Conclusions drawn- My audience research

After creating my own audience research, I have decided to include only three parts of identifiable groups when targeting audience as I feel that it is most relevant to my target market which results in the content of my newspaper.
Age
I will be targeting teenagers aged 13-19 as teenagers in this age range often share the same tastes. In order to target them to read the local newspaper, It will be important to focus on the location that the teenagers are living in as it will be relevant to them and the location also influences the content of the newspaper. I will be focusing on the issues and topics in Sydenham that will be of interest to teenagers.

Location/ Lifestyle
I will also need to take into consideration the lifestyle of the teenagers in Sydenham as it will also influence the content of the newspaper because I will be writing about what will interest the teenagers, so lifestyle will be a good way to attract them to read the newspaper. In order to find out the lifestyle of teenagers, I will make a generalisation through questionnaires and being that I am a teenager to find out the tastes and what will interest them.

Social class
I will also consider the social class when creating the local newspaper as it will influence the style of the media language of the newspaper. Although teenagers prefer a particular type of media language such as the newspaper being easy to read, social class takes a big part in the interests of teenagers and the media language that they will prefer.

Audience research -My location

Sydenham is a local area in the borough of Lewisham. Sydenham is the over all area but the central part which includes sydenham road and sydenham high street which is the local main shopping are referred to as Sydenham. Shops including Co-operative and boots.

Sydenham Hill is the north of sydenham which is partly in the borough of Southwark and Lewisham. The local facilities in that area include Dulwich and Sydenham Hill golf club and Sydenham woods. The facilities can link to the social class of this part of Sydenham which could be middle class because these types of facilities are likely to attract midlle class social groups.

Upper Sydenham is the north west of Sydenham in the Borough of Lewisham and includes Forest Hill. Local parks include Wells Park and Baxters Field. A tesco express store has also been opened recently.This part of Sydenham can be viewed as a much more working class area as tesco's is less expensive than Co-operative.

Lower Sydenham is the East part of Sydenham and is in the Borough of Lewisham and a small part of Bromley. The company supplied gas to the relocated Crystal Palace and defined Lower Sydenham as working class and has one of the largest Sainsbury's stores in the UK. Very recently, There are new flats built under L&Q which are flats that might not be afforded by working class people so that part of Sydenham might not be working class anymore.

My local newspaper will be for the whole are of Sydenham but the main story or content of the newspaper will be about the new youth centre opening in Upper Sydenham as my newspaper will target teenagers, and this will be the type of issue that will interest the teenagers of Sydenham. Targeting the type of location will influence the media language as it also includes the class of the area. In order to target all areas of Sydenham, the media language of my newspaper will be generalised in order to appeal to all the locations and to make it easy for the teenagers to understand.

Audience Research -Theory

When creating my main and ancillary tasks, I  think its important in terms of the influence being from the tastes of the target audience. As I will keep in mind Pierre Bourdieu's Habitus theory, which influence the culture of the target audience and how it influences their tastes. My target audience are likely to be interested in tabloids, so by applying Bourdieu's theory, I will create a newspaper similar to a tabloid that the teenagers will like due to their cultural tastes.

The theory that relates to the media language in tabloids is John Humphreys dumbing down theory. Where he states that due to commercial requirements, in order for the producers' text to appeal to the widest possible audience, they have to offer familiar, easy and accessible texts which fail to challenge the audience intellectually . 'Dumbed down' stories are what the audience can relate to as it reflects their lives and are easy to understand.
This theory will be useful when creating the media language for my newspaper as it shows the type of language that my audience might prefer since they are teenagers and will prefer to read newspapers leisurely. The fact that their cultural tastes might influence the type of newspaper they would prefer (tabloid), I can apply Humphrey's 'dumbed down' theory into creating a newspaper which will be similar to a tabloid that my audience will prefer due to their cultural tastes.

My audience research- lifestyle

In Sydenham, There is a local gym for the community. In Sydenham there are only two gyms showing that it is a small community.

Along Sydenham high street, there are a lot of 99p stores which suggests catering to the local community which is not high end and very commercial. It also suggests small independent business owners.

There are also a range of meat stores for the local community to purchase necessities rather than high end items which links to the class of the community.

Along Sydenham high street, there are two pubs which suggest the lifestyle of the community in Sydenham. Socialising and coming together is likely to be important to the people in Sydenham.

There are a lot of charity shops in Sydenham which could suggest that the target audience are more of an intimate community where people know each other and will be in the culture of buying clothes which will be second hand rather than probably high end stores.

