The Audience

Before I start producing my newspaper I need to take into interest who the target are going to be and what they're going to want from their local newspaper, this will then help me know how to design my newspaper and the type of news that will be inside it.

Firstly, I need to define the target audience. The target audience is consists of individuals, groups and communities who have an influence on a media. Newspapers attempt to appeal to a certain audience by fulfilling the specific needs and interests of a target audience within its structure, layout, stories etc. The target audience is different for different newspapers, the main difference is between a tabloid newspaper and a broadsheet newspaper. A tabloids newspaper, like 'The Sun', aims at a working-class audience - with semi-naked women, sports and celebrity gossip, this newspaper has a reading age of 6 and a half, showing that it isn't an incredibly formal, well written newspaper. This is compared to a broadsheet newspaper, like 'The Daily Mail', which is aimed at the upper-class audience - with political, international news, this newspaper has a reading age of 16, almost a decade difference, showing that it is formally written and is very well constructed.

For a newspaper to find their target audience, they use market research to find out who their main readers are and then they edit their work to fit what the target audience wants from the product. A newspaper can also use mass media to attract their target audience, this can be done through offering different sections to the audience that they're interested in, like, sports, business, life style, health etc. This enables newspapers to target specific markets interested in those topics. This factor can be used in local newspapers but not to the same extent to the national papers that use this technique. However, they do this through giving the sections that relate to their local lifestyles, through giving the local sport from their area.

A national newspaper has to try a lot harder to find their target audience then a local newspaper does, and this is because the target audience for a local newspaper will be the people that live in the area. Although, different regions will have different target audiences, for example, the small town that I'm from - Broadstairs - will have an older target audience, as it's more likely that the older audience will read the local paper. Where as, in a city like London, as there is so much more happening, it's more likely that the target audience will be of a younger generation. So overall, even though there is an overall target audience, it still can't be specific. Although, a local newspaper in my area the 'Isle of Thanet Gazette' can find it's 'specific' as it's a paper that has to be brought, therefore, research would be done.

So, throughout my work I am going to be asking and deliberating with my focus group for what is best and what is wanted to be put and done with my newspaper. This focus group will be taken from a range of ages from 15-80 year olds from my local area, in my focus group there will be 15 people, so that there will be roughly two people from each decade. I will then be able to get an overview of what my target audience want and expect from their local newspaper. As it is difficult to get a group of 15 people together when everyone is free, i will be contacting my focus group through e-mail.