Joanne Perry

AS Media Studies
Foundation Portfolio Evaluation
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media products?
Within the research and planning stages of creating my charity campaign website to provide
support to people suffering from an eating disorder called Anas Angels. I have researched
websites, charity posters and adverts in order to find ideas which I could put forward onto my own
website in order to make it conventional and to represent my target audience of mid youth, teenage
girls, aged 15-24. By researching these websites, charity posters and adverts, I am subverting
conventions due to looking at other media platforms in various categories for ideas to put forward
for my product. I chose to do this due as I feel that media platforms are currently becoming more
mixed. For example, the internet is the most successful media platform which is used nowadays
and therefore other media platforms such as television, are trying to represent their media platform
to be more like the internet in order to gain a mass audience and ensure more success.
I have looked at various charity and non charity websites in order to compare and contrast
elements used on the various websites to ensure that I can represent elements from both types of
websites to ensure that my website is successful to my target audience. I have also done this in
order to look at the unique selling point of the websites. Many charity websites are depressing and
lack fun, easy going conventions; especially on eating disorder charity campaign websites. This
could be the unique selling point for my product as I could ensure that through the use of various
media platforms, conventions etc. My website is represented as more of a laidback, easy going
charity website in order to ensure that my audience feels more comfortable when on my website. I
also think it is important that websites follow conventions due to them being recognizable and easy
to use by various audiences and ensures that they understand the website.
After looking at a variety of media products, the ones that stood out to me and have inspired me
most are the daily mail website and Barnardos childrens charity. Firstly, I looked at the Daily Mail
website (www.dailymail.co.uk). This website is one of the most popular online news websites in the
world which I commonly use in order to read the news and find out information globally. Due to
myself using this website as I meet the target audience criteria, I felt that by using this website to
analyse specifically, it represents a wide range of audiences, as well as my products target
audience, in order to find conventions of a popular, global, professional constructed website which I
can retrieve conventional ideas from for my own product. This website inspired me due to the
popularity of such a formal, ideological news website which people therefore feel is an appropriate
and successful use of conventions due to the serious matters at hand throughout the world.
Therefore, important matters need to be addressed professionally, formally and basically in order to
represent the serious tone of which the website represents. I feel as though this is conventional
and expected to the audience and therefore should be induced in every news website in order to
be kept formal, assertive and easy to understand for the audience and ensure that it is successful
due to the typical denotation of a news website.

I also looked at a charity poster for Barnardos children's charity. Although this is a varied category
to my charity for eating disorders, I felt that by looking at a popular, well known charity poster, this
would present ideas for which charity posters should conventionally contain in order to be
successful to the audience. The use of images within the poster presented that serious, mortifying,
depressing images are more captivating to the audience and are taken more seriously in order to
aware the audience of the serious scenarios taking place within childrens lives when they are
mistreated. Although some of the images are over the top and represent the worst cases possible,
they gain the attention of the audience due to creating sympathy as the audience perceive it as a
verisimilitude aspect of mistreated childrens lives. This is conventional within charity marketing
campaigns due to creating empathy within the audience to ensure that the marketing campaigns
are more successful by making the audience feel as though they need to get involved. Therefore
Barnardos are manipulating audiences by brainwashing them to the perception of the worst case
scenario occurring in every abused childs life, which is presented through the poster which I
analysed as a baby taking illegal drugs, which does not occur in every childs life or every
mistreated childs life although it is manipulating audiences to representing it through their posters
to occurring very often.
Although this poster is sinister, it is a clever scheme of advertising due to the attention in which it
draws from the audience through brainwashing them in order to create sympathy and awareness
which gains more attention to the charity. I feel that being shocking is a convention within charity
marketing methods which most charity products use. I did not want to do this in order to create a
unique selling point for my product, as stated previously, and ensure that I gain a mass audience
and ensure the success of my website. Therefore, this poster inspired me for my product as it
represented that peoples ideologies on eating disorders, could be represented through images
which are horrific and present the final stages of an eating disorder, such as very thin bodies,
hospital rooms and more; in order to create sympathy from the audience and represent these
scenarios as a verisimilitude outlook on eating disorders although they are the worst case
scenarios. This will raise awareness of the illness and how deathly it can be by promoting only the
worst cases of eating disorders in order to brainwash the audience and finally make them see the
serious effects in which eating disorders can have on a person and make people want to support
the charity in order for people with eating disorders to be helped.
On the other hand, after researching television advertisements, the Barnardos advert again stood
out to me as it was a repetition of dramatic events in order to represent the continuous cycle of
child abuse. The advert was very similar to the poster due to the sinister manipulation used in order
to present worst case scenarios of childrens lives when mistreated. However, what I liked about
the advert was the way it repeated itself, as stated. It repeated the girls life and bad things in which
she had been through over and over again. This represents that the bad things within the girls life
never stop and are continuous. In my opinion, this portrays verisimilitude on emotions within an
abused childs life as it is a continuous loop of abuse and unhappiness for them as they feel as
though it will never end and the loop will be continuous for the rest of their lives. This represents a
surreal, non conventional form of video, which I have induced into my video also by representing a
loop of the continuous struggle to be a smaller weight when suffering with an eating disorder. I
have used this due to the stylistic form of surrealism being often overlooked within the gap in the
market for eating disorders. However, I feel that when surrealism is induced in advertisements, in

this case videos, it captures the attention of the audience more, due to it being non conventional
and consumers continuously wanting to be up to date with new media elements. After research, I
also feel that this reflects the pattern of eating disorders and I felt that it would be powerful to
represent this in a symbolic way. Whilst watching this Barnardos advertisement, although it is a
sinister brainwashing technique to the audience in order to create sympathy and promote their
charity, I felt as though I wanted to help the children in the advertisements myself and therefore I
felt that the advertisement method works well.
Moreover, I felt that this advert inspired me for my own video in which I presented on my website.
The advert inspired me to represent a persons life with an eating disorder as being a continuous
loop of wanting to be skinny and therefore creating sympathy from the audience in order to
represent the continuous struggle in a teenagers life. I have studied the main stylistic forms of
videos and I feel that surreal was the most powerful style to use. Narrative and testimonial style
videos often rely heavily on the experiences and depictions of a person or character. Whilst this
can engage some people, it can make others feel excluded if one character or situation is
presented in too much detail as it seems too specific. I feel surreal stylistic forms are more open to
interpretation and will therefore appeal to a wide range of people as an audience can see in the
film, what they hope to see. This could include elements of the uses and gratification theory as my
film is set to entertain, education, inform, escape and create social interaction in order to ensure
the success of the product. The more elements of uses and gratification I include in my media
product, the more successful it is and by presenting a surreal film, I have tried to include as many
of these elements as possible. This not only promotes my charity campaign but also presents
eating disorders in a verisimilitude perspective for what they go through on a day to day basis.
Conventions of a website are important in order to give off a stereotypical basis of what a product
should be like. Typical conventions of a website include, a web address to specify the website and
for it to be easily found, text is common on a website in order to inform the audience what the
website is about, button navigations are a conventional way in which the audience can navigate
through a website, and many more conventions are commonly found on websites. Conventions are
used in order to make the audience feel safe and secure. This is due to the product being easier to
understand and looking more professional. People regularly find what they already know more
appealing as they can understand it more clearly and feel more comfortable, therefore by using
conventions within my charity website, this should make the consumers feel as though they can
share their thoughts and feelings as the website is professional and comforting due to the many
conventions which represents the charity to be a serious campaign.
The target audience of a website should also be used conventionally in order for the consumers to
establish the target audience easily. For example, if the colour pink is indicated recurrently, the
website represents gender specific colours used as conventions in order to appeal to the target
audience which is established as girls due to pink being a stereotypical, girly colour. Therefore, due
to my target audience being aimed at teenage girls, I felt that by inducing the colour pink; the
stereotype is well established in order to make my product easier for the audience to identify and
understand. However, I have also ensured that I represent non gender specific colours such as
black, white and grey in order to ensure that a mass audience is welcome in order to broaden the
audience and make my website as successful as possible.The target audience is still easily
represented through the stereotypical colours as the success of all media products is dependent on

