Evaluation a2 coursework

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

I believe my product meets the conventions of local newspapers and I will discuss how I have met these conventions later on the

evaluation. Genre Conventions:

•Newspapers have bold, large headline to attract the attention of the audience and to make it look eye-catching and often uses

alliteration, humour, ellipsis. The headline’s function is to interest the reader.

•It also includes sub-headings in smaller type-face that provides more information about the story

•Every newspapers has its own identity and they must reinforce their identity through recognisable design and layout of the

newspaper

Genre Conventions-continued• Usually the images in newspapers are coloured• Newspaper articles also include lead paragraph which

summarises the story of the newspaper. • The body of the article will present the story in more detail and

will be set out in columns. • The font of the newspaper article is usually written in Times

New Roman • Newspaper articles also includes by-line which gives the name

of the journalist or the reporter • Newspapers also include images and photographs

accompanying the articles with captions such as ‘turn to page…’ to lead the audience to read the article. The caption could give more information on the image .

Genre Convention-continued:

Introduction – It will set the scene and summarise the main points of the article: who, what, when, where.

Body – provides more detail about the event, in particular it answers the questions how and why.

Quotes-articles will contain what a person (eye-witness or expert, family) has said and these will be presented in speech marks.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

• How text, images, layout, and colour combine to create meaning?

The masthead is bold, eye-catching and large which helps to attract the audience’s attention.

The reason for applying serif font is to create a traditional look like newspapers using calligraphy, whereas some local newspapers use sans serif font such as the Metro to create a contemporary look.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? How text, images, layout, and colour combine to create meaning?

• The masthead is placed in the primary optical area which instantly draws the audience’s attention.

• The minor details such as the website and the date are placed in the fallow area so the audience's eyes are drawn to the masthead and what follows on.


The main headline is bold, and capitalized with the font Arial Black. It grabs the attention of the audience because of the size of the text. The adjective ‘tragic’ has negative and emotional connotations. The language is formal which shows that the audience are broader. The headlines tend to cut out unnecessary words such as ‘an’ ‘and’ ‘the’ ‘there.’ The title here should be read as ‘there has been tragic death of an aspiring student.’ However, I have omitted these words as this is a convention of newspaper headlines. The title uses ellipsis and imperfect grammar and still makes sense to the readers and audience. It is also a convention of newspapers to omit words.

The headline is also dense, heavy and black. Black is used in many headlines and therefore is a convention. The headline also takes up half of the page so it makes it look eye-catching and prominent. It is also a feature of newspaper as most of the headlines takes up large amount of space. The headline also has a serious tone and is not sensational which is typical of tabloids.


The word ‘aspiring’ has positive connotations and suggests to the reader that the victim had a big future ahead of her which was cut short by the murderer.


Images

The central image is a long shot of a young woman, who is making direct mode of address to the audience and smiling. Obviously the image is seen as a family snap, and not taken by a professional photographer. She is dressed up as if going to a party which suggests she is outgoing .The image is integrated perfectly with the text, for instance, the text underneath the image fits in and flows easily. The image is not heavily manipulated. I have only re-sized the image, smoothed the edges and brightened the image. I have decided not to heavily manipulate the image because it is not supposed to be creative and arty but factual and serious. She looks attractive, innocent and relaxed. The background is visible and I have decided not to crop it out as it will look arty. The living room looks elegant and suggests to the reader she could be middle class. The lighting is quite bright. The image also dominates the front page and so that she’s the main feature of the newspaper.


Images

I have also included a snap shot of the crime scene which shows where the murder took place for the audience. This particular image is small on the front page and is placed among the article because it’s not as important as the main image. The flat looks elegant with security gates and this further suggests that the victim is middle class.

The image on the second page develops to a medium close up which helps to form some sort of connection between the audience and the victim. It also allows the audience to feel sympathy for her. Here she is clad in casual clothes and looks as if she’s on holiday in the sun which shows a different side to her from the front page.

