describe interactive media products

1. P1 - Describe interactive
media products

2. 1st website: IMDb

3. What is the purpose?
• IMDb stands for Internet Movie Database
• The purpose of the IMDb website is to provide information
about film & TV programmes. This includes watching the
latest trailers, finding out statistics for box office success,
celebrity events and photos, news about new films, etc.
• The website currently has 4.7 million titles
• Users can add to the information, but for new users this
information is checked before it goes live
• Users can also rate films on a scale of 1-10

4. News section
Celebrity news
Box office news
Latest films

5. Other platforms
• IMDb is available online, but there is also an app for mobile
devices
• Personally, I prefer the website as it is much
easier to navigate around and the app
makes it a bit tedious to search for titles

6. Design components and
layout
• The IMDb logo (the masthead) is in the top left corner of the webpage,
and next to it is a search bar with drop-down menus titled ‘Movies, TV &
Showtimes’, ‘Celebs, Events & Photos’, ‘News & Community’ and
‘Watchlist’. There are also social media links on the navigation bar.
• In the of-the-fold, you can also see links to videos, hyperlinks to article on
the website, adverts, and buttons.
• The website’s logo is yellow & black, and this is used in the house style
along with blue and white. These colours are sophisticated and appeal to
a wide range of audiences no matter age or gender.
• I personally like the layout as there aren’t too many articles/pictures
jammed in together but it is also easy to find any article I need. I also think
the font used is very fitting as it is a sans-serif font so it is informal and
casual.

7. Interactive features
• In the top right corner of the navigation bar, there are these buttons
which take you directly to the Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
accounts of IMDb. This allows users to follow these accounts for the
latest updates on upcoming films, celebrity interviews and new articles
released on IMDb. In my experience of this feature, it is very useful as
once I looked on their Facebook page, I saw many articles that looked
interesting and I ended up reading a lot of them. You can also directly
contact the team via their social media so this interactive feature is
very useful for users who would want to ask questions to the staff.
• The second interactive feature is that in order to create a Watchlist, edit
articles and rate a film a score out of 10, you need to have an IMDb
account. Personally, this feature isn’t very useful to me as I have no
particular interest in reviewing films and seeing the latest blockbusters
as soon as they come out. However, I think this feature would be
incredibly useful for film enthusiasts as they can easily find out when
the latest films are on in their area, correct articles about films, and
give their opinion on recent films.

8. Interactive features, cont.
• Another interactive feature I found is the
search bar in the navigation bar. In my
experience this is very useful, as I can
find information about any film or TV
show in seconds. It also suggests the
names of films or actors you might be
typing in incase you forgot the full title.
• The final interactive feature I found is
the link to Amazon. On the main page
for every film, there is a link to watch the
film on Amazon Prime, or buy the
physical DVD. In my experience, this is
very useful as it makes the title much
easier to purchase, and discourages
people from pirating films as the link is
in a very obvious place.

9. Benefits of this interactive
product
• Very easy to find very detailed information about
any film or TV episode
• Many ways for an audience to give feedback on a
film
• Very simple layout so the website is very easy to
navigate

10. Limitations of this interactive
product
• There are some film credits which
are only available when you pay to
get IMDbPro, there is a 30 day trial
available, but ultimately it is for
paying customers only.
• As there are so many articles on the website, it can be
hard to dig through all of the different hyperlinks to find
specific information about a crew member.
• Brightly-coloured adverts normally take up a large portion
of the screen which is quite distracting, and there is no
obvious way to get rid of them.

11. Effectiveness of this
interactive product
• I feel that on the whole this website is very
effective. It allows users to access information that
could take hours of research all in one place.
• There are plenty of ways to interact with the
website, the IMDb staff and other users. I rely on
this website a lot for media research tasks, and
benefit greatly from all the information on it.