the consumers understanding their target audience and gender specific colours are usually the
easiest way to present this. If the target audience is used conventionally, it is more likely to
establish the target audience more easily and appeal to the target audience more specifically and
make the website more successful.
Within my website, I have followed conventions in order to make my website as successful as
possible and fulfil the needs and expectations of a charity website to the audience. If I was to
subvert conventions, I felt that this would only appeal to a niche audience due to it being harder to
understand and make the audience feel less comfortable. Therefore I felt that I should continue
with using conventions on my website in order to create awareness of eating disorders to a larger
audience although it is mainly aimed at an audience who knows someone with an eating disorder
or suffers with an eating disorder themselves, it can still attract a larger audience in order to gain
more knowledge. As stated previously, the uses and gratification theory can ensure the success of
all media products by ensuring that all five elements are covered. Within my website, I have
ensured that I have met every element within the uses and gratification theory clearly in order to
appeal to a larger audience due to the varied admix in which the website contains. I have followed
conventions by ensuring that my website is full and there are no blank spaces. The purpose of a
website is to interest the audience and therefore by keeping my website full, it will grasp the
audiences attention and keep them interested by all of the elements which feature on the website.
The film which I created for my website, I placed on the first page in order to hook the audience
from the very start of the website. I ensured that my video was placed further to the left as people
read from left to right and therefore it would be the first feature in which people see as they enter
the website. I also ensured that as soon as the website first page is entered, the video plays
immediately which is a conventional method I used after researching various websites which
contained videos. This is important as the video engages all of the audiences senses as it employs
sound and visuals. My research has shown that many people can engage with things of visual or
containing sound and by having the admix within my video it allows the audience to feel more
comfortable with the professional product and make them engage further. This also draws the
audience in from the very beginning as it begins without warning and therefore the audience will
feel as though it is important and should be watched straight away in order to get a feel for the
website and what it is about. The video immediately utilises the use of sound and movement in
order to captivate the audience through a verisimilitude denotation of what an eating disorder is
like. This video also represents a polysemic outlook for the audience due to the various shots used
in order to present the illness in a variety of forms which the audience may interpret in different
ways.
Throughout the research and planning stages for creating my website, I have looked at various
media theories in which would help me with my product in order to ensure that it appeals to a mass
audience including my own target audience. Firstly, I looked at synthetic sisterhood. Synthetic
sisterhood was brought to life by feminist theorists who believe that most media products support
stereotypical ideas of gender. It presented male voices to be factual and authoritative and female
voices to be seen as caring and friendly voices. Synthetic sisterhood mainly focuses on language
and therefore the narrative of the film on my website or the text occurrence upon my website were
large characteristics in order to present synthetic sisterhood and give my website a personality.
Although I did not use dialogue in order to give my film a narrative, I used a song produced by a

female singer. This represents the target audience due to the female voice and will appeal to them
specifically as they will feel as though they can relate to the female voice and also feel comfortable
due to the caring voice which represents synthetic sisterhood. I have also enforced synthetic
sisterhood on my website through the use of text which represents a female voice due to the
friendly, informal, sisterly tone of the text which will appeal to the target audience of teenage girls
due to making them feel more comfortable. This also links with Maslows Hierarchy of needs.
Maslow has looked at human psychology and has suggested that all humans desire a sense of
belonging and community. This means that they engage with greater strength to any media product
that offers them this. My use of language will create this effect and allow people to engage on a
greater level. This will ensure that they write comments and get in touch with the charity due to the
comfort which they feel through the sisterly tone of the website. This will ensure that the audience
is anchored in and allows the website to be successful.
Again, I have looked at Maslows Hierarchy of Needs in order to ensure that all of the necessary
needs and expectations of a website are presented to the audience and to ensure that my website
gives the audience a sense of community. Maslows Hierarchy of Needs for a website represents
that the audience want self esteem, self actualisation and belonging. This can be done through the
use of social networking, comments, message boards etc. I have used this on my website by
enforcing a login/sign up section which enables the audience to become apart of the community for
my charity campaign. I have also included social networking buttons on my website in order to
present social interaction and make people on my website feel involved and have a voice in order
to share elements of my website with the generalised public. Moreover, I have induced a comment
section on my website so that people can anonymously or as themselves, be apart of the
community by getting involved with others already involved in the community. This allows the
audience to become a prosumer and connotes the necessary conventions of a website in order to
fulfil the audiences needs and expectations. Therefore this interprets Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
in order to ensure that the audience feel fulfilled once they have visited my website.
Finally, I have looked at the uses and gratification theory in order to allow the audience to consume
media with their needs fulfilled. This includes, entertainment, education, escapism, identification
and social interaction. I discovered that the more of these elements are presented within my
product, the more successful it will be. Therefore I have ensured to cover all of these criterias on
my website, beginning with entertainment. I have ensured that my website entertains the audience
by using conventions such as images as a main convention. However, I have enforced my own
entertainment mechanisms, which are featured on some websites but not all, which involves a
video and music. The video not only provides information to the audience, but is also entertainment
due to it being an enjoyable way which can inform the audience about what the website is about.
Music also provides entertainment due to it being a conventional way in which people of all ages
entertain themselves and provide enjoyment. Videos also provide an education to the audience
along with text due to the narrative within my video in order to give the audience a generalised idea
about what the website consists of and what eating disorders are about and the occurrence. Text
allows a more in detail, educational enforcement to ensure that the audience receive the factual
information they need in order to gain more knowledge about the illness.
My website also provides an escapism for the audience for example with peoples stories being
featured, it allows the audience to read these stories about other peoples lives and therefore

escape their own. These stories also represent identification. This is due to the way in which the
audience can engage in the stories and find elements of themselves within the story. This would
occur if the consumer has also suffered with an eating disorder or is currently suffering as the
stories can ensure that the audience member identifies certain scenarios from the persons story
within their own lives. An example of this would be a person telling a story about how they began
purging. A consumer could recognise these symptoms in themselves and therefore would be
encouraged to get help, just like the people in the stories. Finally, I have used social interaction
within my website by generating social network buttons, a comments section and a log in/sign up
section. All of these social interaction methods fits in with Maslows Hierarchy of Needs as it
creates a sense of community and allows the consumer to become a prosumer due to being a part
of the website community. It represents new media theory as well as ensures that the website is
trustworthy due to being a part of other associations, like Twitter, Facebook etc. and therefore
ensures that the website is reliable in order for it to be successful.
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
Before creating my website, I carried out research in order to establish the most common age and
gender in which eating disorders occurred. I found from my research that eating disorders occur
mostly in teenage girls aged 15-24. Therefore I decided to aim my website at this mid youth group
in order to make my website as successful as possible due to it being appealing to the most likely
audience. After looking over a variety of websites which linked with eating disorders for inspiration
for which I could induce onto my own website to ensure that it is conventional and fulfils similar
criterias, I came across http://eating-disorders.org.uk which was a website I was not satisfied with.
I felt that the colours and layout of this website did not make the audience want to get help; I felt as
though the website represented the illness as boring and little importance due to the little effort
which is represented. This website does not present stereotypical colours such as pink to signify
the target audience. By the website using the colour green, it represents that the website is for a
large target audience due to the colour being non stereotypical and therefore makes it harder for
the audience to understand. I felt that this could be my unique selling point for my website. This is
due to a large number of websites allowing eating disorders to be presented with this similar, boring
presentation. However, within my website I have chose to subvert this and make my website fun
and exciting to ensure that the audience feel happier and hopeful and therefore ensuring that they
feel that they would like to receive help in order to continue with this happiness. This therefore is
my unique selling point to ensure that my website is more successful.
Within developing my website, I have been fairly stereotypical in order to appeal to the specified
target audience. An example of the way in which I have done this is through the use of gender
specific colours. I have used the colour pink in a variety of aspects on my website in order to
ensure that the target audience is clear and it is also stereotypically linked to this group. I have
used this within elements of text on my website and also within the text on my logo. Therefore, this
colour, pink, not only represents its target audience easily and stereotypically; it also represents the
brand image of my product. This also makes it easier for the audience to establish the target
audience and understand through the use of the brand image and therefore can be established,
before the website is even opened. For example, through advertisements, as the logo is a
necessity within advertisements and therefore as it is the brand image, the stereotypical colour pink
will already be induced so that the audience can identify the target audience whenever it is

