Rationale.

Networked Media Production – Project A Question 2: A Rationale...

R18+ Australia

I chose to make a reference page or site to present the current affairs topic of R18+ video games in Australia. I felt that this was a good opportunity to present a topic that is very relevant to myself (being an avid gamer), but also find out more information about the topic and properly inform other people.

The reason why I created a website is that most people that would be interested in this topic are very computer literate, they would be looking on the internet for information about this topic and that I felt a webpage was the best vehicle to reach my target market.

I initially started looking at other websites not only for information, but layout styles, how up to date they were, general content, colour scheme and basically how easy they are to navigate. In my searches I found a lot of content that was more or less people ranting about why there isn’t an R18+ classification for video games, and news articles about games that have recently been banned. Although it wasn’t particularly hard to find good informing webpage’s about the topic, it did actually require you to go past page 1 in a Google search. I eventually did find multiple pages that ranged from helpful and informing to average to poor. But I will concentrate on three specific websites:

· http://everyoneplays.org.au/ A website set up by retailer Game which is a very informing website, easy to navigate and generally aesthetically pleasing. It contains a brief but informative ‘about’ section and is generally geared towards encouraging people to sign a petition to support the proposed R18+ classification.

· http://www.r18games.com.au/ This is the website where I spent a lot of my time reading and gathering information. It contains more in depth information about the topic and was fairly easy to navigate. It has very up to date news, the colour scheme works well. Once again this website is less about reporting and more subjective. Main criticism is that the pages are overfilled with text.

· http://www.r18gamesaustralia.com/ This website is a blog that has been created in wordpress. It mostly contains news updates and a very brief ‘about’ section that isn’t particularly informing. The layout of the site is very ‘bloggy’ and the navigation bar was a bit hard to find. This website is very one sided, it almost felt like the creator was trying to recruit followers for a cause. Felt like a bit of a propaganda campaign.

When looking at these websites I thought that they were for the most part really good. They had a simple but effective layout, easy to read, easy to navigate, very aesthetically pleasing and the colour scheme didn’t conflict. Although most of these attributes were shared across the board, there was another attribute that these websites had in common. Subjectivity. They were all less about informing, and more about a call to arms via signing a petition. So I felt the need to produce an informing website that wasn’t biased and contained useful information about Australia’s current situation regarding R18+ video games, what had been banned in the past, recent news updates, how someone could help and if we do release R18+ rated video games, how we will stop underage gamers from getting their hands on these games.

So I set out to create a reference page/site. I chose to do a webpage format not dissimilar to that found on the http://everyoneplays.org.au/ and http://www.r18games.com.au/ websites. Their layouts worked really well and I wanted to incorporate that into my site. The only main modification I made from those layouts was to have a navigation bar on the top left hand side of the page, were it was obvious and couldn’t be lost. But the main thing I wanted which none of the other websites had was unbiased content. I wanted to inform rather than argue one side of an argument.

I made the site using Dreamweaver, I have used it before and it was really great being able to modify code and play with the design side of things. The only downside was that for some reason it kept on throwing the frames out of position, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to stay still. I thought that I networked to other media quite well; I included websites as a source of news and recent developments, and also a youtube video from the ABC which would help the viewer build their own picture and view on this subject.

philosophy?

this weeks lecture was interesting, it had a lot of philosophy stuff in it, and to be honest, it was kinda interesting. I have never ever done any philosophy stuff before, but since coming to uni, it seems to be apart of most subjects i'm doing. This isn't a bad thing, but like i said i have never done any of this stuff before, and I never thought i would see myself saying that philosophy is interesting.

Stop... HAMMERTIME!

What do you do when there is no lecture? Review...EVERYTHING!
HTML and CSS i understand, but do not like.
The governments 'clean-feed' or internet censorship, I understand, but do not like. Although i can see arguments from either side making sense, we still shouldn't ban content on the internet. Even though content will be blocked, the content will still be easy to access using the right tool/nerd. And to be honest, the people that are trying to access the kiddy porn are the smart nerds that know how to get around these things. So its a waste of money. I think that they should still create this censorship, but have it available as a download that you can install on your computer, so all the paranoid parents that are stuck in this nanny state can still protect their children from the outside world.