12. Legal and ethical issues?
• In this digital age full of user-generated content,
there is a very high chance that people who use
the website don’t understand the full complications
of copyrighted content. Users could easily take
information from this website and post it online
without citing it properly.
• Another issue is that users can access the contact
details of cast and crew if they have IMDbPro, so
people might abuse this by harassing them.

13. 2nd website: Wikipedia

14. What is the purpose?
• Wikipedia is a free online encyclopaedia
• There are over 5 million articles on the site
• Anyone can edit an article on Wikipedia, so not all
information is 100% reliable
• English Wikipedia has the most articles by far, but
Wikipedia is available in many other languages

15. Other platforms
• As well as there being a website for Wikipedia,
there is also an app
• Personally, I prefer the app because you can
watch videos on it, and the text fits to the size of
your screen, whereas on the website the text is a
bit too small for me

16. • The same article on the website (above)
vs on the app (right)
• For me, the article is far easier to read in
the app as I don’t have to squint at my
screen to read it

17. Design components and
layout
• The Wikipedia masthead is in the centre of the page at the top, and their
slogan is directly below it.
• The globe logo image is in the centre of the page and 10 different
hyperlinks surround it with the different language options Wikipedia offers.
• Below that, there is a search bar and the different subsidiaries of
Wikipedia like textbooks, news, dictionary, etc.
• The main colours used are black, white and blue and the logo is a serif
font, connoting that the website is more formal.
• In my experience, I like the fact that the website is very clean and simple,
the text is sometimes a bit too small but overall I find it very easy to
navigate.

18. Interactive features
• The main interactive feature is the search bar. This enables users
to quickly find information on any topic they want and topics
related to that. In my experience, this feature is very useful
because I can find information on millions of articles in seconds.
• Another interactive feature is that there is a direct hyperlink to
download the app from the website. This allows users to feel
more obliged to get the app as it is very accessible, they don’t
have to do any work to find it. In my experience, this feature is
quite useful because users can easily find the app, and having it
right there makes you more likely to check it out.

19. Benefits of this interactive
product
• Very easy to find information about any topic - just
search for it
• The app is easy to find and download from the
website
• Available in 298 languages

20. Limitations of this interactive
product
• Although Wikipedia is available in almost 300 languages,
there aren’t the same amount of articles available in every
language. There are 5 million English articles, and only 1,400
Igbo articles.
• As there are so many articles on the website, the exact
information you might need could be in a hyperlinked article.
It can be difficult to find an exact fact or statistic you need.
• Wikipedia isn’t 100% reliable because anyone can edit it,
and there are only a few admins. For English Wikipedia,
there are 5 million articles and only 1,250 admins.

21. Effectiveness of this
interactive product
• On the whole, I feel this website is quite effective
because it is a household name for detailed information
about any subject in the world.
• However, Wikipedia is also known for not being very
reliable as anyone can edit the information, so
information needs to be cross-referenced with other
websites and case-studies done by professionals.
• Some articles are unable to be edited if they are about
controversial issues as they can be subject to
vandalism.

22. Legal and ethical issues?
• Wikipedia has been used to create libel articles about
famous people, famously the Seigenthaler incident. The
American journalist’s Wikipedia article was edited to
include information that was simply a lie (e.g. that he was a
suspect in the assassination of President Kennedy, and that
he lived in the Soviet Union for 13 years).
• A lot of Wikipedia articles include plagiarised content.
• As Wikipedia has information about scandals and
controversies, it is censored in countries like China, Russia,
Pakistan and Turkey for various reasons. The website is
either blocked entirely or some articles are blacklisted.