represented in any way. However, I have ensured that I have mixed the colour pink with other
interracial, formal colours such as black, white and grey to represent the website to appeal to a
mass audience as well as the target audience and to ensure the importance of the formality of the
website, representing the serious tone in which I wanted my website to portray. These colours also
make the website represent more of an older aged target audience as the colour pink, when used
alone, can be interpreted as a childish colour and therefore by having the admix of the colours it
represents the target audience easily and effectively through age and gender.
Throughout my research, I have found that the use of social networking, message boards, log
in/sign up sections upon a website, allows the target audience to talk about what they like and
dislike and gives the audience a voice. Therefore I have further invoked this upon my own website.
An example of this could be messages through the comments board talking about their own
opinions on the video, text and other elements. This allows them to represent themselves and
ensures that I am not just making assumptions about what they may like and dislike. This also
gives me feedback to ensure that I can change my website to other colours, images etc if the
audiences comments all agree that they dislike a particular elements such as an image. For
example, some of the consumers may find that the images are too graphic and therefore triggering
to them due to how the illness has affected them. As I have represented polysemic images, some
people may interpret images differently and therefore find them offensive to the illness. In this case,
I can change the image if more than one consumer agrees and therefore this represents to me that
the image I have created is not fitting to my target audience. I have however ensured that the
picture to text ratio represents more text than images due to the target audience being of an older
age and the serious tone in which I want my website to portray. Within my first page, I created a
slideshow of original images as I felt that this is an entertainment and professional method which
would appeal to my target audience as well as allow more text to take place on the page by not
having the images scattered throughout the page. This also allowed me to ensure that all of the
blank spaces on this page were filled to represent the professional quality and meet conventions by
continuously capturing the audiences attention through the layout.
After the creation of a website being verified for my project, I researched a variety of various
websites both charity and non charity in order to establish conventions and gain inspiration for what
kind of website I would create. I had chosen my target audience of teenage girls as I felt that by
using this audience, I could relate to the needs and expectations in order to make my website more
successful. After researching a variety of websites, I chose to create a charity campaign website to
support and gain awareness for eating disorders. I chose to create this type of charity website due
to the large gap in the market for the illness. Eating disorders are often overlooked due to peoples
varied opinions on whether it is a real illness or not and due to this matter, I chose to create a
website to allow to audience to gain more knowledge about the illness and also support those
suffering. There was only one appealing website which stood out to me which was similar to the
website I wanted to create. This website was called www.b-eat.co.uk. This website was the only
website which I felt looked at eating disorders as a recoverable illness. I feel that other websites
portrayed the illness in an unrealistic construct, with less knowledge of the illness itself. I also felt
as though this website was created to make the audience feel better about having the illness and
made them feel hopeful, whereas other websites were represented as more factual and not as
caring for the ones who are suffering. I then chose to compare this website with a news valued
website which was www.mirror.co.uk. The Mirror website also had a similar target audience of

teenagers, which I wanted to induce further onto my website, therefore I felt that by comparing both
of these websites, it would allow me to gain further knowledge on the conventions of a website for
my specified target audience, as well as gain knowledge for a conventional charity website,
supporting the same campaign in which I have chosen. This would allow me to find a negotiable
even between the two websites to appeal to my target audience.
Both of these websites were represented in similar ways with synthetic sisterhood being induced in
both, yet also a serious, dramatic tone to each website. Both of these websites needed to be
represented to the target audience as being professional and formal yet needed an edge such as,
synthetic sisterhood, in order to appeal to their specified target audience. However, charity and non
charity websites are not always represented in similar ways as charity websites often try to induce
sympathy more to the consumer in order to make them feel connected to the charity and therefore
donate and show support. Non charity websites do not always use the formality in which charity
websites want to induce. Charity websites regularly want to portray a lot of facts and statistics in
order to create awareness for the audience, however, non charity websites aim to make their
website as fun and creative as possible in order to gain a mass audience. Charitys often gain
more of a niche audience. Within my website I have used images of women in order to represent
my target audience easily and also give off the stereotype of women continuously feeling the need
to diet and therefore obtaining eating disorders. Synthetic sisterhood is represented in this way
through the use of my images all being of women. This also ensures that it is easy for the audience
to establish the target audience.
Within my images, I used a variety of shot types in order to represent the girl within my images to
be as skinny as possible which also gives off the stereotype of all girls who have eating disorders
being overly skinny. In an ideal world, I would have liked to expand on my target audience and offer
to help men on a twin site. This could be a unique selling point for my charity campaign as girls are
stereotypically, continuously seen as the ones who suffer with eating disorders and most people
are unfamiliar with the fact that men also suffer. This unique selling point would make my campaign
more successful as there is a large gap in the market for eating disorder campaigns, aimed to help
males as well. However, I still subverted this due to the ideology of just girls gaining eating
disorders and continued to just present women within my images. A shot type I used to represent
this would be an extreme close up of the girls stomach as she holds a tape measure in front of it.
This shows the stereotype of a skinny, flat stomach however also represents the power of the
eating disorder taking over her life. Therefore, the eating disorder is represented to be the tape
measure within this image. I have also taken on over the shoulder shot of the girl looking at herself
in the mirror, clutching her stomach, representing that she is unhappy with her weight. The use of
this shot represents the eating disorder to be continuously looking over her shoulder and that she
feels she can never escape it. This image also shows how skinny the girl is, giving off the
stereotype again that all people with eating disorders are majorly skinny, which is not the case.
The location of these images were based in school which give off a serious, professional tone to
the images which can give off the sense that the girl may be based in Anas Angels help facility
when the images were taken. The use of the props within the images, such as a tape measure,
also represent stereotypical props which are associated with weight loss in order to make the
images easy to understand.

