Media Evaluation
For my foundation portfolio I had to decide which task to do
from Print, Video and Website. I decided to choose the website task as I
believe that was the task in which I had the most knowledge/skill in. For the
Website I was given the following task:
In what ways does
your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real
media products?
My product took a lot of inspiration from other similar
conventional media products. In my research I looked at other charities that
were similar to mine such as Children in Need and Unicef. Unicef was a key
media product I looked into a lot into, as it is a very large successful
worldwide charity. Their website (http://www.unicef.org.uk/) had a lot of key features that are
noticeable in my website.
Charitable websites often include conventions such as a lot
of images and not much text. This is because the audience are more drawn
towards images rather than text. My website has followed this convention by
adding more pictures than text as it appeals more to my target audience.
I also developed on the social media aspect of charities;
many charities in this time often include links to social media sites. On my
website I created a Twitter account for my charity and added a Twitter feed
straight to my website which automatically updates when there are new tweets.
I also researched on the charity “Children in Need” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008dk4b
) which gave me the idea to do a children’s charity. A children’s charity is
not a very contentious charity type as there isn’t much people can complain
about it and the media often praise charity work, especially work involved with
children. Where as another charity e.g. Support for people with drinking
problems is a contentious charity as people may complain that they shouldn’t
start drinking to begin with. I saw the ways in which the charity uses
conventions and techniques in order to make it successful. The majority of the
pictures on the site are often uplifting and happy; I followed this idea on my
site. The reason the charity has done this is so that even though the cause for
the charity is to help children it needs to be uplifting so that people are
comfortable to go the site, audiences do not want to visit a site with pictures
which may make them upset.
How does your media
product represent different social groups?
The social groups my product represents are children. As my
charity is a children’s charity that is the main social group that my product
represents. Children are often regarded as vulnerable and their future is often
decided by the upbringing they have, for example if a child has difficult
issues at home it could cause problems later on in life. Children need someone
to help them when times are tough and ensure that they have the best possible start
to life as possible. My charity tries to show the different situations that
children may face in their time growing up and assist on these situations. My
media product does stereotype children into being innocent but this is due to
it being used to help sympathise the reader into helping the children involved
as the children themselves cannot.
Other social groups my media product can represent are the
people who are charitable and like to get involved with people. My website
shows how with their help they can make a difference on children’s lives which
in return makes them feel better about themselves and may even encourage other
people to get involved with charity and volunteer work.
What kind of media
institution might distribute my media product and why?
The media institutions, which might distribute my product,
will most likely be an institution involved with charity work. BBC is one
institution that may distribute my product as they already have a huge success
with their Children in Need work; therefore they may help in the distribution
of my site (perhaps a website link on the Children in Need website) as in the
end all the charities go to the same cause, helping children. As my charity is
not as big as other charities such as Children in Need and Unicef if they were
to help advertise it (distribute it) it could be very helpful for my charity in
getting donations and volunteers. The reason they may choose to distribute my
product is that it can show a positive on their charity that they like the idea
of new charities being created and want to support them Unicef could also be
another media institution that could distribute my product, as they are an
international company they may choose to distribute my charity to focus more on
children in the UK.
My charity would also have an office located in the UK where
children and guardians can visit to see the work that the charity does. Other
methods of distribution for my charity may be ways such as advertisements in
newspapers and magazines with a link to the website. Taking ideas from comic
relief my charity could also get involved with television and get certain
celebrities to help support my charity. However as I am a small charity this
may not be possible due to popularity and money.
Who would be the
audience for your media product and how did you attract/address your audience?
The audience for my media product could split into many
different audiences. A good audience for my product could be parents or
guardians of children themselves. As my media product tries to create sympathy
for children parents and guardians may show greater empathy towards my product
as they are able to relate to the issues that some of the children face. Due to
this relation they may be more likely to get involved with the charity as they
may feel the need to help as it they have children of their own.
Another type of audience for my product would be an adult
who may have suffered a difficult experience in the past as a child. Due to
this difficult experience they have had in recent years they may also like the
parents feel empathy and don’t want the children to have the same bad
experience they have had.
Using the hypodermic needle theory I can also bring the
general public into one of my audiences. By showing them some of the images and
text involved with the bad situation of the upbringing of some children it may
be able bring ideas of getting involved and doing something about it into their
mind.
I helped attract/address my audience by making my media
product straightforward and easy to use for the reader. It is important I do
this as my audiences will want a site to be easy to use and navigate through in
order for them to be interested (then therefore donate and get involved). I
used very simple mechanics such as a one click navigation bar located in the
same area on each of the pages. This is so that the reader can navigate to any
place on the website with one click. I created a video recording of myself
navigating through the site using these mechanics, I then added text explaining
features and areas of the site.
What have you learnt
about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In the process I have learnt many new skills in technologies
I have used throughout creating my media product. A key technology I have newly
used would the Wix website editing tool (www.wix.com),
ever since I first started using the tool I have found it easy to use and
towards the end of creating my product I felt extremely comfortable in using
the product. I would have preferred to use the Wix tool rather than another
tool such as Dreamweaver as Wix was much more user friendly and had a lot of extra
features which helped ensure my media product was easy to navigate/use. I spent
a small amount of my time using Nikon cameras for the images on my site, I had
slightly improved my skills in using the equipment (using different types of
shots) but as I had already used the camera in my preliminary work I had
already learnt some basic skills. I used Audacity, Windows Live movie maker and
Camstudio briefly in some parts of my product, I did not use these technologies
enough for me to improve my skills with them but I found them very helpful and
will consider using them in future media projects.
Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?
I learnt that planning really is important in the production
of a product. In the stages of getting images for my product I had not planned
very well and it took me longer than it should have to gather volunteers to
take part in the images. I have also learnt that it is important to research on
other products similar to yours to gain guidance and ideas. By looking at sites
such as Unicef and Children in Need it helped me structure my site and show
which features my website should try and have. I was able to plan my product
effectively due to the effect these charities I looked at on how my website
should look.
