Evaluation Question 4: How did you use new media technologies in the construction, research, planning and evaluation stages?

It was important for us to utilise all of the large amounts of technology that are available to us as students of this century. Had it not been for all the different forms of technology that we had used, we may not have been able to sufficiently use the techniques of technological convergence and cross media convergence in order to create an effective marketing campaign. The new media technologies I used throughout this process came in handy at all 3 stages of Research and Planning, Construction and Evaluating in order to successfully complete these tasks.

Web 2.0
Tim O'Reilly first created the term 'Web 2.0' in 2004. His perception of the web focused more on the ways in which a website could create opportunities for social dialogue and user-generated content. Tim Berners Lee has also stressed this importance, stating that the web is "a collaborative medium, a place where we [could] all meet and read and write."  Due to the recent proliferation of the Internet, it has been easier than ever to gain access to many incredibly helpful online platforms. During our project I used these platforms in a mixture of ways which I have detailed below...

Research and Planning
Whatsapp
In our group, we created a Whatsapp group chat in order to get in contact with each other easily. This app was very useful for us as it meant that we could continue to show each other our ideas and make other important decisions such as when our meetings would be.

A screenshot from our Whatsapp group chat

Blogger

A screenshot of my Blog

It has become clear how lucky we were to have this technology as it has acted as an easy and accessible way for us to view all of our work and ideas. Having all of this information digitally meant that we did not have to hand write our ideas and were able to visualise them through the use of Images and Gifs.

This software also meant that we could use cross media convergence to bring together different elements from our project. For example, as seen in the screenshot above, I was able to display my music video link and album cover right next to each other.

Youtube
Youtube has been an amazing resource to use throughout this project as it acted as a hub for a lot of our inspirational content. With over 1 Billion users, Youtube has masses of content readily available. I used this to my advantage by watching several professional music videos into order to become familiar with form and genre as well as helping me to generate new ideas. The playlist function was especially helpful to me as it meant that Youtube automatically generated a list of music videos for me to watch which helped me to get a greater idea of genre and genre conventions.

As well as watching content, Youtube also gave me the ability to create my own content. For example, we were able to create a Steal-o-matic video which we later uploaded to Youtube. This Steal-o-matic gave us the ability to put our ideas together visually rather than just theoretically in order to see whether they worked.

Google

Erykah Badu's large variety of images

Google was an extremely useful tool during our research and planning stage as I used it in order to research other Artists and their images. For example, I was able to type 'Erykah Badu' into to Google images and was presented with a plethora of images of her with many different looks. This large variety of images helped when developing my own artist as they inspired my ideas for brand image. 

Instagram

Instagram was a very useful tool to use for my research as it provided me with a large variety of media from different people across the world. This meant that I was able to feed from all of this user generated content in order to influence my own ideas. Below is a mind map of some of the inspirational images that I came across...

A compilation of pictures I found on Instagram that influenced my ideas

Through this project i learned to appreciate the large amounts of creativity that people are able to showcase online so easily. Without the experimental and inventive work of many of the social media users I have included, I would not have found extremely influential pictures such as the one below...

A crucial find for our project

Giphy

Gifs are an extremely useful tool that I would not have discovered had it not been for my media projects. Gifs are an easy and effective way to allow you to capture the essence of a video in a few short seconds. Rather than embedding a whole Youtube video in order to illustrate my visions, I was able to create this moving image which precisely captured my idea. My site of choice to create these Gifs was Giphy.Com. I chose this site as everything was laid out very clearly and there were many options that aided me whilst I created Gifs. Below I detail how I used the site...

Construction

How we used new media technologies from Olamide Ajisafe

Evaluation
Prezi
Prezi was an alternative way for me to present my ideas, rather than simply sticking to static slides which can get boring. Its large variety of templates meant that each presentation was personalised and added a bit of character. The interesting transitions keep the presentations interesting visually and take the viewer on a journey. Below I have labelled some of the features that I found especially useful...

Surveys

Our survey results

Whilst collecting audience feedback I wanted to achieve this through different formats. For example, we conducted a survey through the website Survey Monkey. This site was very useful as it meant that we could ask direct questions to members of our TA. A benefit of this site was that the questions were answered anonymously so we felt that the answers that we received were true to people's actual opinions. We were lucky to have this site as it provided us with a free method to get vital feedback from our TA.

An example of feedback I recieved

Once again, Whatsapp also came in handy at this part of the process as it allowed me to quickly and easily send out a link to our final video to people in my contacts. This was especially helpful as my friends are all within our TA age range, meaning that I was able to get their opnions directly. Once they had watched our video I was able to ask them questions such as "Did you like the video?" and "What would you change?". The feedback that I recieved, (an example of which can be seen above) proved to be very useful as it was very specific and relevant considering it came from people within our TA.

In addition to our surveys, I also wanted to create some live video footage of members of our TA watching our video. I felt that this would be a more engaging and honest way to receive this feedback as we would be able to see their comments and reactions as they came to them. For example, Sam's shocked reaction to our male protagonist is something that we may not have discovered, had I not been recording him. 

Sam's shocked reaction

I was able then able to edit this footage together with ease due to the skills that I have learnt throughout this project. Using Adobe Premiere Pro meant that I was able to cut together the feedback that I received in a concise manner.

My edititing screen

To conclude, this project has opened my eyes to the large array of technologies that are so easily available to my generation. It has given me a new found appreciation for these resources and has stimulated my creative mindset. I personally feel more confident using many of these new technologies and will continue to use them in the future.