Your media text is the front page of the ‘i’ newspaper from Tuesday 5 June 2012.

The main story in the news that day was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – celebrating 60 years on the throne.

The ‘i’ newspaper has been a notable success story in the newspaper industry in the last two years. Costing just 20p Monday-Friday (30p Saturdays), circulation figures for January 2012 had the ‘i’ selling 243,000 copies daily. When the ‘i’ was launched in October 2010, it was noted that the ‘i’ found 170,000 readers that were not taken from other publications – meaning that previous to buying the ‘i’, their readers were not engaging in newspapers at all.

The ‘i’ is a sister paper to the Independent, owned by Alexander Lebedev, and its editor is Stefano Hatfield. Its political leanings are liberal.

Questions

Media Forms
How does the text both subvert and reinforce the typical conventions for a newspaper front page? (12 marks)

The 'i' newspaper is quite a unique and different newspaper. One of the first things that are noticeable about the newspaper is the masthead, in a typical newspaper e.g. 'The Guardian' or 'Daily Mail' the masthead is typically at the top of the newspaper, which is an enigma about the newspaper (Barthes enigma codes), it raises the question of why? why is the newspaper designed differently? A possible answer is that it's to symbolise the newspapers uniqueness and give the readers/audience a sense of individuality and a sense of freedom which links to the audience theory of Young and Rubicam's 4C's. The newspaper also is filled with pictures and coloured writing which is unusual for a newspaper. Newspapers tend to have a purely black and white copy (writing) and it usually has just one large photograph along with the main headline and some smaller ones at the top (which can also be adverts instead), the newspaper is more like a magazine than a newspaper, it has the typical conventions of a magazine mixed with a few of conventions of a newspaper. The newspaper is also advertising its social media links which isn't common on usual newspapers, but it does again show its uniqueness and also shows that the newspaper is targeting a young demographic possibly in the groups of E-D who are students, which links to the price being low of 20p. Another unusual thing is the barcode is shown which is uncommon as well and not needed to be shown. Also an uncommon thing is the lack of writing (copy) on the front page, newspapers such as 'The Guardian' have tons of writing on the front page and even those newspapers which aren't broadsheet newspapers such as 'Daily Express' have some amount of text which is much more compared to the 'i' newspaper.

The typical conventions are that the newspaper has one major headline or tagline, to attract the audience, in the centre along with the relating photographs, they also advertise what the newspaper contains e.g. the sports section which is typically at the back and the crosswords inside. It also has the surrounding taglines at the top and bottom which is common and they also show the price of the magazine similar positioning to 'Daily Express' newspaper.

Media Institutions
Why might the ‘i’ newspaper have been successful in a newspaper industry that has generally been in decline? (12 marks)

The newspaper industry has been dying out as a whole due to less younger audiences reading them possibly because most newspapers are quite plain and targeted at an older demographic of being between C-D where they are working class people, manual labour workers who don't have much disposable income to spend on newspapers especially in the current economic downturn (recession) audiences, linking to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, have lost a sense of security in their jobs and therefore are more willing to save and only spend on products they need rather than products which are seen as luxury and something they can live without. This newspaper 'i' isn't targeting those who are working and do not have disposable income, it targets the D-E socio-demographic class which is usually students or those on benefits (which explains the low price of the newspaper) This newspaper is also more like a magazine than a newspaper which is a possible reason for its successful, it doesn't have the typical plain black and white copy (writing), it is much more colourful with a range of colours from red, white, blue to black and green.

It's also possible that due to the low price of the newspaper that it doesn't just encourage a younger audience to read the newspaper but also encourages the older audiences who don't want to spend, due to recession, to buy the cheap newspaper to still keep updated on world news.
Media Audiences
What would you expect the ‘i’ newspaper’s target audience to be based on this front page?(12 marks)

Due to 'i' being a newspaper I would expect an older audience in a socio-demographic group of C-D or even A-C in psychographics of succeeder. But based on the front page I would expect a much different audience, the price is cheap so that's a sign that it isn't aimed at a higher socio-demographic and more aimed at D-E demographics due to them being poorer and being on state benefits or having disposable income due to being students. It also promotes the use of e-media which is another clue to the target audience being a young audience and possibly those who want to become a succeeder and they aspire to be successful. Also due to the newspaper being unusual and different it could be aimed at a psychographics of being individualist, those who are in the modern day society  considered to be 'hipsters'. Even though it has the conventions of a magazine it does still inform and educate their audience so it is possible that the audience can be students who strive to learn and succeed, also due to its magazine like look, it could also appeal to gossip readers and magazine fans.
Media Representations
How is Britain represented in this text? (12 marks)

Britain is shown as a patriotic country, a country with pride as there is a sense of community and belonging (maslows hierarchy of needs) and it also shows that Britain has a lively atmosphere and party-like lifestyle as it says on the cover "Beacons lit as Britain host a giant street party."  It also shows many people wearing masks of royals and colours of the Union Jack which shows pride and a lot of patriotic people. However, most people shown in the photos are not of ethnic minorities which could suggest the country as a non-diverse country, even though in actual fact there were a lot of ethnic minorities at the huge street party.