Research.

For my A2 media blog I have decided to create the first two pages of a original local newspaper, a billboard poster for the newspaper and two hyper linked pages from the news paper's website.

This is my research into news papers.

The Guardian and The Sun are the papers I am going to talk about;

The Guardian is a broadsheet newspaper, which is different from a tabloid newspaper such as The Sun or The Star.

Friday 24th March 2006

                                                                       













No matter which cover of The Guardian you look at there is always a lot of text, the is because of their target audience. The target audience for any broadsheet paper is people who like to read about important news such as the politics, economics, NHS and various others. This attracts a more intellectual target audience who are more interested in what the text says more than and images. A tabloid news paper mainly has a large image of a celebrity or an attractive female on the front and this is to attract the younger audience.  This Guardian front cover has one main image and sever articles on the front cover, a huge attraction point for an intellectual audience. 

The headlines on the front page of the Guardian are a lot longer than they are on the Sun. Tabloid newspapers try to grab an audience’s attention with short, witty, catchy and often comical headlines. However broadsheet readers would be more interested in knowing about the content of the article, that is why the text is so small. The content of the article is more important than the image to accompany it.

The composition of the page is key, as you have to manage to fit all of the text on the front page as well as fitting an image. This is the reason for the column structure as they able you to fit the text in an ordered manner and you are able to have an image in the middle without disrupting the flow of the reader.

The image on the front of The Guardian shows someone who is ill. However the front cover of a tabloid would properly show a model or celebrity and The Sun cover shows. This is because the target audience of a tabloid are more interested in who or what the story is about rather than reading the story its self; the reading age for The Sun Newspaper is 7 years old. The difference between the images is that The Guardians’ front cover doesn't show a person it just shows the image of this unknown ill person is just there is aid the story in putting its point across, the target audience for this are not reading the newspaper because there is a attractive female on the front cover, they read the newspaper because they want the story. The quality of the lighting on the main image is an important factory; it is a high quality so it makes it look realistic. Broadsheet newspapers are not interested in emphasizing certain features of the image and making them look dramatic, they write in-depth stories instead.

This front page of The Sun was taken just as the World Cup was starting. The primary target audience that they are trying to reach with and image like this would be males 18 and above, so the people who are going to be watching the World Cup.

I have chosen this particular cover for a reason, the headline on this front page is split into two one half on the top and one half over a woman’s naked chest. The first part of the headline is at the top and this is perfectly normal, however the word ‘Goal!’ is written on a banner which is being held of the body of an almost completely naked woman. This not only draws a lot of attention to the woman but it also draws a lot of attention to the front cover especially from a male audience. The use of the word ‘Goal!’ in this case is a pun, it could mean a goal from England in the football or it could mean Goal in the sense of chatting up this woman, this entire cover is based on attracting a male audience. The headline is written in a big font to draw attention to the word ‘Goal!’ and then draws attention to the woman’s chest. As they are covered males are likely to fantasies about them and what they look like under the banner.

There is such a small amount of text on this front page and this is because the target audience will be more interested in looking at and fantasizing about the female they won’t really be interested in what the text has to say. If there was a significant amount of text on the front page then they would have to reduce the image of the woman and the image would not attract the target audience in the same way.

This whole front cover is based around this image and making it look as attractive as possible. The image is the central focus of the page and it makes the woman seem important. This draws on a very common male fantasy that males enjoy powerful dominant women and enjoy being controlled by them. The masthead and the image are the only things in colour on the front cover and this helps allow the woman to stand out more as there is nothing but black and white surrounding the image. This image is a medium – long shot and this allows the audience to see enough of the female’s body to become around when looking at the image and this has been done specifically to make more men want to by the newspaper. The lighting to this image is low, creating a contrast between the light and dark on the woman’s body and makes the image appear dramatic and sexy. The top lighting is used as it makes the model appear more glamorous and the best features of her body are highlighted because of this. This whole image makes the individual want to by the paper because if they own a copy then they are able to look and fantasies about her for as long as they wish.