Moreover, within creating my website I aimed to use the similarities within both a charity and non
charity website in order for my website to appeal to a mass audience. I also chose to do this due to
the age group. Due to my target audience being teenage girls aged 15-24, I felt that the more
conventions I could include from a variety of websites, the more appealing my website would be
due to younger audiences being more up-to-date with technology and therefore finding more
conventional, technological elements appealing on a website. I also represented some changes
such as the graphic images which I portrayed of the illness to the audience. Regularly, on charity
websites, they try not to induce images which may be too triggering or graphic but instead images
which represent hope. However, I chose to subvert this and represent hope through the use of
text. The text is what anchors the audience in if they are truly interested in the site and therefore I
have represented this mainly through peoples recovery stories. The images represent the
ideological representation of the illness which consumers may be able to establish as themselves
and therefore, I felt that the use of graphic images, creates more sympathy within consumers as
well as makes the target audience feel as though they should get help due to the serious,
verisimilitude representation.
New media theory and we media theory represents how the audience shapes the media. It allows
the audience to have power and control of the media due to the audience having their own voice
upon the industry and their own opinions. This is regularly invoked within websites. Within
websites, the audience represents themselves through their own voice on elements such as
message boards, stories and more. This empowers the audience to get involved and give feedback
on the website as well as express themselves due to the safety in which they feel on the website
therefore ensures that the producer does not just make assumptions of elements on the website in
which everyone likes as people will express their honesty and dislike for specific elements. I have
induced new media theory through the use of comments, social networking and a log in/sign up
scheme in order to allow the audience to get involved and therefore express their own opinion on
my website in order for me to make it more successful, as I have stated previously.
Pictures and film within my website highly represent the target audience through the use of
genders in which I have enforced on my website. Within all of my images and clips of my film, I
have used teenage girls in order to denote the target audience. Conventionally, websites are
produced to enforce appeal to a variety of people and therefore use images of both genders,
stereotypically, to represent the website to appeal to a mass target audience of both genders. The
age of the people within the images also represent the target audience. For example, within my
website, I have used images of teenagers in order to represent my website to be targeted at
teenagers; teenage girls specifically due to the age and genders represented. However, due to the
lack of detail in which I have enforced within some images such as the image of a hand with a
hospital band around; this could be anyone. Therefore no gender or age is enforced within this
image in order to represent the website to be open to all and engage a mass audience. This is also
induced within the level of detail within the text. The use of text on a website, can say a lot about
the target audience, for example, the less text used, the younger the target audience. Therefore,
the level of detail within the text can represent the target audience thoroughly and by having lack of
detail, I have allowed my website to appeal to a larger audience in order to make my website as
successful as possible. However, I have clearly stated on the home page that my charity campaign
is mainly aimed at teenage girls although if there are any boys suffering, they are welcome to
receive help and support from Anas Angels as well. This therefore represents my website to

appeal to a mass audience as well as establishes to the audience that the stereotypes which I have
enforced such as use of colour, are not just to appeal to one target audience and therefore,
everyone is welcome.
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The internet is the format in which I would distribute my media product of a website. I would ideally
like to use institutions such as the Daily Mail, in order to promote my media product and make it
more successful as this would also present the professional quality of my media product. The
internet is not really classed as using institution due to it being open to everyone and representing
new media theory due to the audience having their own voice and power within the internet
including simplified elements such as searching on the internet in order to fulfil their needs.
However, the internet makes my product discreet due to the charity having to be searched for in
order to be found. This therefore matches the sensitive nature of my website in order to represent
its professional, direct and serious tone to present the subject matter. It will ensure that the
consumers feel safe when on my website and therefore will feel as though they can express their
feelings further in order to meet the purpose of the charity website. This again fits in with new
media theory as the safety of the website allows the audience to have their own voice. This could
be done through expressing their own story about their battle with an eating disorder or contacting
the campaign in order to receive support and advice to ensure that they recover from their illness.
Moreover, I have uploaded the video which I created to promote the campaign, to YouTube which is
a form of institution. YouTube is a recognisable and trustworthy institution in order to ensure that
the video gets views and the audience also feel as though they can trust the campaign due to the
recognisable institution which they have used. YouTube is regularly used for a younger target
audience, mainly under 30 year olds use the institution in order to find information. Due to YouTube
generally being used by a younger target audience, the more people who use YouTube will
recognise the video to support my charity, to meet their needs due to my campaign video being
presented for a teenage target audience. Consumers often associate YouTube with modern and
new discoveries such as pop artists regularly being found through YouTube and made famous, for
example, Justin Bieber. Due to this consistency the audience will feel as though my campaign is
new and modern and therefore has something to offer. They may feel that my charity campaign is
yet to be discovered and offers something new and exciting to their lives. Therefore by uploading
my video to YouTube I am using this institution in order to distribute my media product through a
polysemic outlook which will therefore represent itself to the audience in different ways in order to
ensure the success of not only my video but my website too.
Within my website I have used a hyperlink. The hyperlink I have used links my website to www.beat.co.uk which I have induced in order to exert that my website is a trusted website. It represents
that my website is official in order to create trust between the consumers and my website, allowing
them to contact the charity without feel threatened, unsafe etc. This will ensure that my website is
more successful as the audience will feel as though they can get help from my campaign knowing
that it is a genuine website. By having a hyperlink on my website it also makes associations with
the rich and famous. Consumers may see my website as not being as successful or wealthy as
other charities and therefore may not want to put their trust into my website as they may feel that
they do not have much to gain. However, by having association with another, more popular,

successful and wealthy charity campaign, it represents that we either have the same funds as beat, or we are capable of producing the same results which they do, without the financial aid. This
ensures the reliability of my website as well. I have also made links through various pages within
my website in order to represent a verisimilitude website which continuously represents various
matters and pages throughout the site in order to keep the audience intrigued and ensure that they
stay on the site and read more into the campaign. It also gives off the sense of community due to
everything being linked and therefore makes the audience feel welcome and gives them a sense of
belonging to the website, allowing them to be a part of the community. I originally considered using
intertextuality within my product, mainly the video, however, changed my mind due to the campaign
representing a sensitive nature which needed to continuously represent a serious tone in order to
make people feel the professional quality. I felt that intertextuality would not induce this professional
quality as intertextuality is often interpreted with Spoofs which I felt may represent my website in
an unprofessional manor and narrow the serious tone which charity websites portray.
On the other hand, I am trying to turn my brand into a recognisable institution. I have done this
through the logo, slogan, font and colour. Firstly, through creating the logo I knew it had to be
simplistic, professional and recognisable in order to appeal to the target audience. I feel as though
the logo is one of the most important brand images to institutionalise a product and therefore I
wanted my logo to be successful. Due to the name of my charity campaign being Anas Angels, I
felt that this opened a wide choice of opportunity in order to create my logo as a link with the name.
I wanted to create a link with the word Angels and therefore I looked at various stereotypical
elements of angels and chose to use the most common stereotype of wings. This ensured that the
logo was easy to understand due to the stereotype of angels having wings and the link in which it
made with the name. This represents the dumbing down of the audience due to the easy to
understand logo. By using the word Angels I feel as though I have used intertextuality with
Victorias Secret due to the models being known as angels and angel wings being a brand image
for the company. I feel that using this intertextuality builds girls confidence and makes them feel
good about themselves as Victorias Secret models/angels are seen as beautiful, skinny,
inspirational women to my target audience age grouping. I have also placed the name Anas
Angels onto my logo in order to make the logo even easier to understand and more recognisable
to appeal more to the target audience. Both of the Ns in Anas and Angels are in the colour
pink whereas the rest of the text is in black in order to represent the target audience as mainly girls,
representing another stereotype, as well as creating a recognisable brand image for the colours,
font, text and logo all in one element.
Throughout my website I have used the same font called Basic however this font contrasts with
the font of the logo. Both fonts are very similar however the font upon the logo is more professional
and recognisable to ensure that it stands out agains the angel wings. However, font which I have
enforced throughout the website is still a professional, basic and recognisable font to create
institution for my product. I have used the colours pink and black throughout the website with the
continuous font in order to create a uniform look on every page. The colours represent the brand
image simultaneously and therefore allow my website to gain as much recognition as possible. I
have also enforced a slogan onto my website which is, Spread your wings and youll soon be
free. By using a slogan, it represents another way in which I have institutionalised my product
through the brand image. The slogan is recognisable and is linked with the campaign due to
wings being induced within the slogan, making the consumers think of angel wings and therefore

