I created a questionnaire asking 40 local people in Croydon between the ages of 16 and 50 a few questions about local newspapers. I chose 40 because I felt I would gain a wide range of answers thus making my results more accurate.
The results I got from my questionnaire show that most people would like me to name my newspaper as Times Croydon and the reason being that they are fed-up of the “second name” of every local Newspaper being either gazette, or press and thought having it as Croydon made the newspaper different and stand out from others. also the name Times was different and felt they would be attracted to a local newspaper which didn’t follow such conventions. One person said, “ I like the name "Times Croydon" because it reminds me of the national paper The Times and I felt because it did so it would attract a wider range of audience, so not only elderly people and parents and working class adults would be reading it but also business people, people who run a business company thus meaning the newspaper could be funded or even consume money by advertising the company in the paper. After hearing this comment, i was desperate to name my newspaper Times Croydon because I felt the influence of The Times on this paper will heighten its prestige and so it will not be viewed as any normal local newspaper.
The results I gained from this question surprised me because throughout my research I noticed that most newspapers were free. Croydon Guardian for example, the newspaper that I have been deconstructing very carefully due to the fact that we have many things in common from similar target audience to the area in which it’s set in, doesn’t sell the newspaper. It is delivered to all houses in the borough, however it is sold for 40p in newsagents. I was surprised that they didn’t want to pay 40p for the newspaper but rather wanted it to be distributed for free but sold for 20p at newsagents. This was because they felt that because it was a new local newspaper it should be sold for 20p because national newspaper such as The Sun is sold for 20-, so why should they spend 40p for a new local newspaper. Also they felt the cheaper the newspaper the more people would buy it thus promoting consumerism. However I felt for the majority of things it has inside it, it should be for 30p.
I was not happy with the results I got for this because as you can see most people chose for the nameplate to be written in different sizes. I didn’t like this because I felt although it followed the conventions of “Croydon Guardian” I felt it stopped me from showing off my creativity skills. But you know, the customer is always right. Despite this issue I would stick with this choice because I feel if the nameplate is simple as suggested, it would bring more attention to the article, which is what am obviously using to sell the newspaper. So in some aspects this was the right choice.
As you can see most people chose blue and white, I was exceptionally happy with this choice because I also wanted to use blue for the nameplate and as the color scheme of this newspaper because not only is it the color used in Croydon Guardian but because the whitgift centre, the main attraction in Croydon is written in blue.
Most of my readers chose for the front page to have a major headline accompanied by the image and article, and also a teaser and an advert. I almost suspected they would choose this because that was what I myself would also like to see on a front page of a newspaper. I was surprised to see that they wanted to see an advert at the front page despite the whole idea that adverts just take up valuable space on a front page; similarly I felt the same way when they said they wanted a teaser. I feel this was because they wanted a little taste of what was going to be inside the newspaper before they spend 20p on it which is quite fair actually. Along with this, they all wanted an equal amount of writing and pictures on the page. I was going to do this regardless because I feel it gives a balance to the page and attracts the readers more. This is because if there’s too much pictures they will feel as though they are not getting enough for their money and if it is too much writing, it will be heavy on the eyes meaning they won’t bother reading it at all.
I used Microsoft word to put my questionnaire together and then after collecting the results of my questionnaire, i used excel to put the results in the graph. This made it easier for me to accumulate information from it much quicker. As i am more of a visual person.
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