Researching

Mia spoke about her mum to the group and she has told us that her mum uses the social networking site 'Twitter'. She lives in the countryside and it enables her to keep up to date with what is going on in the world. She also has interests in conspiracy theories so she can interact and talk to other people that are interested in them. She has over a 1000 followers.

Company members did further research and statistics show that people between the ages of 35-44 have the highest percentage in using social networking sites. I have mentioned lifestyle before and the people between these ages may have buisness' online on social networking sites and again lifestyle and peoples jobs of this age may relate to the results of the graph.

Peoples stories and Liverpool Lives could adapt Twitter's layout and how controlled people's information is. Whereas facebook is quite invasive. This way it may be more inviting for the older generation as personal details are not given out.

Also Peoples Stories layout of all the videos could be off putting for an elderly person as it is alot to take in. A more simple layout may be more easier for them.

Researching

Technology today makes it very easy to access he internet. Software is becoming more simply to use and people of all ages are able to use them.
We stereotype older generations to not use the internet and computers. Peoples lifestyles and jobs have an influence on whether they use the internet and computers. 

I did a case study on my Grandad and Nanna. They are both in their 70s and both use the computer and internet for very different things. My Nanna for example is still at work in a family run buisness and she does all the accounts for the company online. The computer and internet makes her job role alot easier. My Grandad on the other hand runs the family buisness aswel but his job role doesn't allow him to use the computer but by choice he has invested in a new touch screen computer for at home as in his day to day life he likes to check and keep up to date with Sky Sports News online as he is a huge Man City fan. Although he suffers from arthritis with the new technoplogy today his computer at home allows him to use touch screen rather than a mouse. I also spent the summer in Cyprus i was gone for over two months, my mum showed my Nanna how to Skype so we could talk from different parts of the world, it really helped us both. It enabled me to speak to my family members whilst being apart and it helped my Nanna learn to use a new networking site without even realizing. I have also shown my Nanna how to use Tesco online to help her with shopping and she has realized how helpful it is to her and she can also feel the benefit from giving her time up to use the internet.

If the older generation knew about the new technologies available to them and computers they may be influenced and encouraged to use the internet. Mia works in Apple and she explained some customers come into the shop and some of them do not even have or know what an e-mail address is. If this is the case 'People's Stories' may want to think about their current 'sign in' process they currently have on the website as an e-mail address is needed. To the older generation when visiting 'People's Stories' website might be put off by the signing in process.

Making their website an easy access may benefit with member joining and viewing their site.

Researching

The company is still further researching. Not all questionaires have been completed. But the majority of the results didn't show results that would define our answer and help us. There was a mixture of results. I think the range of the age we gave our questionnaire too had something to do with it. The youngest person i gave my questionnaire to was 13 and the eldest was 75. So with such a wide range it did not help. If i was to do the questionnaire again i would concentrate on the age between 50 year olds and older.

I think the problem with our question and when answering it we have to be careful in what we define as 'old people' and addressing issues of generation.

As a company we agreed that the older generation have grown up without the help of the internet and computers so in their eyes they don't see why they would need it now. The older generation would more likely use the internet and a website like 'People's Stories' if they saw a benefit in doing so and getting something back. This is opposite to the younger generation nowadays as social networking sites allows people to upload pictures of themselves and write status's about themselves and their lives which is telling a story themselves but they don't expect anything back as they like telling their friends on 'Facebook' about what they did at the weekend just a way of expressing themselves. The company discussed how if older people was to use the internet they would use it to recieve information whereas the younger generation use the internet to give information.

Reading Week

During this week i returned home to manchester for the week. As part of research we decided as a company that a questionaire would be helpful research.
As a company we came up with the following questions:

1. Do you own a computer?

Yes     No

2. Do you have wifi at home?

Yes     No

3. Do you have an email address?

Yes     No

4. How often do you use the computer?

Everyday     2-7 times a week     Once a Week     Once a Month     Never

5. Would you be willing to dedicate more time into learning how to use the

internet and computer?

Yes     No

6. Do you have a social networking account ie. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn,

Bebo?

Yes     No

7. Would you be willing to invest more money in new technology such as an ipad,

iphone or other smartphone?

Yes     No

8. What do you mainly use the computer/internet for?
Pleasure     Work     Don't Use

Hopefully the results of the questionaires will help guide us in the right direction with how we are going to conclude our answer.

Groups

In Todays Lecture we voted what question we would like our company to answer.

1. Rebel Play
2. Peoples Stories
3. CBeebies
This was the order i wrote down on my piece of paper. I was in a group with Amy schank and Mia Gregory.The question our company got given was Peoples Stories. I feel i could have answered the Rebel Play pitch well, but only because i feel i can relate to that question more as i am a female. But alot of research into Peoples Stories will indeed help conclude Hurricane films with an approved and helpful answer to help them with their project People Stories-Liverpool Lives.