representing Anas Angels campaign due to my logo as well as the name. I have used the same
Basic font and colours throughout my slogan, creating more recognition of the brand image in
order to ensure the success of my website due to everything being linked to the campaign through
the use of my brand image.
If I were to distribute my product globally and professionally I would induce the star system in order
to gain more publicity for my product as well as represent that celebrities suffer from eating
disorders too and therefore it would ensure the success of my campaign as more people would feel
as though they can come forward and talk about their illness. A celebrity who I would use would be
Demi Lovato due to her age and gender meeting the target audience as well as her openness to
her illness which could gain other consumers to talk openly about their illness too. Demi Lovato is
seen as an inspiration to young girls due to her suffering in which she sings about and talks openly
about in order to prevent people gaining an eating disorder or self harming in any way and
therefore allows her audience to gain support. I would also try to make links with TV stars such as
Cassie from Skins who is a recognisable character from a popular TV show and suffers with an
eating disorder. My target audience is the same age as the target audience for the show, Skins and
therefore by making links with this character from the show, consumers may recognise it and
therefore feel as though they can trust the website more as they may identify themselves as being
like Cassie. This may ensure that the audience gets help like Cassie did within Skins in order to
ensure the safety of her health.
I would also like to promote my charity campaign further if my charity was made global, by making
links within shops by selling badges, wristbands and more. By doing this I could target my specific
audience within certain shops as I could only sell my products within shops which have a similar
target audience for example, Topshop, River Island and more. These shops are clothes shops
however provide clothes mainly for the target audience of older teenage girls which therefore
represents a similar target audience for my charity campaign. This could promote my campaign
further in order to increase an audience as well as raise money in order to support and help more
people. I could also induce award ceremonys for people who have been apart of Anas Angels
and have successfully recovered in order to gain more recognition and increase the audience for
my campaign as well as increase the charitys reputation.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Within creating my charity campaign website, I had to decide upon a specified target audience who
would take interest in a charity to support people with eating disorders. Upon deciding the target
audience, I carried out research in order to find statistical information about people who suffer with
eating disorders. Within my research I found that women are much more likely than men to develop
an eating disorder. Only an estimated 5 to 15 percent of people with anorexia or bulimia are male.
Therefore, I felt that the best target audience for my website would be female. However, I still
wanted males to know that they are welcome to be apart of the campaign if they are suffering
which I have clearly stated on my website to ensure that my website can attract both genders
however it mainly appealing to women due to the high percentage. Moreover, I also had to
research age in order to find out which age group I should ensure that my charity campaign
appeals to. From my research I gained information that eating disorders can develop in any age. In
fact, there have been cases of anorexia in children as young as 6 and some research reports

cases developing in women in their 70s. However, research shows that the main age in which
eating disorders occur are between 15-24. This therefore lead me to aim my target audience at a
mid youth age group of about 15-24, female. Although there are cases of eating disorders in boys
and outside this age group, I felt that by aiming my target audience at teenage girls, I would gain a
mass audience due to the high statistics.
I also felt that by aiming my product at this specific target audience, I can relate more to the
product. Due to my age and gender meeting the same criteria as my target audience, I feel that I
have more to offer by using this target audience as I can also understand what this audience needs
and expectations are in order to fulfil them and make my website more successful. There is also a
large gap in the market for professional eating disorder charity campaigns like the one I have
created. Although my target audience is fairly narrow, the gap in the market for eating disorder
charity campaigns will allow my website to be successful despite the target audience.
I have indicated my target audience through a variety of features including images, video, text,
colours, logo and music. Firstly, within my images I have used teenage girls throughout all of my
images in order to present teenage girls as the target audience. I have induced specific details
such as a pierced belly button in order to represent the target audience continuously. However,
within a couple images I have represented a lack of detail such as the images of the weighing
scales. This is to represent that more than one specific target audience is welcome as the lack of
detail does not determine a target audience and therefore can fulfil the needs of anyone. This
allows me to widen my product in order to appeal, for example, to the small percentage of boys
suffering with the illness. I have also enforced this within my video as throughout my video I have
used various clips of a teenage girl to represent her suffering and therefore represent the target
audience through a verisimilitude outlook on the illness. However, I have used clips which lack
detail such as the bowl with the spoon dropping inside in order to represent appeal to anyone. This
creates a polysemic outlook for the audience due to the lack of detail and again could appeal to
other audiences such as boys. I have also ensure within my video that the music in which I have
used, is a female voice in order to represent a female target audience which I have also induced on
my second page Stories, by using music with a female singer in order to present the female target
audience. I want the audience for my product to be active and have created this within my product
due to interactive elements in which the audience can engage in such as a video and interactive
map to represent where the facility is located. This allows my website to be more entertaining
which my target audience are more interested in due to the young age. Whereas, if I wanted my
audience to be passive, I feel as though my website would not be as successful as the target
audience would get bored easily and therefore not engage in the website.
Throughout my text, colours and logo, I have ensured that I use gender stereotypes such as the
colour pink for the audience to clearly establish the target audience of females. I have enforced the
colour pink in various elements of the text and the text within the logo to immediately establish to
main target audience. However, I have also enforced the colour black into a lot of my text, more
than the colour pink, as it is a colour which represents all genders, race, ages etc. In order for my
website to appeal to a mass audience and therefore ensure that if boys were to visit the website,
they would not feel entirely unwelcome due to the colour pink not being enforced too often to
promote the target audience. Through the use of text, I have also induced synthetic sisterhood in
order to give off a warm, caring, sisterly tone to the audience representing a female voice to

anchor the target audience in and make them feel welcome and safe. This will ensure that my
website is successful to the target audience due to it making them feel important as they are the
main consumers of my website. The logo also induces gender neutral colours in order to appeal to
all. However, the use of the image being presented as angel wings, may come across to appeal
more to females than males in order to fulfil the need of the target audience and give them a sense
of belonging. This is important as it ensures that they feel as though they are a large part of my
website and therefore will ensure that they feel safe and ensures that they will be apart of the
community by sharing their story, contacting the charity and more.
In order to ensure that my target audience is presented successfully and correctly, I had to carry
out market research in order to find out more information which I could further structure onto my
website to make it successful and meet the needs and expectations of my target audience
effectively. I also had to consider the personality of my target audience for my website and I felt that
the market research would allow me to find this. I have carried out this research using formal and
informal methodologies including a questionnaire and a focus group. By carrying out this research,
I was able to learn more about what my target audience want, such as text. This market research
was more successful than I thought it would be and therefore represented the personality of my
target audience as social and quite clever. This represented to me that the interactive elements in
which I have induced onto my website would be successful as the target audience would be clever
enough the navigate through the interactive elements and also engage in sections such as
commenting and social networking without being too shy about the matter. Within my second focus
group which I carried out once my website was complete, I was praised for the amount of text in
which I had placed on my website. I was surprised by this feedback due to my target audience
being fairly young and therefore I thought that the use of text would be too much. However, within
my questionnaire, I received feedback that most people would like real life stories produced onto
my website, which contains a lot of text. Therefore this feature was well created and produced and
therefore I had underestimated my target audience as I felt that they would prefer more images,
videos and other features. The audience still praised the amount of images which were projected
onto my website, along with the video, representing to me that the balance between text and
images was greatly produced to fulfil the needs of my target audience.
Moreover, I received a lot of feedback about the background of my website. Originally, I had a plain,
white background. However, my focus group put forward that they would like something projected
in the background as they felt that it was too plain. I also received mixed feedback from my
questionnaire about a background as there was a close balance between some consumers
wanting a plain, assertive background and other consumers wanting a bright, colourful
background. Most of my consumers chose a plain, assertive background, however not all.
Therefore, I felt I needed a balance of change for my background; not too plain, not too eye
catching. I further chose to represent angel arrows within the background in order to represent the
name, Anas Angels and therefore the campaign, as well as induce a balance between plain and
eye catching. I chose to represent these arrows in a grey colour in order to represent gender
neutral colours and ensure that they did not stand out too much, to continue the sharp, serious
tone of the website and therefore this colour did not draw away any attention from other, important
elements.

