In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge

forms and conventions of real media products.

Masthead

At the start of developing my media product, I researched many newspapers to get an insight as to what the conventions were that were mostly used. Having does this, it gave my ideas as to what my newspaper should look like and what forms and conventions it needed to adopt.

For my masthead I used a large and bold font so it stands out to the readers and it is easily identifiable. As my background is white, the colour red is made much more obvious and appealing to the target audience as well as potential readers. Unlike the convention of most newspapers, which is to have the masthead extremely large and in the font ‘Times New Roman’, I chose to reject the form and chose a different style of writing and did not make it as big. The justification for this is that if I made the font big, this would attract attention away from the advertisements the I decided to put on each side of the masthead. Furthermore, as this was an original piece of work, I did not want to adapt to too much of the conventions to the extent that there are only minor differences, so for that reason I chose I font that was representative of a local newspaper and the area it was for as well as being different and somewhat unique.

I decided to put advertisements next to the masthead because I knew that I did not want to have an overpowering masthead that drew attention away from the rest of the newspaper. In the way that I have laid out my advertisements, date, price and any additional information, it makes sure there's enough space for anything that needs to be added as well as highlighting the necessary information.

Main article

As part of my research and planning I looked at what type of main stories newspapers had on the front page. Most of them were negative because I think this is what is most likely to attract new readers to the newspaper. I decided to take on this convention in my media product and used a negative story at the front. I used a dark font for the headline as I believe this is what sets the tone of the article as being serious as oppose to having a colourful headline and cursive font as I think this would make is seem as though it is a kids newspaper. I also included a caption at the bottom of the picture to inform the readers what the picture is about and what is represents. If this was not included, readers could easily assume that the picture was for an advertisement or had no relevance to the story and so on.

A variety of the newspapers that I observed had an image of what the main thing was being discussed in the article and I also took on this convention in mine. I used an image of ‘Fatima’ (the main character in my article) of how she was bruised after she was beaten so the audience could develop a sense of empathy for the teenager as I think this creates a sense of realism as well as the image of the girl before the attack so they could see what she was like.

Advertisements

Throughout my production I also included advertisements. As many local newspapers are free, they have a variety of advertisements to help fund the newspaper and even though my newspaper was priced at 30 pence I, I included the convention in my own work. I spread them out on my front and inside pages so they did not look too crammed together nor unnecessary.

All the advertisements are relevant because they are local traders or services that are based in Brent so it is easily accessible for the target audience.

My newspaper in comparison to another

In comparison to an already established newspaper, my production has a similar layout for the advertisements and the actual main article. The reason I chose to keep it similar is because it was more clear and concise for the audience to read and they were able to find whatever information necessary easily.

As the Brent and Kilburn times has done, I put a main article in the centre of the newspaper so it grabs all attention and then put a sub article on the side so people can chose whether or not they want to read it without seeming as though it is overwhelming.

I also chose to put a variety of different advertisements on the front cover so it can provide information to a larger target audience. For example, If I were to develop advertisements all based of female fashion and beauty, I would not be taking my male and youth audience into consideration and providing them with any useful information. This is also done in the Brent and Kilburn times so they are providing information to more than one segment of the market.