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.