My target audience is aimed at people both suffering/battling with eating disorders, which
encourages them to obtain help, and people who have suffered, which the website tries to
encourage them to share their story in order to help others who are currently going through the
same situation. The website is also aimed at people without the illness who want to gain further
knowledge as they know someone who they think may have the illness. Target audiences are
defined by many things such as, level of education, personality types and level of incomes. Level of
education can define target audiences in various ways. For example, the more images and less
text which is produced on a website, the likelihood that the target audience is young as young
children as an example, prefer looking at images instead of reading a lot of text. Therefore, the
more text which is produced and the harder it is to understand, the older the target audience. This
can also be established with accessibility. The easier it is to access a website due to conventions,
search mechanisms and more, the younger the target audience as they may not have as much
knowledge due to their age. Personality types also define a target audience due to different levels
of interest. Websites which target personalities usually only gain a niche audience due to a smaller
audience being interested in the subject matter. An example of this would be a website about
horses. For a website about horses, the target audience would be defined through someones
personality of love for horses and therefore, due to their not being specified ages, gender etc. The
website would not be as successful as only niche audiences are interested in that specific element,
in this case, horses. Finally, the level of income can define a target audience through elements
such as donation sections on websites. People who have more money, tend to visit websites which
have donation sections more frequently as they can afford to donate money whereas people who
have less income, may try and avoid these types of websites. Therefore, websites which depend
on the target audiences level of income, will not gain as much of a mass audience as others and
therefore should develop their target audience through gender, age and more in order to increase
their audience.
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Within creating my website, I also had to create a film. I created a film in order to appeal to the
target audience as an eye catching and verisimilitude representation of an eating disorder. I felt that
a film would appeal to a mass audience as well due to the various institutions which could be
involved with this film, such as using YouTube to distribute the film. Therefore, the film would not
only represent a stereotypical and ideological representation of an eating disorder; but it would also
ensure that it fulfilled the target audiences needs and expectations due to the mix of sound and
images being very engaging in order to draw the audience in. The film shows professional qualities
of the charity organisation in order to ensure that the audience feel safe whilst on the website and
feel as though they can confide and become prosumers within the website such as sharing their
stories, commenting etc. Films are a conventional method used within websites to immediately
capture the attention of the audience, which is done by having the film placed on the main page,
near the top of the website, to ensure that it is one of the first elements in which the audience
recognises as they enter the website. This has been found through various research stages in
which I have engaged in, on both charity and non-charity websites, and therefore I felt that this
element would be a great conventional success to induce onto my website to appeal to, not only
my target audience, but a mass audience too. I have also ensured that my video has been placed
on the left hand side at the top of the page as audiences read from left to right and therefore this
will be the first element in which will capture the audiences attention. My film also represents a

narrative storyline as I felt that this will appeal more to my target audience and ensure that the
audience watch the whole of the film to find out the resolution of the storyline.
As another way to attract and address my audience I have featured music. I have featured music
both within the film and also on my page, Stories. The music on the film is called Breathe Me by
Sia. I chose to use this song due to the female voice representing the target audience as well as
the meaning which comes from the song too. Various verses and words in the song can represent
feelings of a girl suffering with an eating disorder. However, the song is generally interpreted to
represent feelings of self harm in general. It also represents asking for help; therefore encouraging
the audience to follow the representation of the song and get help from Anas Angels. This song
felt most appropriate due to its variety of meanings which may have a power to speak to the target
audience ensuring that they get the help which they need, as well as specifying the gender for the
target audience of teenage girls.
Moreover, I also featured a song on my page, Stories, called Skyscraper by Demi Lovato. This
song was released due to the artist recovering from an eating disorder and other self harm
dictations whilst she was a teenager. Therefore, this song fulfils the meaning and purpose of the
website as well as represents the specified target audience. I chose to feature this song on my
page, Stories, due to the song representing recovery, which the stories also induce. This will
make the audience feel as though they can recover from the illness, just like the celebrity as well as
the people within the stories. Both songs will appeal to the target audience due to the lyrical
meanings to represent the charity as well as represent themselves due to age, gender and
meanings to represent their feelings. By having music on the website, it also represents the
website as being modern and current due to the songs being produced only recently and therefore
allows the audience to feel more welcome due to them being of a younger age and therefore the
song appealing to their age group more than others. This therefore links the target audience of the
song with the target audience of the website to ensure that the website is directed at the correct
audience with various elements such as, music to induce this further.
I have ensured that I have used various media platforms on my website in order to represent New
Media Theory through various institutions. I have induced this due to the film in which I have placed
on my website. I have uploaded the film to YouTube in order to use a different institution and allow
more options for the target audience to find it. Within my film, I have also enhanced edited sound
by using, cut, fade out and more. This has allowed me to experiment with a large variety of media
platforms in order to ensure the success of various elements of my website. The film on the
website represents film media; representing the use of various media platforms as stated
previously. This represents to my target audience that my website has been built professionally and
carefully in order to appeal to the audience and use a wide range of new media. This also allows a
mass audience due to the construct in which the website has been built in order to meet
conventions and appeal to a larger audience through the different media platforms such as
YouTube. Using various media platforms such as YouTube, could also market the website in order
to gain a mass audience due to a larger audience using this media platform and therefore coming
across the video. The video can be found on YouTube in various ways such as, related videos,
narrowed down words searched for such as angel, and more. This allows a mass audience to find
the video without meaning to and further visiting the website to find out more information about the

charity campaign. This allows not only me film but also my website to be more successful through
the use of various media platforms.
Throughout my research and planning stages, I looked at a variety of non charity websites which
meet my target audience in order to borrow ideas. An example of a website which I looked at was
www.Topshop.com. Although this is a clothing website, it allowed me to obtain ideas due to the
website being presented to the same target audience as my own for Anas Angels. Conventions I
obtained from looking at this website would be a search bar, large image at beginning/top of the
page, logo/name being in the middle at the top of the website, navigation bar being presented
below the logo/name and many more. All of these conventions, I have used on my website in order
to appeal to my target audience as successfully as the Topshop website. I also found from looking
at non charity websites, that often, the websites name is the logo and therefore they are not
presented in two separate elements. Therefore, when creating my logo, I chose to ensure that my
logo fitted the name of my campaign in order to ensure that this logo was the brand image for my
product and the logo plus the name of the campaign were not represented separately in order to
avoid over-crowding.
The name for my campaign website, I chose after carrying out research on social media such as
Twitter, in order to find out what my target audience had to say about eating disorders. Within this
research, I found that a large sum of my target audience, on social media, refer to anorexia as
Ana. Therefore, I felt that by using this name, it represents my target audience well, in order to
appeal to them further as it will represent that the website can relate to them and their needs. I then
chose a variety of names in which I could use for my charity campaign such as Anas Life, Anas
Angels, ED Life and Ana and Mia. I also found from my research that my target audience refers to
bulimia as Mia, however this is used less frequently as Ana, and therefore I felt that it was mostly
appropriate to focus on Ana as it represents an anagram for anorexia to represent my campaign;
as well as represents my specified target audience distinctively. Therefore I chose to use Anas
Angels as my campaign name due to the various polysemic representations in which angels can
have such as interpretations of death, innocence, vulnerability etc. This represents each individual
who suffers from the illness due to their vulnerability which can be fatal if pursued and therefore
this will ensure that the audience gets the help which they need from my website in order to
recover.
I chose for my logo to use angel wings in order to give off this same polysemic representation in
which the word angel induces. The colour of the wings are a neutral white/light blue colour as
these colours can represent purity and also fatality in order to represent how the audience is now
and how they could be if they do not get the treatment they need. The text which I have used for my
title is classic, thin text in order to represent the body of a person with an eating disorder. I have
also represented both of the Ns in a pink colour in order to represent the target audience in a
stereotypical, conventional way in order to appeal to them further and ensure that they are aware
that the website is aimed at them specifically. My logo and name represented together is appealing
and is located at the top of the website, in the middle in order to ensure that it stands out clearly to
give off the purpose of the website instantaneously. This represents the purpose and target
audience of the website clearly and conventionally through the polysemic and stereotypical
conventions I have induced into my name/logo to appeal and address the target audience.

