Researching my project

To begin my project I must firstly research into the genre of newspaper I am making. Research will also include looking at my potential target audience and unique selling points to make my product desirable for people to buy.
Firstly I am going to look my local paper and how it is set out.

 

 The 'Echo' is my local newspaper, which provides local information, news and events which are happening close by. As there are two universities and plenty of colleges in South Essex, my paper will be aimed at the students whom attend these Uni's and colleges, so the paper needs to include interesting and relevant news to the area.

Like the 'Echo' it will focus on stories based around the area, and about real local people, and also include adverts for places nearby. The masthead I will create will be quite simple like the 'Echos' one, and include the symbolic red text colour, making it easy to address the paper as a local or tabloid form.

I went onto do some genre specific research, including looking at an online student paper.

This again used the traditional red colour for the masthead, making it easy to see on first glance that it is an informing paper or text. A British newspaper that has its name in red at the top of the front page have a lot of readers, but are not always considered to be as serious as other newspapers, and emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, and TV and celebrity gossip. Local papers have also taken this form and structure on board, and use a red masthead and tabloid dimensions. More formal papers such as 'The independant' do not use a red masthead, as they are a broadsheet paper. Broadsheets deliver more political and serious news, or back a certain political party and act as a source for political activism by reprinting speeches.

The aim of my newspaper is to deliver relevant news to its readers and inform them of whats going on around them. Being a student myself helps make my newspaper appeal to other students as I can use myself when questioning what students might want to see in a newspaper. I made a questionnaire to hand to 30 students around my college to see what students would actually like to see in a student newspaper.

The results I found are seen in the following chart-

 

My newspaper will meet the needs of its target audience by including the above items and stories, and in order make the newspaper a success.