https://japclarke11.wixsite.com/movies
For my A Level coursework NEA, I intend to create a homepage and three further pages of a film news and review site. The demographic for my media product will be both males and females in their 20s who have an enthusiastic interest in both film and film analysis.
My audience could be described as left-leaning, opinionated, and free-spirited. Emanuel H. Demby’s psychographic theory applies here, as my target audience is generally laid back with strong opinions on things relating to pop culture. The opinionated nature of my articles and their focus on gender, race, and sex will appeal to this type of demographic due to the interests of young people in the modern era. This is where my articles will link to Judith Butler’s gender theory, exploring how gender is constructed in films, and the way gender representation has changed over time.
My website will act as an opinion leader for movies using Lazarfeld’s two-step flow theory to promote their movie. Readers of my website will be more likely to watch certain movies if I have rated them highly in my reviews, because my website acts as an opinion leader for those readers. In terms of promoting my website, I will be using social media, particularly Instagram, to try and build an audience. My 8 Instagram posts will contain a link to my website, so my followers on Instagram have easy access to my reviews.
The style of my website is also incredibly important. My homepage will be aesthetically pleasing, with a dark, clean colour scheme. I will have a dark red banner stretching across the top of my website, and the background beneath it will fade slowly downwards from red to black. In the banner, I will have my website logo and name in the top left, a search bar in the middle, and my page names in the top right. My style will be bold and colourful, with a retro aesthetic. My logo is 50s star Marilyn Monroe, and the background of my banner is many icons from the 90s. Below this banner, I will have my posts where I go in-detail talking about some movies I’ve been watching. Under this, I will have a section called ‘movies I can’t stop watching’ where I will do short reviews on some of my favourite movies.
I plan to also have a page called ‘My Movie Diary’ (influenced by formats such as Letterboxd) where I log all the movies I’ve watched each month. I also include a rating out of 5 stars. Logging movies in this way gives people a greater understanding of my movie taste and increases interest among Letterboxd users who come across my website.
Finally, I will have an ‘about’ page where I explain a little bit about myself, and I will have a contact page, in case anyone needs to contact me.
My articles will review some classic movies, and talking specifically about their views on gender, race, and sexuality. This is where I am going to be further implementing feminist critical thinking, talking about feminist theories such as Laura Mulvey’s ‘Male Gaze’ theory. This aspect of my articles will likely appeal to female readers, as well as male readers, who have strong left-leaning views.
In terms of representation, I will try to talk about some lesser-known indie movies as well as big-budget mainstream movies. This will appeal to a wide range of audiences whilst also giving balanced representation. Movies which have interesting and progressive things to say about gender, race, or sex are also more likely to have articles written on them.