Target Audience

for my newspaper

A2 Media Studies

What is a Target Audience?

A target audience is defined as:

• 'A particular group at which a product such asa film or advertisement is aimed', in this casea newspaper.

Examples would be:

• Local people in specific areas

• Business people

• Well-educated readers

• Working class residents

• Students

Newspaper Target Audiences

Newspapers tend to target a wide audience

of most age groups, sometimes specific

audiences depending on the language,

style and type of newspaper. For example,

The Times newspaper targets older, more

educated readers, in contrast to The Sun

who targets all age groups, but working

class residents.

My Target Audience

My target audience for this project is

aimed for people over the age of twenty in

the Wymondham area. This is mostly of

people who are entering the world of work

for the first time, and for older people who

would be starting new families.

The demographics of my

Target Audience: Gender and Age

• Gender: My newspaper product will appeal to anygender because I will vary the content to drawinterest from both sides. The colour scheme ofred, black and white is considered masculine but itis a common colour which does appeal to bothgenders.

• Age: I have chosen people over the age of 20because they would be entering the world of workfor the first time and starting families, also youngerpeople don’t tend to have as much interest innewspapers. The content will relate to the localarea, in which the residents will have interest in.

The demographics, continued:

Ethnicity and Social Class

• Ethnicity: This doesn’t matter for my

newspaper, but it will be designed to

appeal to all people from the community

from any ethnic background.

• Social Class: my newspaper will appeal to

classes A, B, C1 and C2 because the

language and content will be suitable for

people in those classes.

The demographics, continued:

Education and Economic Status• Educational background: the majority of my target

audience would have completed education, andpossibly higher education and would have gone oninto employment or voluntary work. Thenewspaper language will be simple and should beeasily understandable.

• Economic Status: this depends, because somepeople could be still in further education, thereforeclassed as ‘student’, but others might be‘employed’, with some ‘unemployed’. Because thisvaries, the price of my newspaper will bereasonably low so the majority of people canafford it.

The demographics, continued:

Location and Accessibility

• Location and Accessibility: as this is a

local newspaper, it will be targeted at

residents of the local area as it will only be

relevant to them. However, it will be

accessible to some of the surrounding

areas as they like to be informed of what is

happening in that area.

How I will do this

I will focus on this target audience when

producing my newspaper to ensure I

create a product suitable for them to make

my newspaper better and more appealing.

What I have found out about my

Target Audience

From my questionnaire results, I have foundout that 93% of respondents were employedand the majority were over the age of twenty.This clarifies that the rest of the results aresuitable answers to represent my targetaudience.

43% of respondents often read weeklynewspapers, and in second place was dailynewspapers. Therefore I should produce aweekly newspaper, as this is what my targetaudience normally aim for.

Continued...

Broadsheet newspapers were seen as morepopular than tabloid newspapers, therefore Iwill consider the style when producing mine.

The most popular category for the price ofnewspapers was 60p - £1, therefore I will aimto put the price of my newspaper in thatsection.

Current affairs was the highest score for whichtopics my target audience liked reading, withlocal perspectives and sport in second andthird place. I will consider relating the mainstories of my newspaper under these topics.

Continued...

There is an equal score between the peoplewho find adverts appealing, and the oneswho don’t. I will include adverts anyway, but Iwill try to make them appealing so theyinterest the audience.

Headlines were chosen as more eye-catchingto the public over stories and photographs soI will consider this.

When I produce the masthead, I will try to keepit similar to other newspaper mastheads, but Iwill add my own style to it. Most respondentsagreed that ‘they’re okay, just need a bit ofimprovement.