Blog Post 4 : La Mode Fashion Magazine.

Our magazine mainly focuses on teenage audience from the age range from 13 - 20. Our magazines primarily specializes on the need and likes of adolescents. That being said, our publication will consist of gossips. Furthermore, our magazine will also cover many elelments that suit the younger generations' taste such as entertainment, music, film, celebrities, fashion and coverage of lifestyl issue. We would also urge the audience to participae in contests as this will increase our magazine's image/reputation.

In order to bring the magazine to the people, advertising is the key. To promote our newly launched magazine, setting up a Facebook page would be the best idea as every teen would be online most of the time. This way, it would be easier for them to pass on the message with a click of a button – sharing! Also, we would plan on setting up booths at random shopping complex, and distribute the first 200 copies of the magazines to the public. To make money out of the magazines, advertorials for different cosmetics and fashion products will be published in every issue of the magazine. Other than that, collaboration with fashion and cosmetic companies to launch events can help raise money as well. Enabling subscriptions regarding magazines help too.

It is set that the magazine will provide everything that involves the fashion industry; styles, trends, news, tips, advices etc. The contents will be focusing on providing for the readers information but at the same time being a guide in the fashion industry. The magazine will be focus a lot on showing to the audience what is the new ‘in’ thing. It will contain the fashion photography mostly where it will easily inspire readers in their every day life or get them hooked to the magazine itself. The main topics that La Mode magazine is obviously the word fashion itself. What La Mode has planned is that instead of just using sources that are from officials, we will also be working with  fashion bloggers and models. This is also a way in which we can promote ourselves at the same time. It becomes a great asset to us. What we will be working on with the fashion bloggers and models are basically having to create fashion spreads every month to show what is the next big thing to the nation and hopefully to slowly become a trendsetting magazine as we will ensure that all the latest news being published will be acknowledged well internationally and locally. La Mode does not only focus on fashion at certain areas, we also plan to advertise news that will benefit the nation when they come across our magazine. Examples of advertisements would be charity or an advertisement of awareness. We do not only strive to be the best in the fashion magazine industry but La Mode also wishes to be a good magazine by informing our readers and audiences about important things. This way, we believe that we can climb that ladder in the industry in order to give other competitors a good fight to be at the top.

Have you ever wondered how print companies manage to promote their books or magazines to international levels so successfully? However, with good planning, you’ll soon be able to reach your target in advertising your book or magazine well. Learning how to promote magazines can bring long-term benefits for new and seasoned publishers. Here are some useful key methods to promote a book or magazine.

 

Media plays an important role in advertising and promoting. Popular social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and blogs are helpful tools to promote your magazine especially with the large number of users logging into these sites everyday. Moreover, users can access the sites for free so you do not need to spend money on advertising. Besides that, fashion blogs appear to be the “new thing” in today’s industry. Try getting to know more local fashion bloggers contacts first before pursuing in the big picture. Fashion bloggers are very influential and thus can promote your magazine very effectively.

Other than that, distribution of brochures and fliers help too. This can allow readers to know the content of your magazine and what it is all about without giving away the whole story. Instead, offering a chance to give readers a glimpse of what is in the issue. The process of designing the brochure is important as well. Brochures with eye-catching layouts tend to leave positive first impressions to readers, which will lead to have a higher tendency in reading your magazine.

Newspaper advertising is ideal to promote products. Almost every home in receives a newspaper either by home delivery or simply going to the nearby convenience store to purchase one. Reading the newspaper is a habit for most families. There is content suitable for everybody of all ages such as sports, news, entertainment, tabloids, comics, crosswords, etc., it is like a universal reading material. You can reach specific types of people by placing your magazine ad in different sections of the paper. Unlike annoying internet ads, people expect advertising in the newspaper. In fact, many people buy the paper just to read the ads from the supermarket, movies or department stores. Therefore, newspaper adverts appear to be a cheap and useful tool in advertising your magazine.

In conclusion, there are many ideal ways out there to promote a book or magazine. With proper planning, success is to come on your way. It is also clear that firms should not neglect media as it plays a fairly important role in advertising and promoting a product.

Post by :
1. Writer : Amy Loh & Au Yang Yong Han.
2. Editor : Isabelle Ku & Alex Low.
3. Researcher : Shu Faye Wong.

