MEDIA TECHNOLOGIES IN THE EVALUATION STAGE!

By Kieran Barnes

Media technologies in the evaluation stage allowed me to the following things :

o Gain instant feedback from online social networks and video uploading sources such YouTube and Facebook.

o Upload my recorded interviews with my target audience onto YouTube for future reference.

oCollate the results from my questionnaire using Excel spreadsheets to statistically represent my data.

One example of a new technology used in the evaluation stage is the use of video-sharing website ‘YouTube’ . Crucially the site enabled me to primarily upload my music video to the internet and receive comments of constructive criticism from those that had watched it. It proved an effective use of media technologies due to the following:

oThe site could directly reach out to my target audience of young people in the age bracket 16-20 . Showing them the conventional qualities of music video my work has to offer and giving me an important aspect of their audience attitudes to them. o My recorded interviews with audience members could be uploaded for future reference and analysis.

o My video’s URL could be ‘shared’ from YouTube to other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. This gave me the opportunity of my video connecting with a broader spectrum of people , meaning that my audience feedback used in the evaluation stage was considerably more diverse. o The commenting structure of YouTube allowed any viewer of my video to directly give me feedback of their personal thoughts. This sort of instant online feedback was integral to me evaluating the overall positive points of my work and what could be improved on in the future.

Aside from the use of YouTube , the use of Excel proved an effective utilisation of media technologies in the evaluation stage for the following reasons :

• The results from my audience feedback questionnaire could be importantly represented statistically using the pie chart/ bar graph tools on the Excel spreadsheet programme. This allowed me a visual representation of the quantitive data from questions such as ‘ How old are you?’ and ‘Would you watch it again?’ – demonstrating the specifics of the wide audience my video was connecting to and the level of ‘repeatability’ established.

• This use of media technology made the analysis and evaluation of my results much easier as the charts and graphs created gave me an apparent comparison between the differentiating audience attitudes on each question. These could be then integrated into Word press to enable me to precisely link the results from the audience feedback to the significance of the inclusion of the key conventions of ‘star image’ and effective ‘lip-syncing’ into my work