I have induced the Uses and Gratification theory to represent the ways in which we consume
media to attract/address the audience; in order for the website to appeal to the audience as much
as possible. My website aims to fulfil all of the elements within the uses and gratification theory
including informing, escapism, to identify, to entertain and social interaction. Within creating my
website, I took all of these elements into consideration. The more of these elements in which the
website contains, the more successful it is. I have included informing/education into my website
due to the facts and statistics in which I have included to give the audience more information and to
educate them about the illness. This will appeal to the audience due to the website being a useful
source in which gives the audience the purpose of education to make them feel as though they are
gaining knowledge from the website and it is a useful source in which they can further their
knowledge. I have also ensured that my website represents escapism by using elements such as
film and stories, in order to make the audience feel as though the website allows them to escape
from their regular lives. This will also ensure that the audience, engage further in the website as
they want the feeling of being able to escape reality in a varied verisimilitude institution.
In addition, I have allowed the audience to be able to identify themselves within my website,
presented on my page Stories. Within this page, I have represented real life stories in which the
audience can engage in and find elements of them in other peoples situations. An example of this
would be the way in which people feel and act when the illness empowers them. The audience
could identify their feelings with the persons in the stories in order to represent to them that they
suffer with the illness and need to obtain help. Further, I have ensured that my website is set to
entertain the audience in order for the audience to engage onto my website which is induced
through the use of film, images and music. This also meets the criteria for escapism similarly, as
the audience will engage more in the website due to the entertainment which will allow them to
escape their regular lives and enjoy themselves. Finally, I have included social interaction upon my
website by including buttons to link the website to social networking sites including Facebook,
Twitter and more. I have also included a comments section on my website to allow the audience to
socially interact with each other and become prosumers in order to feel as though they can full
engage in my website and talk to people in the same situations as themselves. This ensures that
the audience feels safe when on my website as well as representing the website in a professional
manor.
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Within constructing my website, I used a digital camera in order to capture all of the images for my
site. I also used my digital camera in order to capture the videos in which I filmed for my video. By
using a digital camera, it allowed me to produce higher quality imagery in order to represent the
development of digital technologies in order to give off more of a verisimilitude outlook on the
imagery due to the high definition and resolution which has now been produced. Throughout the
process of constructing my product, I have developed new skills and broadened my horizons within
the creation process by using new software and various skills such as editing skills, in order to
ensure that my product is the best it can be at my greatest ability.
Before creating my product, I carried out research on various softwares in which I could use in
order to create my product successfully. Within the schools own software, they had a programme
called Webplus. However, after carrying out research on creating websites, I came across

www.wix.com as a website which allows consumers to create their own account and build their own
website. Wix offers templates on their site in order to allow the audience an easier option when
creating their website with conventional layouts being offered to guide the audiences through
building their own website. With Webplus, this is not an option. After looking over both Webplus
and Wix, I found that I was a lot more comfortable using Wix in order to create my product as I felt
it was a lot easier to navigate and create a conventional website with elements in which I could
easily use through the guide of the website, in order to ensure the success of my product. I did not
use a template within Wix as I felt that I wanted my product to represent originality by presenting
my creativity whilst still obeying conventions which further represents my development and
progression as a media student when looking back at my preliminary task.
I also had various options of softwares to use when creating my video. Within school, their own
software offers a programme called Pro C6 which main aim is to create films with various editing
techniques being offered throughout this software. Therefore, I felt that I should try to use this
programme and familiarize myself with it, to ensure that this software would be the best option for
creating my video. However, I am familiar with the application on Apple computers called iMovie.
Therefore, after trying my hardest to find Pro C6 a suitable software to use, I felt that iMovie would
be an easier and more efficient option to use for my video due to me already being familiar with the
application which represented that my video would be more successful due to the professional
quality in which I could induce through previous knowledge.
Within my video, I had to take into consideration various conventional elements of a video including
lighting, editing, camera shots, sound and mise en scene. Firstly, I took into consideration all of the
lighting in which I would induce onto my film in order to represent emotions. For example, the more
lighting there is, the happier the person is represented; the less lighting there is, the sadder the
person is represented. However, I subverted these stereotypical interpretations of lighting and
chose to induce lighting in various ways. The aim of my video is to represent my actress as a sad,
misunderstood individual who suffers from an eating disorder and needs help from my charity
campaign. Therefore, I felt that dark lighting would be more suitable in order to represent the girls
sad emotions. Moreover, I felt whilst filming my video, that lighting needed to be induced.
Therefore, I felt that the lighting in which I induced into my film, for example within extreme close up
shots; could represent purity and vulnerability in the actress. It would also represent an angelic
format due to the vulnerability which would therefore fit in with my charity campaign, Anas Angels.
On the other hand, I still felt that these lighting effects were not foreseen correctly due to the warm
colours within the shots which did not portray these emotions how I would have liked. Therefore, I
chose to edit my film shots to create a black and white overlay to represent sad emotions and
lighting to be presented more specific through the use of shadows and half light. I also induced
transitions between the various cuts of shots such as fade to black in order to represent the video
as more of a verisimilitude connotation of the emotions and messages in which each shot aims to
portray. I have also ensured that each shot length varies in order to represent the importance of
various shots. For example, the shot which shows a bowl of food is the shortest shot as I felt that
this shot was of little importance in comparison to others. The shots which contain my actress often
linger longer on important elements such as the wide shot of her collarbones, in order to represent
the fatality and more important shots to represent eating disorders. Conventionally, shots are about

2-3 seconds long which I have aimed to induce in most of my camera shots however I have varied
these lengths in order to position the audience to sympathies with the actress.
I have also induced the audience positioning through the use of varied camera shots. For example,
I have used a large variety of close-ups and extreme close-ups in order to create empathy for the
audience and portray the varied sad emotions of the actress within these shots. An example of this
is an extreme close-up of the actresses tear filled eyes to represent her sadness. I also used a
range of high angle shots in order for the actress to be represented as small and of little
importance, representing that her eating disorder is bigger than her and is taking over her life,
making her feel so insignificant. I have also used camera movements such as zoom in. Zoom in
represents her eating disorder getting bigger and more uncontrollable as it represents that it keeps
taking over her more and more each day. I have also ensured that every camera shot, angle and
movement is induced purposely for a reason to position the audience to feel sympathy for girls who
suffer with eating disorder and therefore ensure that they read further on my charity campaign
website in order to make it successful. I have also ensured that every camera placement is in
sequence with the non-diegetic sound which I have used in the video.
By having sound within my video, I have ensured that the sound is appropriate and meets the
theme of a charity campaign for eating disorders after carrying out research about music which
represents self harm and therefore eating disorders, coming across Sias song Breathe Me which I
was familiar with due to its popularity which therefore represents my target audience well. I chose
to use music as sound for my video as it is a modern, non-diegetic and professional mechanism to
represent my video of a professional, high quality and also represents a more surreal product as
most charity campaign videos contain dialogue and therefore I felt that the use of sound bridge
through music would be more appropriate in fulfilling this stylistic form and representing the
continuity of the girls emotions. This song also makes the video easy to understand due to the
meaning behind the song and the denotation which the song possesses of the illness.
Finally, within the mise en scene, I have included props such as weighing scales and a bowl to
represent food as these are ideological elements which interpret dieting and therefore an eating
disorder. These props make the video easy to understand for the audience as they represent the
meaning accordingly and efficiently. I have also used two different costumes within the mise en
scene for my actress to represent a variety of different weights. For example, I have placed her in a
large, baggy jumper when she is upset in various shots, as it represents that she is hiding her
weight behind the baggy jumper and feels vulnerable. However, when she is looking at herself in
the mirror in an over the should shot, I have ensured that she wears a tight fitted top to represent
her real weight and represent how she is looking at this weight and feeling dissatisfied. This also
represents to the audience what her weight is truly like so the audience is positioned to feel
empathy for the actress as they will see her struggle which to the audience, is not necessary due to
her healthy weight.
7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the
progression from it to the full product?
Within my progression from the preliminary task to my full product, I feel that I have learnt a lot of
important elements which come with the production of a media product. Firstly, I have learnt that