Peoples Stories Website Here - i am going to research more into Peoples Stories and look around the website.

Our company was shown how to use the 'Wiki' to share our research between each other. This will be helpfull to stay in contact and show each other our research. I think our company with use 'Prezi' to present our work in the end presentation. Rebel Play used it in their presentation to the class and i had never seen it be used before and i liked it. The presentation was more interesting than just a usual powerpoint presentation.

Our group has decided to do individual research whilst not in class. By looking at statistics and researching into the older generation.

Cbeebies-20th October 2011

Today Jim Fielding from CBeebies joined us in our lecture and spoke about the website CBeebies offers to the younger generation. 

The question that he set was:

How can we create a safe environment for children online without discouraging participation?

Children should be able to interact on the internet with other children, playing on games. But children need to be safe online at the same time. Parents should feel their child is safe when interacting online.

If my company was given this question i think it would be wise to research in local schools and ask the children if they interact and play games on CBeebies. Also what kind of games they like to play when using the computer/internet.

Rebel Play-13th October 2011

Rebel Play company came into our lecture today, their company offers a space for digital gaming space and game consol. Gaming on social networking sites and mobile games.

The question that the company gave us was:

Do media platforms and genres have specific gender appeal? Why dont more women play console games?

I think it is easy to make assumptions that women do not play console games. I am a female and i do not play console games and neither do my friends. So it is easy to just presume that other females don't play them either. I think females would prefer to spend their money on a new T-shirt, for example rather than the latest 'Fifa' game. I feel most console games out in the media that are most popular are male related games that involve shooting guns and killing people like 'Call of Duty' and i personally don't think most female approve of them kind of actions.

Research methods for this topic could be doing a survey on genders and asking both male and females of all ages if they use game consoles. Maybe filming and interviewing a for and against the idea of two different females and why and why not they use game consoles.

Also research into how many female friendly console games are out in the media today and see what the ratio is compared to 'boy like' games there is on offer.

The appearance of some of the consoles may have an effect on if a female was to use it or not. The Playstation is big black and bulky, i think it will appeal to a boy rather than a girl. Whereas the Nintendo DS is small and petite and comes in more lighter colours like pink, white and light blue. These factors may appeal more to a girl. The DS also offers cooking games and IQ tests. The content of the game may effect whether a female shows interest to purchase and play.

Nintendo Wii could appeal to both males and females as it offers games of Wii sport but also Wii fit which is very popular. Women may use Wii fit because they may feel they are not wasting their time playing a game but they are playing and getting something back as they are working out at the same time.

Males don't seem to mind about wasting hours playing fifa whereas women in my opinion prefer to spend their time more wisely. Not only timewise but i think age has something to do with it. Because when i was growing up playstations weren't half a big as they are now and i would play on the park with my friends. Whereas my 13 year old sister owns a DS and a Xbox Live and she plays inside with her friends. So the 7 years between us shows a difference.

Hurricane Films-6th October 2011

In todays lecture a company called Hurricane films came in and did a talk on their new project called Peoples Stories-Liverpool Lives. The company is run by Solon Papadopoulous and Roy Boulter who created the project that has developed from a film they produce called Of Time an The City.

'Of Time and The city' is a lyrical and visual poem which was selected to be played at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival.

The visitors spoke about the new project 'Peoples Stories' and explained what the project was about.

It is a website where people of the older generation can sign into and upload pictures from post war years or upload films telling a story of what they remember from Liverpool's post war times and share with other people their memories. Competitions are available to enter for the best stories.They explained how this website would encourage the older generation to use the internet and become comfortable sharing their memories and stories.

Sol Papadopulos set a possible question that as a group we may need to answer. The question was:

How can you engage an online audiene in storytelling?-How do you encourage users, especially those from an older generation to participate?

We was shown a video of a focus group and they were being interviewed. This could be useful research for the people who may get the question above as there assignment. Other research methods could be looking online at statistics and see what percentage of over 50 year olds use the internet.  

I have always been interested in media from being a young age. I always liked reading magazines and watching television. Media is such a big part of my everyday life. As ive grown ive joined social networking sites such as; Bebo, Myspace and the main one i use now is Facebook. I upload pictures onto facebook weekly and update my status nearly every day.
 When i was in year 9 i chose my GSCE options that i wanted to study for the following last two years at high school and one of my options was a GCSE in Media Studies. I achieved my highest result in this subject and got a grade 'A'. After two years at Bury College studying performing arts i decided to change my path and study Media Professional Studies with Television at LJMU. Currently i have just started my second year.
 In the future i would like to work with a production team. Maybe in a television studio or on location on a film set. I don't know exactly what role or job i would like to do, hopefully work experience during this year will guide me in the right direction and make my mind up.