Popular Press Revision: Media GCSE Exam

Q3 + 4 : Interesting Creative Designs + Ideas

2010-05-05T06:45:00.000-07:00

The examiner wants to see you really appeal to a 15 - 24 age group... steal ideas from news or magazine websites that do this already:

blender

current

Rwd mag

Dazed and Confused

JUST REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT MAKING A MAGAZINE BUT A NEWS WEBSITE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE!!!!

Q2: More Links

2010-05-05T06:43:00.000-07:00

here is some more stuff on how newspapers are trying to deal with their problems in readership:

survey news

FULL SURVEY STORY

Might help ?

The Future of Newspapers : some thoughts :

2010-05-05T06:28:00.001-07:00

go and find answers for question 2 on the interent !... here is some stuff ....
i didnt write this by the way i cut and pasted it ..... sick blud

Newspapers of the future will look more like magazines (niche focused, colorful, with feature stories rather than news), be more community and commerce driven (as opposed to content-driven), and have more user generated content (uploaded audio, video, comments, from ordinary citizens). They will also be much fewer in number, as consolidation continues. Newspapers face 5 big problems:

1) Declining newspaper usage, especially among millenials (those born between 1980 and 2000). Young people say they spend only 1.5 hours per week with newspapers, as compared to 5.3 hours per week for those over 62. This 1.5 hours also is a far cry than the 23 hours Gen Yers spend on TV and Internet (Forrester survey, recall-based data).

2) Few consumers will pay for news – in digital or physical form. News is available everywhere (phones, TV, PC, on a wide variety of sites). Digital news also offers much more richness (i.e. audio, video, depth of analysis, timeliness) than can be found in a once-a-day published, black-and-white physical format.

3) News is not a great context for advertising. Non-interactive, impression-based ads around stories about Iraq or the weather are not great contexts for advertisers. The proliferation of better advertising options (online, interactive TV, search) that are performance-based and more contextual will make ad sales tough for some time.

4) The classifieds business is going elsewhere. Category-killer job, car, auto and real estate sites (monster, ladders, cars.com, etc.) have been peeling away newspapers most profitable revenue stream for 10 years now.

5) Newspapers are really expensive to operate. Printing, distribution, content creation, ad sales, unions – all make it difficult to lower operating costs to compete effectively or invest in new areas.

What does all this mean? We will continue to see consolidation, efforts to lower operating costs (union renegotiations, layoffs, or competing newspapers in a local area sharing printing and distribution), and general decline over time. National newspapers (WSJ, NY Times) will thrive given their scale, albeit by building out or acquiring community features and user generated content to lower their cost structure (like blogs, social networks, wikis). They will also need to tier their services.

The local newspapers will have a tougher time. They will have to alter their value proposition to be less about news and civic events – and more about local sports, entertainment, restaurants, and other commerce oriented areas. They will have to incorporate user generated content to lower costs. Finally, they will have to continue to push the media ownership laws, allowing them to build out multi-channel presences in a local market (TV, radio, newspaper, Web) more freely – allowing them to spread costs and reach consumers over more channels.

Audience : The Facts

2010-04-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

Yeah i know you ... your the best teacher.... thanks so much for all this great audience Data to help me get and A in my exam ! ... yeah yeah.. i get that all the time .. anyway..

Here are lots of slides with useful audience stuff : USE IT !!

(Click on the photos they get bigger)

Daily Mail Audience Pack

View more presentations from mrsloan.

Express Audience facts

View more presentations from mrsloan.

Daily star Audience Facts

View more presentations from mrsloan.

Your exam !!! REVISE NEW TECHNOLOGIES

2010-04-26T02:08:00.000-07:00

The Impact of Online Newspapers and the advantages and disadvantages of each medium is a huge part of you exam.... here are some links to get you going...

online vs print communication

online vs print battle

huffington post article

BBC news article

evolution of breaking news

These links are by no means teh best out there and are just things to get you thinking...and researching for yourself.. you get me !! safe !

Why do we have the news ?

2010-02-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

How to make a broadcast News story: Charlie Brooker

2010-02-04T08:49:00.001-08:00

OK OK i know thE exam is about Popular PRESS but i couldnt help putting this on.. its brilliant

basic analysis of a front page

2009-12-30T07:12:00.001-08:00

2009-12-29T11:42:00.000-08:00

Right then , here is my absolutely top secret 'how to make the examiner think you are a badman when actually you are a wasteman' guide to crusing the exam ........

1. You must mention as much media terminolgy as possible : You have to talk about the 4 key areas: AUDIENCES, REPRESENTATIONS, LANGUAGE, and INSTITUTIONS, if you havent talked about something in each of these areas in your 4 questions then you need to big time !!!!!

its not as hard as it sounds, instead of saying " like the ideas in dis paper is all about racism innit" say " the dominant ideology running through the daily express is one of anti-immigration" or something..

For a full list of terminology you could use see the links on this site

2. Use lots of examples to back up your points ! Try and show the examiner that you have actually read or been exposed to lots of papers.

3. In the practical sections (Q3 & Q4) try and be creative and original : dont just make a newspaper about innercity london kids who listen to grime and RnB !!! everybody will do that BE ORIGINAL and examiners love it !!! However making a youth orientated paper or spin off might work as long as you justify it well.

4. Question 4 will ask you to evaluate your ideas so really sell what you have done and evaluate them along the 4 main areas of media studies . But also criticise them a little bit or evaluate some problems you might face , that shows good analytical skill, and definitely compare them to existing shows or ideas form other media you have.

5. This may seem obvious but when the exam papers come out on or around the end of April you have 2 weeks until the exam, so use the days wisely do work on the answers, write out exam style answers that me and your teachers can check and tell you where to improve !!!

6. Storyboarding : You wont be asked to do a storyboard this year ! phew... but you will be asked to design probably a Homepage for a newspapers website or at very least a newspaper front page although i doubt it... either way it is easy just look at what existing things do and copy them !! keep yours conventional but with some interesting twists .. thats the secret.When doing to homepage you aren't expected to draw every last detail.. but just which sections go where and how big they are.. drawing a lot of boxes really !! Also just draw they very top and the bottom as the middle (the bit you scroll through) is usually the same!

7. Bring theory into it: Try and mention at least Uses and gratifications (Audience theory), Any representational theory (laura mulvey - male gaze etc), and any new technology theory (mcluhan - global village etc). If you can bring this sort of thing in you could be getting excellent marks !! (see me for any help with this, and look at my main blog page for links about all of this)

8. You are going to at some point (prob in question 1) have to talk about newspapers in their non-contemporary context.. this means talk about some changes that happened a while ago and how they affected the newspaper producers and audiences...so do some research ... wapping should be a good start

OK then if you can do all that you are on you way to being a media legend, good luck bruv !!