Who would be the audience for your media product?

Before I started designing my website/charity, I had said to myself that I wanted to aim my charity towards a younger audience. I wanted to help teenagers who were in trouble and wanted to talk to someone because I could relate to their problems.

For a business point of view I thought it would also be better targeting a younger audience because they have easy access to the Internet and they spend more time on the Internet than older people.

Another reason why I thought that aiming a target audience towards a younger generation would be effective is because people may think that the charity is more worthy than a charity that is for the environment or something.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

My website represents the middle class and the lower middle class (social grade B, C1). By doing this I have decided to use larger images and less text, this will attract the lower class as a higher class would rather be reading something than viewing images.

The font is of a large size, this is another method I have used to attract a lower class of people. I have provided vital information for people rather than waffling on about something.

When talking about drug addicts, it is very rare that you are going to find a ‘social grade A’ group of people that are drug addicts. This is another way in which my website represents a lower classed group of people, it is more likely that they can relate to the website.

The images that I have used give a dull environment to them, I decided to do this because the topic of drugs and alochol is dull. People in a lower class could relate to this because having a dull environment could be the way in which they live in. The background images are of walls and fencing, I thought that this could give an affect of the viewer feeling enclosed so it could come accross that talking to ‘Chat To Charlie’ is confidential and the information that you tell them will not be told to anyone.

As you can see in the print screen on the left the background is of a fence, which gives the impression that the website is enclosed and is safe to talk to as the information will only be left with ‘Chat To Charlie’.

In what ways does your media product use develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products:

For my media project I have been told to create a website that is based on a charity website, I have chosen to use a campaign that is similar to ‘Talk to Frank’ which helps people learn about drugs, helps people with addiction to drugs and so on. The name of the campaign is ‘Chat To Charlie’, my colleague and I have been inspired by the ‘Talk To Frank’ campaign and have based our name quite similar to the website. The word ‘Charlie’ is also known as cocaine so we felt this would be quite useful as people may figure out it is a drug campaign whereas ‘Talk To Frank’ isn’t as effective as people may not know what the campaign is based around.

My media product challenges other websites by the layout of the website the background picture is an image of a wall/fence this is used to make the website seem behind closed doors and secretive, this means that the audience may feel that their identity is safe.

I have also given a traffic light scheme on my home page with the boxes in red, amber and green. This effect is done just to bring do the readers attention to the screen and is just a nice addition to the page instead of having a random colour scheme.

This is my home page, where it says ‘WANT TO QUIT BINGE DRINKING’, you can see the writing in red, it is normally in white but when the cursor scrolls over it changes to red, this happens to ‘WANT TO QUIT SMOKING’ accept that colour is amber, and ‘WANT TO QUIT CANABIS?’ is in a green colour, this is like I explained in my previous paragraph.

The text from the website is always in a box that has shade around, and the shade is coloured, I have done this so that it stands out and I have kept every piece of text coordinated to make it look more tidy instead of having different patterns for text. The colour of the inside of the box is black, this is done as effect because the campaign is quite dull and depressing because so many lives are ruined.

One of my pages is an interview with an ex drug addict, the page is very simple and just has a caption and a video on the page, this is done so that people can just focus on the video and nothing else because this page is very important so I wanted the readers to have full attention of what I wanted to get across to them.

I have three pages on quitting cannabis, alcohol and smoking cigarettes. This is done because all around the country many teenagers suffer from addiction of some of these examples. On the pages I have introduced some facts about each of them, this is done to let the viewers be aware of what they are dealing with. Obviously it is not done to scare the reader but we hope that they will give a second thought into what they are doing to their body. At the end of each page of the three we have left a message at the bottom saying ‘REMEMBER YOU CAN QUIT!’, this is done because we want to encourage our viewers because it is proven that to get rid of an addiction willpower is required so we are reminding our viewers that they can do it if they really want to.