spacing is a very important feature which needs to be considered in mass media products,
including websites. Within my preliminary task, I did not contain as many features as I have in my
full product and the spaces within the preliminary website were not filled in order to make it look
quite as professional. When researching various websites for my products, I realised that spacing
and placement is very important in order to engage the audience. An example of this is the way in
which I have placed my video on the left hand side, at the top of the website, largely, in order to
immediately allow it to capture the audiences attention and therefore engage them in the website
as people read from left to right and therefore it is one of the first things which they see. Another
example would be the placement of my logo. My logo has been placed specifically in the middle,
right at the top of the website in order for consumers to immediately establish the website through
the use of the brand image. Through the use of this spacing and placement, I have considered
every aspect of every element placed on my product in order to appeal to my target audience and
ensure that every element is addressed and successful; which I did not take into consideration
within my preliminary task.
I have also learnt more about conventions of a website. Within my preliminary task I knew basic
conventions such as the navigation bar regularly being placed at the top of the page, just under the
logo/title. However, I have learnt more about conventions through the use of text, images,
positioning and more. As previously mentioned, positioning is vital in order to engage the audience
through the most important elements being placed at the top. Positioning is also conventional, for
example, conventionally, if a website has a video feature, it is regularly placed at the top, on the
main page. This is to immediately attract the audiences attention. Whereas if the video is placed
lower down, it seems as though it is of less importance and therefore the audience would not
engage with it as thoroughly. If a website was to subvert these conventions, then the website would
be harder to understand and would not appeal as much to the audience. Text and images are a
main convention of a website as the audience expect to see text in order to gain knowledge of the
website and expect to see images as an entertainment mechanism. Therefore, within my website,
throughout looking at other websites for research and inspiration, I have presented a conventional
website as I feel this will appeal to a mass audience and represents the website to be of more of a
professional standard due to conventions being used appropriately.
Within my progression to my full product, I have studied the feminist media theory and also Propps
narrative theory. By looking at the feminist media theory, it has allowed me to represent people, in
this case people suffering with eating disorders, in a stereotypical form in order to make it easy for
the audience to understand. For example, the stereotype for people with eating disorders are
regularly skinny, bone-showing females. I have used this stereotype through the use of images and
film within my product as this ensures that my website is easy to understand in order for the
audience to stay engaged and ensures that the website is more appealing to fulfil their needs. This
also establishes the purpose of the website in a verisimilitude approach.
Moreover, Propps narrative theory also represents stereotypes however with a more exemplified
approach. Propps represents the hero, the villain, the donor, the messenger, the false hero, the
helper, the princess and the princesses father, as various stereotypical people, usually within a film.
Although Propps theory is usually interpreted within film, it can also be interpreted in a variety of
media products; websites are an example. I have tried to ensure that I have used as many of these
representations as possible within my product to ensure that my website is easier to understand to

appeal to the audience. This represents the way in which the audience is dumbed down by the
media industry however is still used due to it being easy to follow as it represents the way in which
the audience has been positioned. An example of the way in which Propps narrative theory has
been used within my media product is the hero. The hero stereotype is represented as the actual
campaign Anas Angels, as the campaign helps, the villain (the eating disorder), to disappear
from peoples lives. This shows the way in which I have induced media theory into my product,
which I had not used previously within my preliminary task due to not having as much knowledge of
various theories in order to make media products successful.
In my media product, I have ensured that my use of language represents the brand image of my
product. The brand image for my charity campaign, represents recovery and therefore I induced
language used on my site to be positive and hopeful in order to present the positivity of recovery
within the brand image. I have also induced synthetic sisterhood into the use of language of my
product, in order to represent the target audience of females in a caring, sisterly, tone; which
gives off the brand image representation that Anas Angels is here to help and care about the
audiences recovery. This link between the language and brand image allows the website to be
more recognisable due to everything being relative and linked, therefore does not create confusion
for the audience as it is all relative to the same topic. This can also represent an advertisement
mechanism for the charity campaign as the brand image is the image in which is recognisable to a
mass audience and therefore the more elements which link to the brand image, the more
successful it will be.
Looking back at my preliminary task, I did not take in as much consideration of the mise en scene
of the product. This can also link in with spacing as I mentioned previously; after researching
websites I have realised how important the spacing and positioning of each element is. However,
the mise en scene represents more of what the elements actually are, which go into the spacing. I
felt from my preliminary task, the actual elements within the mise en scene were not interactive or
entertaining; which did not represent the preliminary website to a professional standard. Therefore,
within my final product, I ensured that my website was interactive in order to engage the audience
as the mise en scene was continuously exciting and varied content. For example, I included an
interactive map within my home page in order to show where Anas Angels help facility was. I
chose to use this after researching charity websites, including www.b-eat.co.uk, and finding that
maps were in fact a conventional, charity website element to represent the placement of the
charity. Therefore, I felt that this would not only be interactive and conventional, but also allows the
audience to get a sense of establishment for the website as well as represent the professional
standard; showing that the facility is real, as the internet is not always trustworthy. I ensured that I
could induced as many elements into the mise en scene as possible in order to represent the
professional quality to ensure the success of the product.
Creating my preliminary website, I had generalised knowledge of the uses and gratification theory;
however, I have now learnt more about the ways in which I can make them all happen whilst
creating my final product. The more elements of the uses and gratifications theory which the
website contains, the more successful it is and within my final product, I have induced all of the
elements within the uses and gratification theory, as listed earlier, and therefore I feel that if my
website was to become active, it would be a very successful website.

Finally, after gaining more knowledge of the media industry, I have also gained further knowledge
of the people who shape meaning within media products. This links with new media theory as due
to new media, the audience have a voice and are able to become prosumers within the industry in
order to ensure that they get their needs and expectations fulfilled. Due to new media theory, I have
carried out a lot of market research including two focus groups and a questionnaire, to ensure that
my website is successful to the most important people; the audience. The audience are the
consumers of my product and therefore, the product needs to be completely appealing to them as
they are the ones who shape meaning. Therefore, by carrying out my market research, I have
gained all of the information I need from the correct target audience to ensure that my website is
successfully appealing to the ones who shape the meaning as without the audience, the product
would not have a purpose. Within my preliminary task, I had not taken this as far into consideration.
I feel that my preliminary task was set to fulfil my needs and expectations more than it was created
to fulfil the target audiences needs and expectations, which is of great importance. I feel that due to
my development and recognition of this, my final product has been a great success. I am pleased
with the final outcome and I feel that I have broadened my horizons positively to ensure that my
media product is of suitable expectancy within the industry.