Blog Post 3 : Newspapers Dying A Slow Death?

     

The Newspaper has played an important role on being a medium between the media and the audience since time immemorial. But when it comes to the world as we know today, newspaper has been experiencing a major cutback due to one and only one issue, digital revolution. The arrival of digital revolution has impacted the people of today; many people prefer to consume the news through their digital devices instead of consuming the news through newspapers. One of the biggest reasons was the way that news is consumed today; the media today offers free access to news all around the world for anyone with internet access. That being said, the news is literally at the fingertip of the audience. Whereas the newspaper provides limited news. The emergence of news form in digital literacy has also caused many problems such as traditional news outlets facing bankruptcy (Tribune Company, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Freedom Communications). Many newspaper outlets have also shifted their focus on digital exposure to survive in such circumstance. Could this really mean the end of newspaper?

    The panellists in the video is discussing about the fate of newspaper when they’re facing the digital revolution of the way news is consumed by majority of the audience today. The panellists have also highlighted some of the negative effects that the newspaper outlets are facing today such as many people chooses digital news  instead of traditional newspaper to consume first hand news, how digital news provides more option of news category and exposes the opinion of the audience more often compared to newspapers. But the panellist has also expressed optimism to the newspaper under this circumstance because it is revealed that major newspapers outlets are still selling well in major cities. Next, the panellists have also thinks that newspapers outlet will survive this “digital invasion” for quite a while based on the fact that majority of the advertisements company chooses to advertise their products through newspaper rather than digital news. 

     In my group’s opinion, we do agree with the viewpoints of the panellists – newspapers are dying a slow death. People in the modern days prefer to read the news online on their iPad and other electronic devices as it is convenient at a push of a button rather than going outside to purchase the newspaper. The news that are published online are also free. Estelle from The Huffington Post has proved this point as she said that by the time the newspaper arrive at her doorstep, she has already read the news online. The city that was used as an example in the video was New Orleans, where they reduced the home delivery service from 7 days per week to 3 days per week. A few of the newspaper that had to slash the home delivery service are The Detroit News and The Detroit Free Press. This is because more and more people are unsubscribing to the local service that the newspaper industries provide and they have to save time and money by cutting down the delivery service. Moreover, labour concessions are initiated as less employees are needed. We believe this is because the profits that the newspaper industry are reducing and they are unable to secure financially towards all the employees. One of the few examples of these newspaper companies is San Francisco Chronicle. Also, quite a number of newspaper companies have closed down such as The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and Rocky Mountain News. The companies that are struggling to withstand their existence often reduce the price of newspapers in the market. After all, people choose online news rather than the traditional way to consume information is because even when you’re overseas, you can update yourself with the local news using the Internet. In conclusion, we once again agree with why newspapers are dying a slow death.

    Many teenagers today rarely read newspapers. This has become a problem that may affect the future of newspapers and eventually leading it to the "death" of newspapers. This can result to the crash of the country’s economy due to the loss of jobs of people in the newspaper business such as editors, publishers, photographers and so on. Here are some of the ways to solve this issue. Firstly, colours attract the youngsters. The more colours incorporated to the newspaper, the more teenagers will want to read the newspaper. Nowadays, most teenagers have a short attention span and if every few words there is a sharp burst of colour, it will gain back their attention and naturally they will continue reading till the end of the article. Besides that, newspapers need to go social to attract a new generation of readers. If the news business can’t get young people interested in its products, where are new readers going to come from? Only a model that includes inter-personal, social publishing can excite the next generation of news consumers. But print should play an important role too. Furthermore, many teenagers nowadays enjoy reading magazines more than newspapers is because of the freebies like coupons, shampoo samples and vouchers which attract most teenagers. To be more affective, newspapers should also start giving away freebies so that it can be more appealing to young readers. Moving on, it is clear that the contents of a newspaper is very important, especially when it comes to targeting a specific age group; in this case, the teens. The new generation prefer reading about topics that are more current. Therefore, newspapers should have more content which feature up to date info and news on what youngsters read today. For instance, sports teams, celebrities, hobbies and television shows are some of the hot topics that circle around teens today. In conclusion, the new generation require a reading material that can catch their attention in order to encourage them to read.

Post by :
1. Writer : Alex Low & Au Yang Yong Han.
2. Editor : Amy Loh & Shu Faye Wong.
3. Researcher : Isabelle Ku.