23. 3rd website: Independent

24. What is the purpose?
• The Independent is a British online newspaper
• There used to be print issues since 1986, but the
last paper copy was in March of 2016
• It claims to be a newspaper with no political bias
and they provide coverage on entertainment, sport,
politics, lifestyle, business and current affairs

25. Other platforms
• The Independent is available online and on an app
• I personally much prefer the website,
because on the app you need to pay
to read any of the articles

26. • The same article online (above) vs. on
the app (right, circled)
• On the website, the article can be
read for free, whereas on the app you
have pay to read it
• Also, on the app you have to pay for
the entire issue of the newspaper,
whereas online you can choose which
articles you want to read

27. Design components and
layout
• The Independent masthead is in the top left corner of the website on the navigation bar.
• On the navigation bar there are drop-down menus called ‘News’, ‘InFact’, ‘Politics’,
‘Voices’, ‘Indy/Life’, ‘Sport’, ‘Business’, ‘Video’ and ‘Culture’. There is also a button to
Subscribe, search, view your profile and see all the categories.
• In the of-the-fold, you can see about 4-5 articles, most of which have a triangle button
to show that they include videos to watch.
• The website’s logo is white and red, I feel like this is fitting as the newspaper is more
liberal, and red is the colour of the Labour party. White and red are used in their house
style, along with black for sections of copy.
• The font of their name is a serif font, this connotes that they have a mature and
sophisticated audience.
• Personally, I think that the layout is alright, but there is a big gap at the top which is
presumably where a banner ad is meant to be, but it hasn’t appeared.

28. Logo and masthead Search, region,
profile, categories
Here is how the
articles are laid out
on the page

29. Interactive features
• When you read an article, right below the slug line is links to share the article, the social
media account of the journalist who wrote it and the Independent’s Facebook page. This
allows users to share an article directly to Facebook, Twitter and email so they can give
their opinion on the article and show it to their friends. In my experience, this is quite
useful to share an article quickly so your Twitter followers or friends on Facebook can
see it and give their opinion too. This can then create discussions about current affairs
to increase awareness, encourage people to take action or can simply keep people
informed.
• The second interactive feature is that users can create an account
on the website to receive newsletters about topics they’re
interested in, enter competitions and leave comments on articles.
This enables them to have conversations with other users and
receive products & services that others don’t. Personally, this
feature isn’t very useful to me as I’m not that interested in keeping
up with current events. However, I think it would be incredibly
useful for people who want to keep up with a specific topic but
don’t want to buy a newspaper or check through lots of articles on
the website every day.

30. Interactive features cont.
• Another interactive feature is the
videos embedded in articles. Users
can click on this video to watch it and
can learn about what the article says
through watching that. By doing this
they can get the information across
faster than if they read the article. In
my experience of this, I find this
feature very useful because I’m not a
very fast reader, so I’d much rather watch a video than
read an article if they both give the same information.
Watching a video also means that I take the information in
more as I am a visual learner, so if I read the article I
would get bored easily.

31. Benefits of this interactive
product
• Gives convenient and easy ways for users to gives
their opinions on news articles either by
commenting directly on the articles, or sharing to
social media.
• Navigation bar at the top makes it very easy to find
articles on topics you’re interested in.
• The layout of the articles makes it easy to browse
through them and read the headlines until you see
an article you particularly want to read.

32. Limitations of this interactive
product
• Often, adverts take up a large portion
of the screen, so there isn’t much
room to read the actual article. As
you can see from the screenshot to
the right, there are 3 ads on the
screen and only a small paragraph of
text.
• On the app, you can’t read any articles
without paying, as the app tries to mimic
buying a physical newspaper, since the
Independent don’t print them anymore. I
can see why they decided to do this,
but it is frustrating that the website and
the app are completely different.

33. Effectiveness of this
interactive product
• Overall, I think that this interactive product is very
effective because you can find out what is
happening across the world in a format that is
appealing and accessible.
• However, I really don’t like the style of the app, as it
has the same function as buying the Independent
on the Apple Newsstand. I would’ve hoped that the
app would be a bit more different and unique.

34. Legal and ethical issues?
• The Independent is a liberal newspaper, so not
everyone will agree with the political stance they
take on a story.
• As with most newspapers, it can be seen as
ethically wrong to report on a tragedy shorty after it
has happened, and the Independent does this in
order to report on stories as they happen to keep
people informed.