Academic Theories

In the research of the 3 main Academic Theories, I have chosen to look into;

• Web 2.0 - Tim O' Reilly

• Media Studies 2.0- David Gauntlet

• Postmodernism

The three academic theories fit in well with the research and planning of my campaign website and have a huge effect as to how it will come across to the target audience and also marketing it on the internet.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0- Tim O’ Reilly

The theory of Web 2.0 is that there is a fine line between the producer and the consumer. It shows that the consumer can make their own website very easily and putting field specific web designers into jeopardy by websites such as Blogger etc who help the consumer to make their own blog by using templates and much more to make it easy to make a professional looking website and/or blog.

Core competencies of Web 2.0 Companies:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard to recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them.
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leverageing the long tail through customer self-service.
  
• Software above the level of single device
  
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models and business models.
  

Some of the above information is secondary research that I found on the internet from www.oreilly.com


Postmodernism

Postmodernism

Modernism started in the 1800’s and has been going on ever since; therefore post modernism comes after modernism and is still happening.

The theory of postmodernism is about the opposing hierarchy, which says that nothing is better than the other and everything is equal.

Another point of the theory of postmodernism is recycling culture; this is where fashions from the past are brought back and put together to make an original idea. Postmodernism is also a modern interpretation of style that is characterized by eclecticism, collage and irony. This means that a mix of different elements, genres and influences is used.

I will use ideas and influences from a mix of different websites to make my website more original. Therefore if I use postmodernism theory I will be using it to influence the making of my website.

Even though I’m not a fantastic web designer, postmodernists will follow the theory and think that it is as equal quality to a website made by a professional web designer.

Case Study 3

Cefn Croes

The Cefn Croes campaign organisation looks at the future of the most powerful wind farm in Wales.

• The producers of the campaign are a small group of people who live in the Cefn Cross area who do not want the wind farm in the rural area for several reasons.
  

• The language of the website is informal but very informative by putting across the point of the campaign by giving lots of facts and very few opinions.

• The layout of the homepage is very simple with lack of colour and also easy to navigate around the website by using a navigation bar and also hyperlinks to each page at the bottom.
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Case Study 2

Global Campain For Education

The global campaign for education supports people’s rights to be educated regardless as to where they live.

• The language used is formal to inform the reader about what the campaign is about and persuade them to get involved.

• The layout of the homepage is colourful text colour, pictures and navigation bar on a plain background.

• This specific campaign uses twitter and a newsletter as distribution to appeal to a wider target audience and keep people in the loop who want more information on the campaign.

• The campaign uses advertising also through twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flikr because they are worldwide social networking website and carry large numbers of people who might be interested in supporting the campaign if they knew more about it.

Case Studies

I am doing my case studies on three different campaign websites. As previously mentioned, I will be studying campaigns that from a personal point of view, I think are important, popular but also controversial all at the same time. The campaigns I have chosen are: WWF, Education and University.

WWF

The WWF is a campaign organisation that supports the extinction of rare animals that we usually only see in cartoons.

• The producer of the WWF campaign is the Chief Executive, David Nussbaum.
  

• The language is formal but doesnt use illegiable text which is understood and appealed by all ages.
  

• The layout of the homepage of this website is bright and colourful which attracts all ages of people.

• Distribution of the campaign is only through Twitter so it can be known worldwide.

• WWF use TV advertising to appeal to the correct target audience, but this can be expensive for small businesses.