How do you intend to use the four areas of the media theoretical framework to communicate meaning and meet the requirements of your chosen brief? (approx. 400 words)
Product 1
My documentary is based on conspiracy theories, a topic that is well-spoken about on social media in which you can find many different views on the topic which I discovered from my audience research where I also found out that the topic is particularly popular with the target audience and due to the popularity of the topic it allows for me to use Bill Nichols participatory mode within my documentary, in which Jenkins participatory culture will mean that the audience will be active in interacting with the documentary. I will use a wide range of media language in my documentary, focusing on the mise-en-scene and making sure that I use the correct shot types in order to portray what I want the audience to interpret and use a range of interesting locations that match the tone of my documentary, including using locations such as the beach at night in order to have the effect of the bright lights from the arcades. As seen from my audience research, the target audience don't watch much television, only 69 minutes per day, so my opening needs to be interesting and captivating. By making full use of media language I will be able to be more successful in making my product more exciting to the target audience and therefore they are more likely to engage with the content. I will include intertextual references to films such as ‘The Da Vinci Code’, that the target audience would be able to understand depending on their cultural capital, and the preferred reading that I want to be portrayed linking to Hall’s reception theory. I will have to fulfil the BBC’s remit to ‘entertain, educate and inform’ which I will do through covering the topic in an educational manner. The target audience of middle to upmarket socially conscious 16-25-year olds, as I've seen from my research, enjoy both documentaries and the topic I have chosen and are the most likely age group to engage with content online, as they spend roughly 7-9 hours a day on social media. The documentary will be left open to interpretation as the audience will be able to have their own opinion on the theories covered, according to Hal’s reception theory the audience will interpret the content in one of three ways and this will determine their take on my documentary.
Product 2
In my website, for the research there was a struggle to gain much inspiration from documentary websites due to the lack of accessibility to websites specifically about/for documentaries, so instead I took inspiration from the host's websites where they linked the documentaries within and featured a range of extra content. For my website, the main focus will be to have as many ways as possible for the audience to engage further with the content, this will be done with behind the scene pictures etc. I will also add intertextuality to the website in similar ways that I will in my documentary, through mentions of movies about conspiracy theories. I will add links to social media accounts, such as Twitter and Instagram as the target audience is most likely to use these to engage with the documentary as seen with the success of Netflix documentaries such as Tiger King which became a viral success. I will also make sure that I have a consistent colour palette will become recognisable to the audience enforcing brand identity and help to link both the documentary and website together, I can also carry the colour palette over to the social media accounts to strengthen the idea of brand identity even more. There will also be Easter eggs on my website that takes you to extra content linking to the topic I am doing and a good place to include the intertextuality by having a code that you have to crack to gain access to the video.
How do you intend to link your media products to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of the digitally convergent nature of your media production? (approx. 100 words)
From doing my research I have found out that all media products have a cross-media presence that helps them reach a larger audience. To link my products I am going to use hashtags and social media handles that will pop up in one of the corners of the screen on my documentary, which will allow the audience to engage with it and make them more likely to go to the website. This helps to build the online presence of the documentary and make it more likely for it to be shared more. I will also include short clips from youtube videos and social media to share theories from the audience that will make the viewer want to read up more on the topic or even share their own opinions.