Resources/References : Click here & here.
Photos/Videos : via Google.com, Tumblr.com & Youtube.com

Blog Post 2: Role Modelling and Media Effects

Our group has decided on one of the richest yet inspiring woman on this earth, and that is none other than Oprah Winfrey. Born on the 29th of January 1954, she spent her childhood years living in her grandmother’s farm and her grandmother taught her how to read at an early age. She soon began to recite poems and Bible verses in local churches. At the age of nine to thirteen, she was constantly molested by a family friend and also relatives when her mother was not around at home. So when she turned fourteen, she was living alone and eventually got herself pregnant. Unfortunately her son passed away shortly after birth. Oprah then went to Nashville, Tennessee to live with her strict father, but the discipline paid off.  She was crowned the title “Miss Black Tennessee” and was offered a job at a radio station called WVOL. Oprah was also offered a full scholarship to Tennessee State University. She eventually left school and pursued her career with a local television station as a reporter and anchor. After co-hosting a few talk shows, she stuck with her own talk show – The Oprah Winfrey Show. She discusses about the lives of many who are in desperate help and aids them to a better life. Her talk show can often bring viewers to tears as it shows that although sometimes life can seem so cruel, the world can actually be a beautiful place.


Oprah Winfrey has been involved in numbers of controversies due to her line of work. During 2nd of January 2007, Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls opened in Johannesburg. Iconic people like Nelson Mandela, Tina Turner, Sydney Poitier, Spike Lee and Oprah herself attended a lavish opening ceremony celebrating the landmark boarding school. The school costed $40 million of Oprah's money. Within a year, 6 of the 152 students picked by Oprah herself attend the institution came forward to accuse dorm matron Virginia Tiny Makgobo of sexual and physical abuse. This case has caught a lot media attention in South Africa. In the end the dorm matron was removed from the school after numbers of trials and hearings. Young people tend to follow Oprah’s behaviour in helping the less fortunate. She has inspired many through her talk show especially the young people. Oprah Winfrey makes money from the shows and donates it charity, it’s a good example for the young people. Her early life was filled with bad memories but it was never an excuse for her and she grew from those experiences. Aspects of Oprah’s behaviour made her a role model for the public. 


In 1983, Oprah managed to host a low-rated half-hour morning talk show called AM Chicago. Within months after she took over, the show boosted from last place in the ratings to overtaking a well-known show named Donahue as the highest rated talk show. Critic Rodger Ebert’s television show - At the Movies got renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and expanded to a full hour.  Winfrey's syndicated show brought in double of Donahue's national audience, displacing Donahue as the number-one daytime talk show in America. So why did Oprah wanted to start on her own? Her goal in life is to live out the truest expression of herself as a human being. For her, it’s equally important to pay attention to the audience because they would express thoughts that are meaningful, worthwhile, and of substance.


  Due to Oprah’s enormous success, she has started her own book club, magazine (“O” Magazine), and a talk show. She is also responsible for one of the Three Christmas Kindness in The Nelson Mandela Foundation. She also supported other foundations such as The Moorehouse College, The Harold Washington Library, The United Negro College Fund, The Tennessee State University Fund, The Nelson Mandela Foundation, and Christmas Kindness. Just then, Oprah has become a philanthropist. Sometime later, she started a school in South Africa named The Oprah’s Leadership Academy. She wants the students that attend her school to grow up to be Africa’s future leaders. Oprah has become not just a philanthropist, but a hero in the children’s heart.



In conclusion, why is Oprah Winfrey our chosen idol? It is indeed rare to find a person so strong and proud despite her tragic background; someone who is able to bring out the best in others. She has showed that although a person goes through a lot of hardships, they are able to climb up that ladder once more.  As Vanity Fair said, "Oprah Winfrey arguably has more influence on the culture than any university president, politician, or religious leader, except perhaps the Pope.” Without doubt, Oprah Winfrey is our idol; an idol that has made a difference for herself, for her people, for her followers but most importantly for the world.

Post by:
1. Writer: Wong Shu Faye & Au Yang Yong Han
2. Editor: Isabelle Ku
3. Researcher: Alex Low & Amy Loh


Refrences of background and achievements of Oprah Winfrey are found from: Here & here.
Pictures and the video are found on Google.com and YouTube.com