Studying the tabloids gave me a deeper understanding of what sort of language would be suitable for the socio-economic group and audience. Each newspaper has different types of reader, ‘The Sun’ is mainly for working class males, and they tend to be males because the newspapers are brought in the morning when heading to work. ‘The Mirror’ is for the female working class, and normally bought mid morning. The ‘Daily Mail’, is also a female based newspaper and normally for working to middle class, more of working class, categories C2, D and E.
I would estimate that the readership of the ‘Daily Mail’ is mainly female due to the large amount of features that are dedicated to females. The primary readership (the person who first reads a particular copy of the paper) of the ‘Daily Mail’ is likely to be equally split across both genders, however the secondary readership (those who read the same paper second) will be largely female, due to the nature of the articles and supplements contained within the newspaper. I would also suggest that the Daily Mail is a 'family publication' and therefore crime stories will not go into too much graphic detail when describing a case. However, the Mail is likely to have a detailed analysis of crime and also the sources reported from would be professionals too, such as solicitors/barristers, police reports, and court cases. Many daily newspapers seem to be suffering a slow, year-on-year decline in their sale figures, especially among the tabloids but they have proven to be tough survivors, refusing to lie down and die. Newspapers have cultured their appeal to certain demographic groups and are engaging in much more audience research than they ever did in the past. Advances in technology and changes in society have generated significant changes in both products, and the audiences they are aimed at. Some newspapers now identify their readership as the highly educated groups in society and leave the mass audience to television. A more highly educated readership demands more pages of the background and more comment on the news, as well as greater depth in reporting.
By this point I have decided to look at ‘Daily Mail’ in more detail. My brief was to design the first four pages of a newspaper. I have decided not to base my newspaper on ‘The Sun’ as it was not suitable for me to do page 3 on that newspaper. ‘Daily Mail’ is the second highest seller with 2.4 million copies sold a day. ‘Daily Mail’ presents serious articles as well as articles on celebrities whereas ‘Daily Mirror’ seems to be concentrating more on the celebrities, sex and scandal.
I studied the tabloid newspapers and I have referred to my research on how to write articles in detail to assist me when constructing my articles and give me deeper understanding of what sort of language would be suitable for this audience.
The written style of tabloids will need to be taken into account. Looking at examples it was clear that to reach the needs of my audience the articles had to be easy reading, enjoyable, informative yet serious and put across the point which I intend to bring forth to my readers. Tabloids in general take the show business and celebrity stories rather than hardcore political, share stores and angles which broadsheets produce.
Tabloids newspapers follow these kinds of generic rules because of the institutions that produce them. We need to think of newspaper producers as businesses desperate to make profits. The newspaper industry is notoriously insecure and the editors of tabloid newspapers in particular are always worried about circulation. This is partly to do with the way they are sold - a large proportion of the readers of broadsheet newspapers will buy the same paper everyday. In fact, they will have it delivered to their door. This means that broadsheet editors are interested in producing a product which will generate long-term loyalty -it does not matter so much what is in one day’s edition, more that they can keep their readers happy in the long-term by maintaining high standards of reporting. Tabloids, on the other hand are much more often bought at news stands where they are found lying next to their rivals. This means that they have to have the best front cover if they are to sell - tabloid newspapers have quite a high proportion of what is known as floating readers - people who will choose a different paper on different days depending on what is on the front page.
Section 2
I have decided to name my newspaper ‘Daily Planet’ because I think it suits my newspaper and as the news is about what is happening on this planet makes it very appealing. I am going to use a picture of earth as my logo because it represents earth as a planet.
The language used in ‘Daily Mail’ is mainly monosyllabic language using simple vocabulary and mastheads and pictures take up a large proportion of the space. This means the stories in tabloids are not only easier to read but also shorter. Articles, like ‘Hearty Breakfast?’, ‘Cheeky Prince’ are short and can be quickly read. They are fairly easy to read and understand the language by using words like ‘Bummed Out’. The audience will understand the message I am trying to bring across by reading the title and looking at the picture. The language is much sensationalised in tabloids also, this is because they want to sell more papers and making stories more dramatic can do this. The amount of 'hard news' that a paper decides to print is determined by the editorial policy of the paper. Tabloids do feature political stories, though they tend to prefer to focus on personalities of the politicians rather than the actual issues that may be relevant.
I have worked very hard on the layout, as this is very important. (The designs of my layout can be seen in the appendices and how have I changed them to make them look more professional).
The way I present my articles and my pictures should be eye catching and will make my audience want to read the rest of the article. The majority of tabloids are based on women's issues like, fashion, cookery, health and articles about women, relationships and real life issues. A newspaper should provide truthful information and explain the news and I have taken this into account and written all the articles as if something like that could really happen in real life, such as my article on a young girl who loves to go out to clubs and gets raped. This is very likely to happen in the real world and it is explained where, how and when it happened. I have written the article using the words like ‘dark-headed beauty’, ‘15 days away from her 19th birthday’ so that the readers can sympathise with the girl. The article ‘Bummed Out’ is based on fashion as the celebrities are filming for an advert on Estee Lauder’s nail polish and focusing on Victoria Allen’s bum. An article about the ‘Party Loving Girl’ is a real like issue, which can happen to anyone or anywhere. ‘Heart Breakfast?’ is again another article on real life issues and as well as focusing on the health of the students, giving bad publicity to the college. The first main article is about the relationship of two well known celebrities. Therefore I have now covered all the topics mentioned above.