There are also pawnbroker shops which are local business owned. Most of the products are second hand and might not be of good quality which doesn't adhere to the rules and regulations of the retail industry. The style of the store is informal because of this and emphasises on the fact that Sydenham is a working class area.

There are only a few branded chain stores in Sydenham such as co-operative which provides a service of basic needs and necessities rather than luxury products.

The fact that there are not a lot of branded stores suggests the class of Sydenham is working class as most of the stores are independently owned.
Creating this research into the lifestyle of the Sydenham community will help me to narrow down the topics that I will include in my local newspaper and what will interest the community. Researching the services that are available in Sydenham will also help me advertise appropriately and depending on the social status of the community, will influence how to pitch the media language of my local newspaper.

Conclusions drawn- Audience

When making my media product, I will have to think carefully about who will want to consume the product. I will do this by ensuring that I have feedback from the tastes of the audience and what interests them as this will influence the content of paper, and also their preferences, as this will influence the layout of the newspaper.

My local newspaper, radio advertisment and the poster for my local newspaper will be targeting all teenagers in the local area of sydenham. In order to target them, I will carry out research by creating questionnaires and interviews with questions around the topics of the demographic groups in order to gain well rounded knowledge on the teenagers that I will be targeting to give me an idea of the media language in my local newspaper. I decided to target teenagers as I am a teenager and I feel that I will have more experience in teenagers' tastes and it will be easier to find out information about my generation. (excluding the sexual orientation)

From my research into audience, I will apply this when carrying out my own research for my local newspaper. Using primary research, I will create questionnaires and interviews with questions that cover the demographic groups in order to find out the interests of my target group which is teenagers. Using secondary research, I will find some local newspapers and look at the media language to see how they target different audiences.
I will also be applying some audience theories in order to help me on the conventions of a newspapers that will be suitable for teenagers.

Audience- Sexual orientation

Some media products exploit differences between people's sexuality in order to attract audiences.
Previously, Gay men and lesbians were perceived in a negative light amongst the media, but have recently been improved because of rights and also economic common sense as offending people that could be apart of your audience does not help sales or ratings.

I will have to decide when designing my newspaper to appeal to heterosexuals, gay or lesbian people as this will influence on the content of the newspaper. I could also choose to appeal to all of the audiences which does not exclude anyone and will appeal a wide audience.

Audience- Ethnicity

Ethnicity is about origins, where people are from such as parents an grandparents. Grouping people according to ethnicity is one way of identifying people's interests.
Ethnicity groups can be divided in different ways, some people fit in more than one group. You can group people according to ethnicity in the following ways: skin colour, country of birth, region of birth, race, religion.

When doing my audience research, I will group the audience into ethnicity in order to figure out the interests of different ethnicity groups. I will take the interests of the majority of the ethnic group in my chosen local area and will include majority of content that will interest them in the newspaper.

Audience- Gender

Gender is a simple way of classifying people because they are either male or female. It is safe to make a generalisation of what one gender's tastes, However, having two genders can be misleading as you cannot assume that all women think the same as each other, and the same for men.

When creating my local newspaper, I will need to decide what gender I would be appealing to. I can also appeal to both genders which will create a bigger audience, this will mean that I will have to remain neutral and not appeal to one gender more, such as colours and font.

Audience- Age

It is easier to plan content according to people's interests with age groups. A whole generation of people that grew up together and experienced the same events, will share memories.
All the different sectors of the media use age as a way to ensure the content matches the target audience's interests.

Audience- Location

Planning content by the region or the locality in which people live can make the content much more relevant to the audience. Local newspapers and radio stations cover news stories that are relevant to people living nearby but are not of national interest.

Geodemographics are used to classify people according to where they live and is sometimes organised by their postcode. Companies who produce media products for local or regional audiences need to know how many people live in the area they are targeting.

Demographics are used to describe a group of people according to factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, social class and sexual orientation. Knowing this can help a local newspaper to provide the right content to appeal to their target audience.

Location links to Bourdieu's Habitus Theory, as he states that consumer taste is not purely a personal choice but it is structured according to social circumstances including cultural and economic capital. This will play a big part when deciding on the content of the news in my local newspaper, because if I am going to be targeting teenagers living in an upper or middle class location, their tastes will be of that class, so therefore in order to target them, I will need to include the right content that they can relate to or will find of interest. I will have to carry out relevant research on geodemographics and demographics which will influence the content of my local newspaper that will be of interest to the people of that area.

Audience -Lifestyle

Where people live can affect the way the think and what will interest them. For example, in the UK, there is a difference between life in the rural communities and in the cities. People living in the countryside will have things in common with each other that do not apply in cities.
Psychographics are used to classify people according to their attitudes and lifestyle, which is important to advertisers and media producers as it will give them clues on a persons interest and what type of media products they are likely to be attracted to.

