1. Question 1: In what ways does your media product
use/develop or challenge forms and conventions?
Layout
Before starting my main task that was creating a
newspaper, I researched similar newspapers such as, The
Bromley Times and The Metro, which are both free
newspapers. I identified the conventions that were used
by both of these newspapers, to give me an idea of how I
could maybe challenge some of the usual conventions but
also follow some to ensure my newspaper looked
professional. I established most newspapers but not all
use a simple five-column layout, I followed this convention
as it is a simple but an effective layout when you have
both text and images on your page, as my newspaper is
aimed at a younger audience I attempted to avoid having

2. long articles as I feel my audience would be more likely to
read shorter and more interesting articles.
Measurement
To ensure my newspaper looked professional, I took a
number of measurements from The Metro such as the
measurements for; Gutter space, column width, the length
and width of the masthead after doing this I entered the
relevant measurements into a programme on the Apple
Mac called Indesign where I designed my paper this
ensured all the measurements were correct such as, the
alignments of columns, advertisements and masthead all
fit effectively looking neat and clear. As my measurements
were taking from another paper, I knew this would ensure
my newspaper looked professional.

3. Design
My images and adverts were also created with the
measurements I took from The Metro newspaper this gave
me the start I needed to make sure my newspaper would
look professional and sharp. I understand how important it
is to make sure particular things are done in certain ways
such as, the use of fonts and colours because this would
help the audience identify a newspaper from a magazine. I
designed things in certain ways such as, my masthead I
wanted to create a logo which suited my target audience
so the colour pink for the font. My newspaper is called ‘i-
sport Chislehurst’ for the font of ‘i-sport’ I used a
handwritten style and for the ‘Chislehurst’ I used a more
bold and simple font. I did this to represent both youth and
also, there parents as my newspaper could possibly
appeal to the parents of the youths this also, shows the
difference between the two cultures and age groups. The

4. font I used for my front page was fairly simple and wasn’t
very eye catching however, the colour I used was a bright
pink this was to represent vibrant youth and I also felt I
needed a bright colour to catch my audiences eye. Using
this colour challenged the stereotype that my newspaper
would be aimed at girls as pink is supposedly a typically
female orientated colour. Although, my newspaper is
aimed at both males and females it is predominantly
aimed at males as some of the articles I produced may not
appeal to a female audience.
I feel I have challenged many conventions of a typical
local newspaper because all my stories are sport centered
which is unknown to do so by a local newspaper as they
usually have a minimal sports section at the back and a
sports story will only make the front page if a team has
won a national trophy with the main stories being about
local important news. I also challenged the conventions by

5. targeting my paper at a younger audience. Most local
newspapers I researched in targeted there paper at an
older audiences, such as parents aged 35 years and
above. This meant many components of my paper were
different to others, such as colours ad my use of
photography.
Question 2: How effective is the combination of my main
product and the other ancillary tasks?
Firstly, My newspaper, radio advertisements and poster
were all created to appeal to younger audiences who have
a strong interest in sport. Before constructing each text I
had to research and identify how I could interest my
audience. I feel I could have reflected my knowledge more
effectively through my work, the language I used within my

6. newspaper could have been more persuasive and
informal. However, I feel my poster was an effective
poster although it was a fairly simple design I feel it was
successful, as it was an original idea.
Poster
When researching posters I realised I didn’t want to follow
the average conventions by having a large picture of my
newspaper, I wanted to design a unique poster therefore, I
used grass as my background to represent a sports field
and also, the colour of the font in white to represent
markings on a sports pitch. However, when starting out
designing my poster I felt the need to follow these simple
conventions, as I didn’t have many other ideas, but as the
task went on my ideas developed. As this was an original
idea with some eye catching detail I feel my target

7. audience would be drawn into reading the poster then
going on to picking up a copy of it. I used fairly vibrant
colours, which stand out to catch the eye of my audience
as my poster is design to be on billboards and on the side
of buses rather than in magazines. I feel by poster was
lacking detail, although it was targeted to my audience
through the connotations of sport the poster is very male
dominated whereas, my poster is not only aimed at males.
I also feel my poster had the required amount of flair to be
amount to appeal to my specific audience.
Radio Advert
I started my research and planning of a radio advert by
visiting rab.com and listening to the best radio adverts of
all time, this gave me many ideas of what worked well in
radio advertisement. I learnt from this research that the

8. best adverts were fairly simple ideas but had a sense of
comic to them, this helped to build a relationship with their
audience and once a relationship is built with the audience
they would take much more interest in the advert which
often meant they would take away a lot more from it and
were more likely to consider taking interest in the product
that is being advertised. Although, I had discovered all of
this information on radio advertisements, I feel my radio
advert could have gone better although the advert I
produced I felt was original and linked to my target
audiences interests it could have been a lot more
persuasive to engage my audience.
Newspaper
The newspaper task was the most time consuming out of
the three tasks but I felt this showed with the final product.