How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts? How text (language, font), images, layout, integration and colour combine to create meaning?

Layout and colour The primary colours that are used in the text is quite bright such as the blue, orange, and red which helps to grab the attention of the audience. The colours also stands out and are consistent. For instance, the colours in Manchester Evening News, also uses similar colours. This creates a professional look. The blue text on the right hand corner integrates with the image of the victim. The word ‘exclusive’ is highlighted in blue which also complements with the central image. The headline banner and headline are fore grounded from the other colours. The main headline is also in black as it’s a convention of newspapers and it also stands out compared the blue and red theme. Moreover, since this is a local newspaper the news displayed on the page concerns the local community. For instance, the image of the Salford MP and the news of the neighbouring young student creates the impressions of the local community.


LayoutI have organised the article in columns so it is easier for the readers to follow the story . The columns is a regular feature in a newspaper publication. The article is arranged in several paragraphs. Moreover, I have placed the minor articles on the right hand side which draws emphasis on the main article instead. The main headline is also black whereas the subsidiary articles are in blue which foregrounds the main story. The headline is more dramatic and developed grammatically whereas the subsidiary headlines use ellipsis. The main headline is more informative than the others. The headline is much calmer and less emotive and less sensationalised to show its seriousness.

The pull quote stands out, for instance, it is boxed off from the rest of the text. The quote shows genuine feelings of the families and friends.


I have used emotive lexis such as ‘distraught’ which shows the family’s feelings and I have used quotation mark to emphasise their feelings. The nouns ‘actress and model’ shows the glamour angle to her. The serious side to her is shown in the headline such as ‘student’. Therefore two different angles are shown on the subject. ‘Salford born’ shows she’s local and therefore concerns the local community. Adverbs are used such as ‘brutally’ which shows the readers how she was killed. The font of the rest of the article is Times New Roman and the font size is 10. I have selected the Times because it is used in most newspaper articles and is also easier to read rather than something fancy or italics.

Text (language and font)


Contents page I have also decided to design a contents page as part of my ancillary product. I based the contents page design on Salford Advertiser below:

What have you learned from your audience feedback? From the audience research I carried out for my final product I have received a mixture of positive and minor negative criticisms. For instance, the majority of the target audience believed that the use of text and images balanced well, were consistent and looked professional. They also believed that the front page was lively and interesting and attracted their attention. The audience also believed that the contents page was much clearer and was easy to navigate around compared with the Salford Advertiser which they thought was more cluttered.

Few of the audience members believed that the bright colours at bottom of the front page was a little distracting from the main headline.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?

I have used Microsoft Publisher which is a desk top publishing package and the reason I have not used Photoshop because it is an image manipulation package. Microsoft publisher allowed me to be flexible with positioning. I used text heavily so it was better to construct my newspaper front page, second page, newspaper poster and contents page on publisher as it did not require me to manipulate the images. I have learned how to crop, brighten, re size the images and text. I have used set transparent colour tool in Publisher to remove the white background from the masthead.

However, I have used Photoshop to build the advertisement. I have used magic wand tool to remove white bits from the text. I saved this as a jpg image and inserted it on the newspaper front cover.

How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research planning and evaluation stages?

For the radio advertisement I have used software called Adobe Premier Pro CS3 To record my voice and others I have used radio equipment and then transferred the data from there onto the software.

Blogging was another type of technology I have used to chart my work and information. I had set up a main account to present the work. This technology is useful because it is easy to present the work rather in folders. Also I would have had papers everywhere which could get lost. Blogging also allowed me to edit the work I posted which was convenient.

I also used sound technology to construct my ancillary product, radio advert. I did this in a style of a fake vox pop. It is constructed in a documentary format and I recorded ordinary voice of the general public so the audience will identify with them. It is also a good way to canvas their opinions about my product.

Evaluation a2 coursework

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