Before creating my local newspaper, I will carry out research into the lifestyle and attitudes of the people in that local area as it will influence my content because whatever interests the target audience is what I will put in the newspaper in order to target and interest them.

Audiences- Social Class

Social class is linked to the type of occupation and the level of income someone is earning.
As of 30 or 40  years ago in the UK, the term 'working class' was used for people who did more manual and physically demanding jobs, such as working in mines or in heavy manufacturing industries.
Nowadays, the classes are not easy to define because there is less heavy industry, education has improved and it is easier to move up the social classes. For example, It is known that most footballers come from a lower class background but their level of income suggests that their social class is upper class.

The media industry uses Standard Occupational Classification to categorise their audiences, which make it useful for media producers and also advertisers.
Below is an outdated table in November 2005 showing how different newspapers fit their readership into different groups.



Key
A - Upper middle class (Higher managerial, administrative or professional)
B - Middle class (Intermediate managerial, administrative or professional)
C1 - Lower middle class (Supervisory or junior mangerial, administrative or professional)
C2 - Lower middle class (Skilled manual workers)
D - Working class (Semi- and unskilled manual workers)
E - Those at the lowest level of subsistence (State pensioners, casual or lowest grade workers)

Reference.
Baylis, P. et al (2007). Media - BTEC First. Heinemann

It is said that some of the more commercial radio stations that play more modern music know that their listeners are more likely to be in the C2DE groups, and people in those groups tend to buy tabloid newspapers rather than broadsheets. So the presenters on these radio stations talk about stories in the tabloids.


Although my target audience is all teenagers, it is important to look into the socio-economic of those teenagers' backgrounds. For example, if the teenagers come from an upper class background, their tastes are more likely to be tailored to an upper class standard and might prefer newspapers that target an upper class audience. When designing my newspapers I will consider the socio-economic of the teenagers' backgrounds in order to make the right type of newspaper and tailor it to their tastes.

Identifying Audiences

In order to identify audiences and the right products for them, media producers divide people into demographic groups which are based on characteristics such as where they live, age, how much they earn and what they spend their money on.

The identifiable groups are divided into:

Social class
Lifestyle
Location
Age
Ethnicity (culture)
Gender
Sexual Orientation

When designing my local newspaper, poster and radio advertisement. I will take into consideration these factors to help me find the right ways to targeting my specific target audience.

Audiences

Audiences are the people who consume the media products such as television, radio, internet and newspapers. It is important to make products that the audiences will enjoy or can relate to.

There are two types of audiences:

Mass Market- is a group of consumers who are the majority of the market and are tagged as the 'average'. This large target market is not very well defined or segmented.

Niche Market- is a specialised market and sometimes very narrowly defined, it is smaller than the mass market because it targets specific market needs and their tastes.

My task is to create a local newspaper, and because the newspaper is local, it will therefore target a niche market as it will be in a small area that is not the majority of the market. A local area is a small part of the population overall.

Conclusions drawn

• Type of newspaper

From researching different types of newspapers, I have decided that the best format of my newspaper should be a local tabloid, as my coursework question is to create a local newspaper. In order to create this, I will have to include all the conventions of a local newspaper in order for it to be noticed by the right audience. The design of my local newspaper will exclude most of the conventions of a broadsheets because it will not be suitable, as these newspapers contain worldwide news and serious issues, which will not interest my target market which will be teens in a local area.

• Genre

In order to make a local newspaper, I will involve most of the conventions of a tabloid which will attract my target audience, as they prefer more sensational topics. I will add information about celebrities but not as much as a tabloid and more information on news and events in a local area which will be suitable to the audience.
In order to target the right audience, I will apply Burton's elements on genre and keep to the conventions of a tabloid but tailor it so that the newspaper will attract the right people in a local area. Three of Burton's elements will be suitable to follow in order to attract the right audience:

• Plot and stock situations - conventions of newspapers
• Icons - layout
• Themes - content of story

Burton's elements - Genre

Burton suggests that each text in a genre shares particular key elements. This theory can relate to newspapers, as some of his elements include:

•  Plots and Stock situations

This is relevant to newspapers as stock situations and plots are stereotypical situations which could lead to the conventions of different types of newspapers such as a broadsheet containing more content on worldwide news or a tabloid containing more sensational topics. Stock situations can also link to the headlines which could include puns, catchy phrases or advertisement of competitions for example in a tabloid.

