Research Project - Artefact 4 Evaluation

For my fourth artefact, I set up a series focus groups in the well-known school called the Nottingham Academy, with the time I had there as part of my PGCE work experience. The aim of this artefact was to see whether students were being made aware about the issue of piracy at school and the role teachers had in this.
It presented a class of twenty-two sixth form students with three popular anti-piracy adverts by to watch and followed by them completing a short questionnaire with feedback. They were also shown an anti-piracy advert I produced as part of this. From the class, 82% of students had never seen these piracy warning videos before.
Most students in the class were aware of what online piracy was and 91% of them admitted to downloading content without paying for it. When the students were asked whether these videos will make them change their minds and stop them from downloading illegally in the future, 21 out of the 22 students said it would not.
These videos were then presented to a series of teachers. I specifically picked teachers that could relate online piracy to their subject of teaching. I showed the videos to a head of Media Studies, a Media Studies teacher, and two heads of ICT for year eight and eleven. When asked whether the issue of piracy is in any way made aware to their students in their subject of teaching, 100% of the teachers answered no.
This is a clear indication that more needs to be done in schools to make children aware about the issue of online piracy, which may help in tackling the issue in some way. My next artefact will interview a film industry expert and see what measures they have in place to tackle this issue.

Research Project - Artefact 4 Ideas

I have been on my PGCE work placement for 2 weeks now, and I have been given the chance the teach part of the lesson in the ICT class. I was told I could do anything of my choice as a 'task' for the class next week. This got me thinking and it provided me with an ideal chance to get a really good strong next artifact. The questions that arose to me was: What is being told to children at school about the issue of online piracy? I have decided to set up a series of focus groups with students in which I will show three popular anti-piracy adverts. This will follow by the class completing a question with their feedback. This will determine what they know about the issue and what affect, if any, these anti-piracy adverts have on them.

I will do this separately for a teachers focus group in which the same procedure will be carried out, however with a different set of questions. This will hopefully show what is being taught, if anything, in schools about online piracy. I have planned the focus group for the teachers by letting the relevant teachers know to be present e.g. Head of ICT, and media teachers.

Client Project - St. Mary's Church Video

This is my first edit of the 2-minute video for St. Mary's Church. I showed this today at my tutorial and got some good feedback from my tutor. The feedback included things like re-taking some shots that are over exposed, include interior shots of the church, include images which could include historical images of the church, and lastly include a lot more still shots as there is too much movement e.g. panning, tilting, zooming etc. I will contact Wendy Piece again and schedule a day next week to film these extra shots.

Research Project - Artefact 3 Evaluation

Artefact 3 followed from the results received from the previous artefact and highlights the issue brought forward about time-shifting in US and UK television programming. It presented users with a task about the availability of programmes online. Two users took part in this experiment; one who watches online television regularly and one who doesn’t.
As the previous artefact made clear, TV shows are aired in the US many weeks in advance and are then available for viewers online to see before being aired in their own country. The task required the two users to go online after the latest episode of a TV show called 90210 was aired in the US, and see how long it would take them to locate it online after its broadcast.
Users were given details of the task in hand and the TV programme. The episode they were required to find was episode 15 from season 3 called ‘Revenge with the Nerd’, which aired on the 14th February 2011 at 9.00pm US time for one hour.
User one, who was a regular online programme watcher, located the episodes availability online in a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes after being broadcast in the US. User two, who didn’t watch television online, located the episode by the early following morning and took 11 hours.
Taking into account that this specific episode was a whole six weeks ahead in programming than the UK, it shows that it is easy even for the people that have no knowledge of online programming to watch these episodes illegally if they wanted.
My next artefact will try tackling this issue and see what children are being told about the issue of online piracy in schools. For this, I will visit the Nottingham Academy and set up a series of focus groups.

Research Project - Artefact 3

I have now completed my third artifact. I gave both users 90210 – Season 3 Episode 15 – Revenge with the Nerd to locate which was aired in the US on 14/02/2011 @ 9.00pm (1 hour run time).

The user who used online TV a lot managed to locate the programme in a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes. The user who did'nt use online TV located the file the following morning takinf only just 11 hours. I think these results show how quickly ans easily it is to find illegal content that can in effect change the viewing figures for shows in the UK dramatically.

Sound Booth 2 : Voice-over Recording

Today I recorded my own voice using the mic and edited with Adobe SoundBooth. I will use this as a draft to over the edit which I will do of the St. Marys clip over the weekends. This is because Laura (our voice-over artist) only has this coming Tuesday off work to come in and record. I will use my own voice for now to get a rough draft so that I can show this in my tutorial and get feedback from my tutor.

