Market Research: What my demographic have to say.

To help me create a newspaper that my target audience will actually want to read, I did some market research by interviewing a few of them, asking a variety of questions about their preferences. This ranged from their ideal layout of newspapers to the content of newspapers.

This is to also help me link a sense of identity which may enable my target market to find a sense of personal identity that they can identify with when reading my newspaper to ensure that they are drawn to read my newspaper and not just look at it; this is in accordance to the Uses and gratification theory. I also ensured that my interviewees represented different races and genders.

Below are the significant areas which my target audience that incorporated the Uses and gratification theory:
 - Entertainment: My target audience wanted to have an entertainment section dedicated to their age group; this involves all the latest raves, clubs and party events around their local community. This will create a sens of social integration/ interaction within my target audience as well as it will give them something to talk about.

- Current news: although it seems unusual, a lot of the suggestions I recieved were that I should youth news that have occured in their communities e.g. how their council's youth MP's are doing in tackling the issues and concerns of the youth of today. They also wanted to read about news to do with education (workshops, revision sessions) and general news within their communities as well.


 A recording of these interviews and a written statement of their views are below :





What my target audience want:

• Price: They feel that it would be of more value if the had to pay for it rather than it being a freesheet; in other words, they are more likely to read all of the newspaper rather than a section of it.
• Frequency: My target audience think that my newspaper should be distributed weekly.
• Layout: My target audience feel that I should stick to the conventions of local newspaper layouts simply because it is what they are used to; changing it would create confusion and may become unappealing. They also feel that it should include lots of colours and should have more images than text.
• Use publishers who represent the youth: To show how representive LYT is of the youth, publishers such as The Times who could sponser my newspaper.
• Stick to positive, local news on the youth: Gang crime is highlighted too much and therefore generates a negative stereotype on the youth of today; sticking with positive news would cause people to realise that yes gang violence is present however it operates within a SECTION of teenagers not ALL teenagers!

Use a range of digital techniques to attract more readers: My target audience don't read newspapers because they simply don't 'have the time' to read or even watch news. Therefore, if I could include other ways of attracting my target audeince to actually read the newspaper I should.

Publish news we know about: Because my newspaper is a local one, an individual made a point that if he was to view a newspaper which had a friend or someone that he knew on the front image, he would actually want to know why the image of that person is there. In other words, if I was to include images and articles of well known faces, it would appeal more to my audience. 

Include content such as: Job vacancies,  an events page (rave reviews, carnivals, festivals, talent shows, etc), workshops/ charities that are made to promote the youth (Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince's Trust, local youth clubs, etc)

 Look into issues don't just label them: The females in my target audience felt as though they were being unfairly represented. A typical example is teenage pregnancy. I asked them about the view that a tabloid like The Sun created that teenage mothers become pregnant because they 'want a council house and don't want to work.' They felt that people were looking at the surface too much and didn't really try to find out why teenage pregnancy exists and why it is so high.