Digital News: Project Ideas

So for this unit, we as a group have to create a short news report which you can view on our website which will be creating. I've decided to work with Kate and Aaron (from last year again) and Sam. We were briefed into what exactly digital news is as well as brainstorming the conventions and the structure by evaluating previous examples (we looked at a BBC news report in 2009) which you can see in my other post 'Digital News Example Analysis'.

We then got together as a group and started discussing the key points about our news report, which you can see below:

Target audience: 16-24

Whilst generally exploring which audiences big news channels target, we noticed that there isn't a large market focusing on the younger audience. This is mainly because the younger audience instead search for the specific news they want via the internet, as it is known that the younger people are more interactive compared to the older audience.

This is why we decided to focus on the age group 16-24. But why this group exactly? Well, are main theme for our channel is to focus on young students - those whom have left school and are now at the bigger stage of their education. We only managed to find one relevant example similar to ours and this was only a website and not a news channel - making our channel instantly niche yet effective as it should target all ranges of students.

Categories we are focusing on

We also decided to try and focus our news categories which will benefit our target audience and generally more relevant for the younger audience. Additionally, we want to reinforce this idea of our channel being niche and different however not to an extent that it may narrow down are audience. The purpose is to instead attract a wider range - have a category which will attract the majority of young people to be drawn to our news channel. We aim t Below are the main categories we have chosen:

Entertainment

This is crucial for our news channel as it is what keeps our audience engaged and more importantly watching our news. However, the entertainment factor must primarily focus on students or generally for younger people, as we still want those who may not be a student to have some interests with our news. For example, we could include student-based stories of memorable nights at university or anything which students can relate to and associate with.

Art and Culture/ Sports

To remain reasonably informative as well, we will also have a category based on art and culture and sports. This creates a balance between being entertaining yet factual for our news channel, making it approachable for a wider range of audiences. 

Celebrities

One of the most successful ways of gaining an audience has to be the use of celebrity stories. Why? Because people are interested in the latest and biggest stories of celebrities - such as celebrity mistakes, controversy or generally celebrity gossip. This allows audiences to discuss topics like theses and generally gratifying their surveillance needs, therefore being effective for the audience. Additionally, these sort of topics are likely to be targeted at a younger audience anyway.

Gadgets

Here we have decided to challenge typical news channel conventions by having a category focusing on the latest gadgets and their stories. This suits perfectly for the younger audience whom are more engaging with gadgets as well as interacting with them. We would focus here on articles such as the 'best tablets' or 'phones' as well as any controversial news stories, such as the new iPhone 6 bending in pockets. Once again, this should try to focus mainly on students however not to an extent that it doesn't seem attractive for those young people who may not be students.

Other (lifestyle, today's news in brief etc)

As we have only just begun discussing our plans for this project, it is likely that we will change our ideas. This is why this category is more of smaller ideas which could potentially be expanded on and even change a category or two of the list above.

Firstly, a lifestyle category is quite an importance which can be adapted for students. This will draw almost all student's attention as it could include articles such as 'survival guides' ranging to controversy over the expense of tuition fees for example, or even an article focusing on a protest demanding more student loan, etc. Either way, this will be a main key to reinforce that our news channel focuses primarily on students.

Another category could even be politics - however not as much detail as other news channels, like the BBC. Instead, it could just be in brief, just so that the student audience are aware of what is happening. We could also even include a link on our news report linking to our website which gives a much detailed explanation compared to the news report. This then links to my next point of generally having the daily news in general - also promoting awareness. Remember our audience is only students so its likely not everyone will have a great interest in a detailed report of politics and some articles of the daily use.

Music too is quite essential for most younger people's life. This too can entice with our categories for example we could have funny festival moments (combining with entertainment). Additionally, this section could show upcoming festivals or articles such as 'UK's top 3 festivals' and so on.

Branding

The branding is also essential for our news channel. It needs to be attractive and inviting for our audience however its crucial that this doesn't go OTT. This is why our main brand will consist of a monochrome style - for example, having a black background and white heading. This will remain apparent for tour strap line for the news report. Nonetheless, we were thinking on adding a vibrant sub-heading colour scheme. For example, our entertainment sub heading could be red, sports could be blue, gadgets could be yellow, etc. This just makes our channel seem more inviting as well as highlighting what our sub-headings are, so that are audience are more likely to remember what our news channel consists of.

Advertising

Advertising is also crucial for news channels as well as the media in general. We briefly touched on including advertising which too focuses on this student-based genre. These adverts could include links to NUS - a company for students who can get discount and gifts e.g. discount on Apple products or half price off Spotify. This all helps to entice with this student-based channel.

Potential Problems

Of course, there will be some problems with our ideas. We need to make sure that we remain unique and don't copy other competing news channels, such as Student365. Therefore we may need to focus on other articles which you might not expect to see, however ones which aren't too different that they might not attract the target audience which we are aiming for. All in all, our intentions are to focus on students and the younger audience.