I have a page on A-Z drugs, each letter in the alphabet is filled with a colour, this is eye catchy, it brings the readers attention to the page and makes them want to read more. The size of the boxes aren’t all the same size because I wanted to space things out and I feel it looks better rather than having 26 boxes all the same size and shapes.

Chat To Charlie

This is the A-Z on drugs page, as you can see from the ‘Talk to Frank’ A-Z page that they are quite similar as I was inspired from this page as I thought it was effective as people can see what the drugs are if they have heard of it but aren’t too sure what it is.

Talk To Frank

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

The website that I have created is charity based and is for people who have trouble with drug or alcohol addiction. The website is very useful for a media institution who may want to get involved in drug addictions because most of the people who ring in are a young group of people, so they will be helping young people and they could get a good reputation for helping young people.

Search engines are a institution that may want to distribute my website because they will be promoting the website which means they could gain popularity. Having hits will help distribute the website and at the same time the search engine will be happy because they will be having people viewing their search engine.

Advertisements on TV is a useful way for the website to be distributed, although it a costly form the money will be regained through the donations due to the fact that more people will see the website and be able to access it.

Another way is through radio, this is similar to TV but obviously the advertisement will be audio not visual.

Industry Research

Industry Research:

What is web hosting?

A web host service is something that will allow organizations to produce a website and let people around the world view it via the ‘World Wide Web’.

Web host companies can provide data centre space and connectivity to the internet for the servers so that they don’t own to be located in their data centre.

Another thing that web hosts help provide is space on a server that they own to their clients, they will also provide them with internet connectivity.

What is a domain name?

A domain name is something that indicates a website, it is on the end of the website address. For example .com, .co.uk, .net ,etc. A domain name is used to indicate ownership/control of a resource.

They are also used for identification to labels which can help indicate the ownership of a resource.

How do you register a domain name?

When looking to register a domain name, you will need to find a website which will provide a domain name. ‘123-reg.co.uk’ helped me provide this information, when I typed in ‘www.chattocharlie.co.uk’ I was given a choice of domain names which I could use.

I wanted to have ‘.co.uk’ and found that it was available and the cost would be ‘£5.98 – 2 years’, this is a reasonable price and I was expecting it to be a lot more.

What you need to do:

planning /20

Upload charity website annotations

Upload drafts of what your site will look like

who are your audience based on your survey results

upload your photographs with a comment on what they are supposed to represent - in iPhoto or individually

upload your video - export as AVI file

Industry research - what is web hosting? what is a domain name etc

evaluation /20

website /60

Website Brief

Website Brief

For my media project I have been told to create a website which is based on charity work, I have decided to base my charity around a drug/ alcohol/ smoking campaign to stop people from their addictions to these drugs.

The name that I have come up with is ‘Chat to Charlie’ which was inspired by ‘Talk to Frank’, the word ‘Charlie’ is also known as cocaine so it has a relevance to it, maybe some people may be able to recognise this as well. The name of the charity also has alliteration, this effect is used so that it is easier to remember.

I have chosen this as a charity as nowadays teenagers are all struggling with someone to talk to and the website I have created will enable them to talk to someone and understand what they are doing to themselves. I thought that this website would appeal to more people rather than doing it on something like saving animals as there are so many charities that already are animal based.

The main competitor that we will be facing is ‘Talk To Frank’ who are well known around the country. I have been studying their website and looking at the way their website is laid out and I have been inspired by the way they have displayed the A-z on drugs.

My target audience for the campaign is aimed towards teenagers and young adults, these are the group of people who are mostly affected to the addiction of the drugs. The text that is displayed is in a modern way, so that gives an indication that the target audience is not for an older generation.

My website will have the same text throughout to make it look more professional, the text will always be in a shaded box which will have a colour around the box. This will make the text standout more and bring the readers attention to the text.

The website will function in a simple way, there is not too many links to make it unnecessary and confusing for the reader. M home page will have 5 main links, quit drinking, quit smoking, quit cannabis, interview with ex drug addict and a donate now page. These 5 pages are all vital for the website, these are the main pages and that is emphasized by the size of the text and the box.