9. Although, I feel my newspaper went well and did certain
things well like engage and specific target audience
through my own photography. However, there was a lot
that I could have done to improve my newspaper if there
was more time provided such as, my stories could have
been developed further I feel there is not enough detail
within the stories to draw the audience in and allow them
to feel emotive. There is still a fair bit of blank space on
the second page but I feel on the front page I made good
use of the space provided by filling it with plugs and
adverts.
In conclusion, I feel all three of my tasks linked fairly well
and supported the newspaper, which was the main task.
However, all of the task could be improved with more time
available but I feel I have defined my target audience fairly
well throughout. I could have engaged my audience better

10. through the radio advert, by using more persuasive
language.
Question 3: What have you learnt from your audience
feedback?
Firstly for my feedback, I ask the other students within my
class to comment and give me the feedback on the draft
for my main product, the newspaper. This involved people
giving me both positive and negative points of the product
and also offering an insight into what they thought could
be improved to make it a better product.
The next feedback exercise was for the whole media
department, we printed out all of the newspapers and

11. were giving post-it notes where we could write our
comments, both negative and positive and stick it to each
other’s products. This was very useful, as it provided
many different ideas on how to develop my paper further.
Many positive points were brought up such as, the quality
of my images and the quality of my advert on the front
page. Also, the feedback given provided some basic
conventions that I had missed out such as, page numbers.
When comparing my product to the other existing products
within the group I realised how I could make my
newspaper look more professional and less like a
magazine by having smaller font for the text, this would
also fir more with other conventional newspapers. The
main issues that were brought up about the second page
of my newspaper were that there was too much blank
space and also some of the alignments of my photographs
which were easily changed to make the newspaper look
more professional. This feedback session provided

12. valuable information that helped me to develop the
product and also, add specific finishing touched that help
with making the product to excel with professionalism.
Some of my images were stretched and did not look too
appealing, after the feedback that I was given I notice
some of the faults such as the stretched images, which I
changed to make my product more aesthetically appealing
to my audience. Although, this exercise was very useful to
me specifically it did have some faults within this exercise,
one being that because everybody taking part in this
feedback were young people not everyone took it
seriously therefore, I was left with some useless
comments such as ‘bold font’ this didn’t help me to
develop my paper. Also, it was only aimed at the same
audience so you are likely to get the same sort of
feedback whereas, if the audience was more varied you
would be left with different types of feedback which could
help to develop my product it different ways. After, using

13. this feedback I was given after this session I uploaded my
paper onto a social networking site to allow my peers to
review it, this would also allow a broader section of the
audience to review it.
This next session provided me with more useful feedback,
containing a lot of positive feedback, this shows me that
my developments from the last session have been useful
and are leading my product in the right direction. The front
page gained many positive comments, making me feel
confident in the changes I recently made from the
feedback I was given. I was given feedback about the font
size saying it looks too small on screen, this could be due
to the quality of the digital version on the computer screen.
However, the printed version was easily readable and
clear which tells me making these alterations wouldn’t
improve my product as it is not an online paper therefore if

14. the quality is fine in the printed version there is no need to
change the font size. Slightly more negative feedback was
given to me about the second page of my newspaper
even though I did make changes from the first feedback
session I was given. Some people commented saying the
design of my second page is too basic, but I felt the need
to follow the conventional design to add a sense of
professionalism to my newspaper. However, I took the
feedback into consideration and decided to change where
some of my adverts were place to improve a consistent
layout. I did not receive any comments about the amount
of blank space was on the second page which is an
improvement because in the first feedback session this
was a major concern this means I have developed my
paper to make the improvements needed. The feedback
all in all was a success although I couldn’t make vast
changes because many changes were made from the first
feedback session and many of the same people were

15. offering their advice and feedback, which meant some of
the feedback, was the same as before.
Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in
the construction and research, planning and evaluation
stages?
Throughout the development of my entire project new
media has played a massive part. To access existing
examples of local newspapers to aid my research I mainly
used the internet based editions of the publication as this
made it a lot easier to access the correct information, it
also made it a lot easier to present to information I found
digitally. This is a relatively modern form of viewing print
online, this means people all over the world can access
local news which means the news is a lot more accessible
to a wider audience. The Internet when researching for my
ancillary task played a vital role.

16. Newspapers using websites to present there news is a
major part of new media, so when designing my webpage
I researched in a varied amount of newspaper and
magazine websites allowing me to analyse conventions
which I could possible use within my website. Features
such as, e-editions and news updates available for mobile
phones are also at the forefront of new media, this
influenced me massively when creating my newspaper as
it influenced the name I chose ‘i-sport Chislehurst’ the ‘i’
represents the interactivity the newspaper will contain and
also having a qr barcode on my front page which is a
quick response barcode.
When displaying my work new media was again very
important, I used a blog document for my planning and

17. also to show the development of my product. Blogs are a
form of new media that have increased in popularity in
recent years with websites such as; www.blogger.com and
www.twitter.com become quickly dominant when looking
to receive up to date news on anything from worldwide
news to celebrity gossip. I used the features of a blog
effectively meaning I could upload work from anywhere
which could be accessed by my teacher and peers giving
me more freedom for time management. This meant I can
make changes to my work from the feedback I was given
by my teacher from anywhere with an Internet connection.
I also used, Slide Share and Scribd to upload slideshows
of documents I had produced as this allowed images and
texts to be viewed in different way that were provided
while using the blog website. This meant word documents
can be uploaded and posted straight to my blog with the
same original layout, meaning it would be a lot easier to
understand.

18. New media also helped with the feedback side of things
as I uploaded images of my products onto a social
networking site which allowed people to offer both positive
and negative feedback allowing me to make vast
improvements to my products which made a lot of
difference. This form of new media allow me to target a
much broader audience for feedback than was possible
with paper print outs of my work also, targeting different
audience which allowed me to receive various different
types feedback. I feel I used the new media available
effectively to make my products as best as they could be.
Without the new media I used the planning, creation and
development of the tasks would have been a lot more
difficult meaning the final products would not have been
as successful. New media also influenced me to include
new features such as, plugs for the website, phone

19. updates and online editions.
By Jack Brennan