A newspaper should also provide entertainment. It should be interesting to read including humorous, exciting crime stories. I have written an article on Victoria Allen (an actress in an advert) on page 2, which indicates that her bum was too big for her outfit. It will make the readers laugh when they read the article with a catchy headline, 'Bummed out' in capital letters making the reader want to read the whole article. In the picture I am concentrating on physical attractiveness, and this reinforces sexism by encouraging the reader to think that the way women look is more important than what they do. Women are also encouraged to believe that each part of their bodies needs careful attention to make it attractive to the male gaze.
Photographs used in the articles also had to be suitable for the target audience. The pictures had to be eye catching and aesthetically pleasing for the reader. The front cover had to be vivid and look attractive; using photos and bright colours I would lure the reader. The way in which I position my main photos will also be important, and they should complement my main titles and relate to the issues, which arise within the article. Therefore taking this into consideration my front page is covered by pictures of two very well-known celebrities ‘The Collins’ known as the ‘The Golden Couple’ who are on the verge of splitting up because ‘Lisa’ found out that ‘Joe’ has been cheating on her. The picture was originally taken together but I edited it by tearing it apart from the middle to make it more effective. It will look like as if they have already been separated. (The original pictures and how I edited then can be seen in the appendix).
I used a photograph on every page of the newspaper to improve its visual appeal. They illustrate the text. I took the relevant pictures to make sure the main purpose of the stories is clear. The picture of Victoria Allen ‘with a big bum’ on page 2 was deliberately taken as a side view not focusing on the face but pointing out the big bum, with her head down looking embarrassed. This has given the picture more quality and produces an interesting variety of expression.
I have used advertising in my newspaper because newspaper classified sections offer a valuable service to their local areas and to remain successful, they must continue to do so. Against firm competition from other business sectors, newspapers’ best weapons are their close connection to the local community, their ability to field web sites that people want to visit for news as well as adverts.
With a wide variety of titles, each having its own well-defined readership, newspaper advertising can provide a way to focus on a target audience. Local or regional newspapers can offer geographic selection in advertising. Newspapers, however, are generally read quickly and then disposed of, so an advert usually only gets one chance to catch the reader’s eye.
In ‘Daily Planet’, I have used an advert for an I-Pod, which is very popular at the moment. It will attract the users at it is placed on the first page and the audience will be tempted to find out how they can win the I-Pod. It will encourage them to buy the newspaper. The second advert is based on mortgages, which can be very helpful for the young as well as the older readers. It is short, simple and attractive using different colours. The third advert is about the weight watchers. It will be mainly targeted on women to watch their figure, but now-a-days even men go on a diet to keep in shape so it could be targeting the men as well as the women. These adverts have been designed to draw attention to the products.
Section 3
I have used the inverted triangle system, used by journalists, when I was writing my articles. I have put the most important details of my article such as Who, What, Where, Why and When at the top of the triangle and the minor details at the bottom so that when it came to editing and changing my articles I would not lose any information. I produced my pages using the Apple computer, AppleWorks 6.0 application. This allowed me to set out my articles into columns. I used the digital camera to take my pictures with instead of an analogue one as this will allow me to manipulate, edit and crop pictures on the computer. I have edited my pictures to make them more suitable and fit in my newspaper. The original pictures and how they are edited can be seen in the appendices.
The articles I have written are negative. This is because most people expect the news to be negative. Negative news appears more often than good news because it is easier to see. A negative event can easily occur between two issues of a newspaper and can therefore be easily slotted in to the front-page news story everyone is waiting for. Negative events are both rarer and less predictable than the more stable positive news.
I prepared a questionnaire to help me judge ‘Daily Planet’ and if people would like to buy it. (A copy of the questionnaire I have prepared is in appendix). I gave out 50 questionnaires, 20 of which were done within my school and the female and males of the age group of over 20 filled out the other 30 questionnaires. The results of my questionnaire were that 50% of the people said that they prefer reading tabloid newspaper and ‘Daily Mail’ was their first choice. I have based my newspaper on ‘Daily Mail’. People also read broadsheets but not as much as the tabloids and they were mainly males. When asked if they always buy the same particular brand or does it depend on how the first page is presented, 60% said that they would buy the same particular brand. This could be a disadvantage for my newspaper as it is new in the market and the audience might not trust the new brand. ‘Daily Planet’ will need to be promoted, advertised to reach their audiences. When the 60% of the people filled out the rest of the questionnaire commenting on the layout was well designed and in the last question 50% people said that they would consider buying ‘Daily Planet’ if it was in the market even though they always buy the same particular brand.
People also thought that the layout was well presented and the articles were interesting to read. They also said that all the pictures were very attractive as they were looking straight at the camera and were inviting readers to read the articles and catching attention. They were aesthetically pleasing for the reader. The headlines were said to be very interesting, good size and font. The headlines were catching and make the reader want to the whole article with interest. 100 % of the people said that they would consider buying ‘Daily Mail’ if it was in the market. The price was thought fairly cheap. The overall presentation of the newspaper was rated 9 out of 10 by 60 %, 1 being the worse and 10 being the best.
There was also some criticism in the questionnaire, such as the advertisement on the first page ‘Win a Coloured IPOD’ was thought to be too close together making it quite hard to read but overall the newspaper looked professional-like. The language used was easy to read and understand. It was similar to other tabloids, simple and easy.
The first page was vivid and looked attractive using big pictures like the other tabloids and bright colours to lure the reader into wanting to read more. The way I positioned my main pictures complemented my main titles and related to the issues, which arise in the article. The lead stories are not finished on the front page – it continues on inside the pages like the other tabloids.
100% of the people liked reading all the articles I have written. The best article chosen was on Page 3, which was continued from page 1 which I thought, was good because the most interesting article is situated on the first page and their pictures were the favourite.
I thought this was successful piece of coursework, which has been endorsed by the positive comments in the feedback.
3112 words.
