Challenges Confronting Community Newspapers in Meeting Aesthetics Standards

Abstract

Aesthetics deals with the beauty of an object or subject. Aesthetics has the power of drawing the readers to feel and experience what the artists have felt and experienced. This paper therefore examined the challenges affecting community newspapers in meeting aesthetics demand. Anchored on investment theory of creativity, the paper employed ethnographic research design, the paper found that, community newspapers find it difficult to command visual appeal among its audience due to the inability of most publishing house to work as a team. Also, the lack of experience among journalists/editors, as well as the absence of sophisticated tools equally affects the ability of community newspapers to bring out of its best in respect to physical appeal. The study further found that getting the layout and design right is difficult because of lack of creativity and poor visual sensitivity. Lastly, the paper established that community newspapers have equally been found culpable in the area of textual aesthetics; hence the need for improvement. Keywords: Aesthetics, Community newspaper, Challenges, Design, Editors