And moving on now.

Privacy is still important, but it depends on how much privacy the individual wants. If they don't care (like i don't) then post whatever, upload whatever. But if you are very privacy conscious person, then i suggest the internet is not for you. Its hard thesedays to sign up to something without providing some sort of personal details.

API's, again, understand, but do not like.

Assignment 1, dreamweaver conquered, assignment 50% complete

So at the end of the day, I guess there is a big DO NOT WANT attachted to all of this.

Counter-Strike: Source

To be honest, each time I see 'css' or hear some one say 'css' inside my head i'm going, "OMG I FUCKING LOVE COUNTER-STRIKE". Even though i know they are talking about 'cascading style sheets', it must've been a case of hearing what i wanted to hear. There was so much talk of css that I auctually went home, reinstalled, counter-strike, waited 2.3 hours for the latest update, then killed some n00bs. But on a more serious note, i'm sick of/hate html and css code writing. Yes I understand it (the basics at least) but have no interest in it whatsoever. I've probs said this before, but I prefer the aesthetic side of things. Web page design, not code. And it doesn't help when for some people, the learning curve is similar to that of EVE Online...

So, HTML eh?

So HTML eh? I might have to pass on this one. I never really enjoyed doing any code whatsoever. Whether it be Javascript, creating webpages (via html), games, visual basic etc etc. It was kinda cool seeing the end product, but the whole process of writing the script, seeing if it works, trying to find the thing which is wrong, and eventually seeing that you missed a '<' was basically enough reason to commit suicide. I'm more into the multimedia side of things, graphic design, photoshop, photography, filming, editing and so on. I understand html, and what is going on, but at the end of the day it doesn't really float my boat.

/rant

The internet is awesome.

As of today, I have had 2 lectures in this unit. The first one, more of an introduction to the unit, was a good start of what to expect and how things are going to work. It also included a brief rundown of how the internet works, how data is sent via packets, bigger the bandwidth the better etc etc. To be honest, none of that stuff was really new to me. But it is good to have a refresh. But moving onto the 2nd lecture, now that was very interesting. It addressed blogs, and how to use them, their role and popularity in the 21st century.* One of today's noteworthy quotes from the lecture is " (the internet is the) easiest, cheapest and fastest publishing tool ever invented". I never really thought about it until now, but it is 100% correct. As our lecturer stated, "In order to get from a-e, you had to go through b,c, and d. But the internet cuts all that out." You no longer need to apply to for publishing, cover the inital costs, have the item printed, then released (you still would if you wanted to get something published in a hard copy) but getting ideas, and a point of view to an audience is as simple as going to website, signing up on website, writing idea, post. 5 min of effort compared to weeks. Pretty easy huh? So i guess on a whole, the internet makes things a lot easier to access. Movies you can download, music and videos you can view on youtube, directions from getting from A to B are on google.maps and you can even shop for items and buy things without leaving the comfort of your own home. So i guess our society now heavily relies on computers and the internet in order to communicate, and get things done. And how else would I be able to watch the amazingness that is Trent from Punchy without youtube?

But seriously the internet is awesome and we would be screwed without it.

Also, here is my delicious:
http://clooasauras.blogspot.com/

*On a side note, Band of Brothers just started on TV, and if this blog now slips into that average to poor catagory, sorry, but seriously, band of brothers, I think you will understand.

First.

I have an assignment coming up, Production Project A- 25%. For this piece of assessment I am either to Curate an online exhibition in any medium: photography, music, video, writing, architecture something you're interested in and knowledgeable about. Consider how your subject can be best made available to the viewer. Or, research a current-affairs topic and build a reference page or site. Pretty keen on going with the create a reference page or site. I have done a few of these before and think it would turn out at least average to decent. As oppose to 'Curate an online exhibition in any medium' which will turn out average to poor. I have been contemplating what current affairs topic I should base this on. Global warming? The proposed internet censorship to protect our children? The war in Iraq? Why Australia doesn't have an R18+ rating for video games? I guess the posibilities are endless. But no matter what I do end up chosing, I need to resharpen my Dreamwaver skillz (yes, I am that cool).