Question 4: Technology

How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

Google, being the worlds foremost search engine, allowed me to search images that would help me further my production of print work by giving

me insightful ideas from existing works. It allowed me to research my target audience, i could find out the style of clothes they wore, the brands they buy as well as their other interests, but most importantly know and

understand their likes and dislikes. The aid of the internet also allowed me to watch videos on the worlds biggest video sharing website, YouTube. this

allowed me to view other videos and find out the existing forms and conventions in the genres existing music video's.

Social Networking sits were vital when researching my target audience as I was able to not only direct questions

at my audience and receive feedback, but also contact and reach a much wider audience. I shared my products in their final form as well as in their progressive stages to receive positive criticism, I used facebook and twitted to

do so.

With Twitter, I tweeted (posted) a link to my video and put a question beside it, this allowed me to receive feedback and the particular usefulness of

this was the amount of it that I received, and in that lots of different opinions and their criticisms and praises. I also did this with uploaded

images of my print work. By doing this I was able to develop my print work to a more catered quality, as it was far more suited to the target audience

as it was directed at there own specific wants.

With facebook, I created a ‘group’ and invited friends into it so that they would be able to view any posts I put up and be updated whenever I did so, this allowed me to get

audience information quickly as well as feedback on my products. This was a clear use of Media 2.0 and it was in fact the most useful as from this I got all my market research.

Without the technology, let alone the access, to the HD camera’s and video camera’s the filming and capturing of images for my promo pack would have been impossible. Their ability to capture high quality photo’s allowed me to create professional looking work

fairly easy. These camera’s had strong battery life as well which allowed me to take them anywhere and therefore not be restricted by location. The cameras were small and

compact which allowed for experimentation in trying to find different shot types that were dynamic and exciting. They were touch screen which alowed for easy play back

after shots, and after shots it was easy to transfer my clips straight from the SD card to the editing program, premiere pro.

Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro

I used this computer software for my print work and my music video. Photoshop is a excellent and professional video editing tool with

many different and interesting methods of altering images. This allowed me to create print work that looked smart and of very

high quality. I was able to change the complete look and feel of an image without having to plan and create props in my

photoshoots.Premier Pro allowed me to edit my clips, arrange them into correct

order and also alter clips to make them more interesting and in some cases for example if there were anomalies at the edge of

the clip I could either blur the image in an effect or zoom the clip in so that the anomaly was not visible. This was useful as it,

although it wasn’t planned, allowed mistakes to be fixed.

Blogger was the key stone to my coursework as it was the method in which I presented my work in an

organised and professional manner. I could embed video’s and presentations thanks to the html

encoding tool that was available. This was useful as thanks to it all my work was in one place that I could

access from home as well, and my teachers could easily check my work also as long as they had the link.

Media 2.0 was first introduced in 204 and has since become a worldwide phenomena. It is fined as the way technology enables people to push their work in new directions and engage with their audience. A good example of this is YouTube which closes the gape between professional and amateur video’s and allows unknown artists to promote themselves and their creativity to the audience on a global scale and without the help of big record labels. Justin Beiber is a great example as his rise to fame started after he was spotted on the video sharing website, YouTube.

The way media 2.0 was used in my coursework was very efficiently, I uploaded the video onto YouTube and by embedding this video into blogger, I have been able to promote my video globally whilst allowing the audience to be active in their viewing by being able to leave comments and suggestions. Also without media 2.0 I would not have been able to gain research, upload to or use the internet let alone complete these evaluations.

MEDIA 2.0

Level of Technologies effect on creativity

The level of technology has also had an affect on creativity, as a few years ago I would not have been able to easily change

the properties of an image such as hue and saturation; I wouldn’t have been able to have interesting fades in my music video either. The development in technology has

increased for many things quality which means the majority can create professional looking products without actually

being a professional.Media 2.0 is allowing people to push their work in new

directions and be more individual in their creativity, its closing the gap between professionalism and being amateur.

Technological Determinism

‘Technological development determines social change. It changes the way people think and how they interact with

others ‘ Technology is a neutral entity and what matters are the way in

which we use the technology be is bad or good. A neutral viewpoint can be sampled as guns, they do nothing on their own but in the right or wrong hands they can have a greath

affect. In the same way that the internet and social networking sites can enrich ones social life or make it worse

through cyber bullying.

Technological DeterminismThis is a theory that presumes that a societies technology drives the development in both social

structure and cultural values. This came into effect in some ways in my coursework for example sometimes it was difficult to gain

access to the technologies I was dependent on, as this software was only available at college, which I also had to share with many other students. This meant I could not just do it in my own

time at home, I had to wait till the availability of this was okay. The quality of equipment affected my work as thankfully I had high resolution tools but in many

other cases students would not have this and there work may not be as good as mine because of this.

Due to the development in technology producing media 2.0 it allowed me to do things I would never have been able to do. I was able to upload and broadcast my video which allowed the public to

see it, like it and dislike it, as well as writing comments, without this technology I would have had to go to a record producer, created the track myself and got them to promote it. This would have

taken time and money and would not have been appropriate for a piece of media a2 coursework.

Although some problems can arise due to the technology like systems crashing, the availability of it, these are all out of my hands and due to the dependency of it limits at time my ability to do the work. This proves that there was an aspect of technological determinism in my work, as without

it I could not do anything.