Evaluation: 4) A - How did you use media technologies in the research stages?

Over the summer we were set the task of researching a number of music videos, CD covers and magazine adverts, in order to build a basic principal understanding of the products we were to create for the coursework , and giving us idea of how to go about creating them. To do this, I first watched a number of music television channels specialising in a variety of genres - including Kerrang!, Scuzz, 4Music and VIVA to ensure a selection of videos from a spectrum of different musical styles as well as to see if I could find any particularly interesting videos that felt gave me a lot to analyse and talk about in my research. Once I had selected the videos I intended to look at in more depth, I used YouTube to find the video in order to analyse it section by section in great detail, as well as to act as a point of reference when I put the research onto my blog. I then used Microsoft Word to type this up and retain this information in preparation for the beginning of the A2 course.

I took a similar approach to the analysis of the CD album artwork, using iTunes to find covers both from my extensive personal music library, and also the iTunes store to find interesting covers from alternative genres to my preferences. I used a variety of music magazines to source a range of music adverts, choosing a variety of formats and structures in order to aid the development of my understanding of both product and generic conventions.

We were recommended to the website mediaknowall.com, which is a research website for Media Studies students, in order to provide us with a basis for theories and ideas to include in our analysis, in order to strengthen the development of our understanding of product conventions and reception, and add depth to our analysis and comprehension of the effects we should aim to achieve with our own products.

One of the main media technologies I used during these preliminary stages was that of research websites such as Google and Wikipedia. I used these to provide me with facts and information in order to establish a basis for the research, and also to aid my knowledge in preparation for the production of our own media products.

Additionally, we set up a blog using this website, Blogger, to record the process of the coursework. As we had used this medium of documentation in our AS coursework last year, this was a fairly straightforwards process as we had grown to know the programme well, meaning the most taxing part of this was simply choosing a blog name.