• Icons

Icons are relevant to newspapers as they include the use of colours. Broadsheets use less colour as opposed to a tabloid. Icons can also include the pictures on the front page of the newspaper as tabloids sometimes include revealing pictures of celebrities whereas, broadsheets rarely use images including celebrities.

• Themes

The themes could represent the ideas in each story for example, a tabloid will contain gossip stories about celebrities or people in general whereas a broadsheet will contain serious topics in great detail.

Types of Newspapers

Local Newspaper

Local newspapers contain some national and international news, but focus on fairly local news topics in detail. Local newspapers are usually based around towns, cities or groups of villages.

The local newspaper targets most of the people in that town as it involves information and news about that town which would be of interest to the residents of that town.
When creating my local newspaper, I will follow the conventions of local newspapers in order for it to be recognised by my target market and include relevant content that will be of interest to the people of that area.

Regional Newpapers

Regional Newspapers contain some national and international news, but focus on news relating to a specific area of the country.

Regional newspapers target people of the region that the newspaper is about as it contains information, events and news about the specific town and also country.





National Newspapers

A National newspaper covers news across the whole country, together with international news.

Target group

National newspapers target majority of the whole country and are mostly tabloids as they include sensational stories to entertain people as well as serious topics. 



Types of Newspapers

TABLOID

  

A tabloid covers all national and international news and often contains a certain amount of more 'gossipy' or scandalous news items, or more personal stories. There are no precise dimensions of the tabloid newspaper unlike the broadsheet.

This is an example of a British tabloid:

 

The Daily Mirror was the first tabloid newspaper in Britain. In 1934, the paper re-launched leaving its middle class readership in favour of a mass audience of mainly working -class readers. The content of the news was over simplified and was more sensational as it interested a maximum number of people.The Daily Mirror represented a significant shift in the way newspapers packaged the news.

The features of a tabloid contain murder stories in detail, readers' fantasies of events such as the Royal Wedding, horoscopes, information about celebrities, fashion trends and more entertaining topics.

Possible target audience

Here are examples of the possible target audience for a tabloid newspaper:





Types of newspapers

BROADSHEETS

This is an example of a British broadsheet:

  

-A Broadsheet is the largest type of newspaper. It covers all national and news and is often serious and formal.
They are vertically longer than horizontal and are typically 22 inches / 559 millimetres or more.
In the 17th century in England, Broadsheets were the best way to spread news and came out weekly or regularly. They were developed after the British placed tax on newspapers based on the number of pages although outside Britain, the broadsheet developed for reasons such as style and authority.
The purpose of a broadsheet was for posting royal acts and official notes. Eventually people started to use broadsheets as a source of political activism such as printing speeches.

There are two version of a broadsheet newspaper:
- Full Broadsheet which is typically folded in half so that it forms four pages.
- Half Broadsheet which is an inside page that is not folded vertically and jut includes a front and back.

Connotations
In countries such as Australia, Canada, UK and the US, the broadsheets are perceived to be more intellectual in content rather than tabloids, as the greater size examines stories in more depth and has less information about celebrity material.
Broadsheets display two or more stories with the most important at the top of the page.

The possible target group of a broadsheet newspaper is likely to be business people who are educated and interested in business and government affairs.

Here are examples of the target group that a broadsheet aims at:

Newspapers

Newspapers

A newspaper is a publication containing news of events, articles, advertising and what's happening in the world.
It is printed on inexpensive, low grade paper such as newsprint.


The History of Newspapers

The first newspaper to be printed in England was around 1702 however, newspapers became more common in the late 19th century.
In the 18th and 19th century stamp duty which was tax was charged on newspapers which made them expensive, but in 1855, the stamp duty was abolished and became cheaper and much more common.
In Britain, the first tabloid paper, the Daily Graphic was published in 1890, and became the first British newspaper to print a photo.
In 1986, the first colour newspaper in Britain was published and in 1990, The Press Complaints Commission was created which was an independent body which dealt with complaints from the members of the public about editorial content.
In 1999, a free newspaper called the metro was published and is now found in UK urban centres.

In the 20th century, newspapers became much more common and Fleet Street was the centre of the British newspaper industry. However, newspaper owners moved away from Fleet Street as computer technology replaced the original labour- intensive methods of printing.

Introduction

For my coursework in A2, I will show a process of planning and research in order to create the first two pages of a local newspaper together with two other options which will be:

- A poster for the newspaper
- A radio advertisement for the newspaper

I decided to choose this option as judging on my previous media coursework which was to create a video, in my opinion was not created to a high standard because of the camera used. I think that I will also enjoy creating a newspaper and a radio advertisement as I am more interested in these fields.