoting the newspapers own iPad app, which is also another way of being interactive to readers. Also, next to the iPad application, there is a recycling logo, what is encouraging people to place the paper into a recycling bin after they have finished reading the paper.

The lottery numbers and weather forecasts are also on this page, because a number of people would like to know the lottery numbers and weather forecasts as this is key information for them, as most people who read different local newspapers such as the ‘Liverpool Echo’ are able to get up in the morning and watch the morning television which includes information, like the weather for the coming days, whereas the people who read the Metro will not be able to watch morning television so essentially this paper is replacing morning television for commuters travelling to work.

Coursework Plan

The schedule I have created, and I will try to use this as an outline as where I should be with my coursework a specific dates.

Secondary Research- For my secondary research I will look at some local newspapers and try to identify the target audience, codes and conventions of these newspapers. Once I have done this, I will decide whether I should challenge the codes and conventions of a newspaper. After I have finished these tasks I will email one of the local newspapers to ask what they do to make it appeal to the target audience.

Primary Research- Iam going to create a questionnaire as part of my primary research, and distribute them to people who are in the age range of the target audience Iam aiming my newspaper at. Once I have collected the results back I will then input the data into graphs from which I could easily identify what makes a newspaper appeal to my target audience.

Planning- For the planning part of my coursework, Iam going to create a number of different designs and layouts for my newspaper. I will then decide what I think would be the most effective plan and make that into a more detailed draft including more think like the type of font and the colour scheme I should use for the newspaper. I think its also important to plan the type of stories I should use for my newspaper because its important to have stories that will appeal to your target audience.

In the next lesson Iam looking to complete the analysis of another local newspaper.

Introduction

For my media studies coursework Iam going to make the first to pages of a local newspaper, advertisement poster and a radio advert.

Iam going to make a schedule for my coursework and I hope this will help me achieve the best possible grade in my coursework.

Firstly, I will have to look at a few key factors such as newspaper title, target audience and a plan of my newspaper. Once I have looked at these key factors I can start production of my magazine.