Research Project - Problem

For my third artifact, I initially had the idea to look into how easy it is to download content from the internet. This followed up from the results gained from the diary in the previous artifact about time-shifting in TV in the UK and US. This artifact would include two users; one a regular online TV consumer and one that isn't and get both to download a video online after broadcast in the US to see ho quick they can get it.

However, after talking to my tutor Danny, I realised that I could not get my participants to do this as it would not comply with ethics for my research. Therefore, after several discussions I decided to continue the same experiment, but only having the users 'locate' the certain video file online rather than download. I think this will work well and I have got two people lined up to do this experiment.

Research Project - Evaluation 2

This is the evaluation for the 2-week diary of television viewing habits I collected for two students:


For my second artefact I collected a two-week television diary from two students; one was 20 years of age and the other 30. I have followed this up from results on my questionnaire that showed me that most television is consumed by students; therefore
I decided to get a wider age range to compare.

These results show that the younger student watched a huge amount of pirated/illegal content online whereas the more mature students didn’t consume any content online. I believe this may be due to young people, especially students, being more computer-active and having knowledge of software allowing them to download content for free.

The 20 year old student watched thirteen programmes online that were not yet aired in the UK, in the two-week period. These included American TV series, which were ahead of schedule by as much as 6 weeks. For example, the weekly show 90210 in the UK is currently on Series 3, Episode 9. However, the student had already watched up to Episode 15 online. I believe this shows a huge problem with the programme time-shift between the UK and US and the impact this could have on viewing figures.

The 30-year old student spent a lot less time watching programmes compared to the younger student. The 30-year old student also tied themselves to the main free channels which where BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3, and Channel 4. The times they watched their programmes were either afternoon or evening, whereas the younger student had a wider mix of timings for their viewing.

The schedule for the 20-year old student was more fixed as they watched the same programmes daily on the allocated times, both online and offline. For example, Eastenders was watched every day and if it was missed; online catch up services were used.

Research Project - Artefact 2

For my second artifact I have collected a two-week diary from two students, one ages 20 and the other 30 to get a wider student age range following from my questionnaire.

Here is an image of the tables showing the results:
(sorry about the quality, couldn't get a table into here - click image to view bigger)


Diary of the 20-year old student:
























Diary of the 30-year old student:

Sound Booth : Voice-over Test

I decided it would be beneficial to book out a sound-booth and make sure I knew how to use the mic and software to record and edit sound before I call in Laura to record the voice-over.

Client Update

This is the title sequence that will be presented to the user upon initially viewing the Lace Market interactive tour. It is still really a rough draft as it needs to be improved further.

Client Project - Filming day Three

Today I filmed inside The Adams College and got some good interior shots. I filmed on floors one, two and three. Even though I only need a few shots to show the interior I collected quite a bit of shots. I got shots of the fashion rooms, film production studio, the media department and many others. Again, I used the Nikon D200 for higher quality of images as some may be used to go into the final product. Here are pictures from the today:

Research Project - Evaluation 1

Here is the evaluation for the results of my questionnaire. I got results from 50 people altogether:


Artefact one presented respondents with a total of eighteen questions to gain an insight into their viewing habits. The answers ranged from simple yes or no to detailed answers. I collected fifty responses over a period of a few weeks which gives me a good basis for my next artefact.

60% of people taking part in the survey were female. 92% were between the ages of 18 and 25, 88% were students.

58% watched most video content over the internet narrowly beating television’s 40%, with 43 out of 50 respondents accessing a high-speed internet service at home. 80% skip adverts when watching content online.

When asked ‘How much time do you spend on the internet daily’, 34% said, on average 3-4 hours. However, 92% of people used this time to view video content such as live television, catch up services, films, or television shows.

66% of people were aware that television programmes which are aired in the US before the UK, are available on the internet illegally.

Most respondents stated that the two main reasons they prefer online viewing were because the catch up services are free and they can be viewed at a convenient time. The least popular reason was better quality of content.

The respondents were then asked to rate the website layouts of four online television providers (YouTube, 4Od, BBC iPlayer and ITV Player) on a scale of 1 to 5. The highest rated was BBC iPlayer followed by YouTube, 40d, then ITV Player.

Lastly, the biggest problem users have with online video services is buffering speeds and the time lag between television broadcast and its online availability.

Following up from this, my next artefact focuses on two individuals specific television consumption. Two respondents of different ages will collect a two-week television diary for me to analyse.