1. Media website Evaluation
My media website, which solely focuses on drug addiction and abuse,
challenges the original conventions of websites in many ways. My website
uses normal conventions of a charity website such as information about what
the charity does and supports to appeal to the audience. I decided to do a
charity website dedicated to helping people with drug addiction and drugs
abuse. I then did some site research to find standard conventions that other
charities use on their websites. Firstly, I looked at ‘Frank’. I was able to
compare both mine and their website and found evidence that my website
does use standard conventions and uses conventions that is able to challenge
that of the other website. Site research also ensured that my photographs and
video’s fulfilled the conventions to the websites that I had looked at by using a
similar layout; even the images alone are similar to charity websites. Our
website audience is for a wider range of people but aimed more so aimed at
teenagers and young adults that are being introduced into the world of drugs,
therefore we used these types of people in our pictures so it can relate to the
audience. I then have to ensure that the videos and images that I use can
relate to the audience and are not offensive to them in any way.
My drugs website represents particular social groups in many ways. I believe
that drugs can affect all social groups and really most age groups above 15.
As a result of this I had to choose the videos and images carefully as it would
appeal to a wider range of audience. I have done this by using people that
were previously or still are addicted to some form of drug. I then decided to do
a survey to see who everyone thinks is the most vulnerable age group to
drugs. From our survey the most popular age for drug addiction was between
15 and 25 years of age. This is why I chose to use the colours and style that I
did. My website also gives the reader a slight insight into the world of drugs by
the website having and ‘your Stories’ page. This was done so the audience
and readers can look at the stories of other people that could have had similar
problems as themselves. The grammar and punctuality that I have used
across the website is solely used to relate to my target audience. This is why I
have used technical words but is some cases the slang names for drugs. I
have included some features that can relate to most of my audience, and
features like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have been added as links to
navigate to the selected sites. There are also other links on the page that take
you to our Facebook and Twitter pages. The layout of my website has been
kept simple yet unique and it should be easy for our readers to navigate from
page to page.
There are many kinds of media institutions that might distribute my product
starting with web servers. Web servers can distribute my website through
either a wired connection or a wireless connection which will then go through
to an internet provider. Providers such as SKY and AOL can then distribute
my website. Difficulty to distribute a website compared to a radio programme
or a film is tough as radio and film are able to advertise in many places which
gets to a wide range of audiences. Going back to what I said about the
different features my website contains such as Twitter and Facebook, these
are very good places to advertise and promote a website. Social networking
Damien Johnson

2. sites have increased the number of advertisements as they have media
products such as mine that are willing to pay social networking sites so they
can show off their product to a wider audience.
Using the results of the surveys I sent out and looking back at my website, 24
out of 35 people who our survey said they strongly agree for an organisation
such as drugs addiction to have a website. When I did the research for my
website, I found that the main social group of drugs addiction is lower class. I
also found that the main age group for drugs addiction is 18 to 25. I have
chosen to aim my website at the age of 15 upwards because there is an
increasing amount of younger people getting involved in drugs.
To attract my target audience I have decided to make a colourful yet
reassuring homepage that will make the audience feel that this is where the
help is. I also have images of the volunteers involved in the website and their
stories of how drugs ‘nearly’ ruined their life before the help of DrugRehab. I
believe that by using realistic and partial stories I was able to touch out to my
audience and therefore they will know more about what we can actually do to
help them. Although I have used bright and in your face’ colours, I believe that
it will have no affect on how the audience portrays our website. Having the
name of the charity and the logo at the top of every page is important as it
shows consistency on every page, also visitors will be attracted as they know
that the website may look professional therefore thinking the same about the
actual charity. I used a strip that goes behind every title on the website. This is
to emphasise the title and again show consistency in the websites
conventions.
I have learned many things about technologies from the process of
constructing my website. When constructing my preliminary website I found it
difficult at first to get the grips of using the different software such as iweb,
Photoshop and final cut express. But when making my preliminary product I
started to get to know the basics and started using Photoshop to edit
photographs and my logo. After a couple of hours on iweb I started to get to
know the software and was able to create a simple looking website which I
would look to develop when creating my main website. Using final cut express
to edit my video to make it more appealing really allowed me to know how to
use it and I hoped to widen my knowledge on it for my main website. Even
though I eventually got to know how to use these programmes I never really
was taught thoroughly on how to use them so for the majority of the time had
to learn as I went through them myself. My creative process for my
preliminary website was very basic as I was new to the whole concept of the
programmes but I really wanted to broaden my knowledge of them to ensure
that my main website was done to my full potential.
Looking back at my preliminary website I was able to learn the programmes
needed for my main one. Using Photoshop for my first website allowed me to
take one step further for my main website by making a new logo, editing more
photos and writing. Using final cut express was hard at first but for my main
website wasn’t as difficult as I had used it before. Iweb was now a daily
programme to me which I was able to take to my advantage by making 8
Damien Johnson

3. pages for my main website. I also developed a wider range of creative skills
with evidence of much more links such as Face book, you tube and many
more. I was also able to add a Google search bar through html whereas my
preliminary website had nothing of the type which indicates that that my skills
did develop during the creation of both websites. When I compare both my
main website with my first one I see that my layout and colours skills
considerably develop as I had learnt more and therefore was able to express
my knowledge through my website in a more effective way. The way in which
I constructed the main website is again different to that of the preliminary one
because I had a wider and broader knowledge and therefore I could do things
to more effect and it overall looked more professional and stimulating.
Damien Johnson