REFLECTING

With the small scale project completed I am now able to look back and reflect. My partner and I have created The Case of Maria, an interactive non fiction platform that explores the unsolved abduction and murder of Maria Ridulph. While The Case of Maria is not what we initially thought we would create, I still believe that we have created a project relevant to our initial intent regardless.

The Case of Maria was produced with the intent of focusing on two major characteristics of many online screen productions- hyperlink driven and cross platform. These qualities guided the process of creating the project. The Case of Maria is a centralised platform that incorporates various media pieces including video, photographs, news articles and hyperlinks to Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

The main challenge we encountered was creating an interactive cross platform project that engaged with audiences enough to motivate them to click the hyperlinks and essentially cross platforms. When faced with the issue of modularity, we realised that having separate media products on separate platforms with hyperlinks between them would be disengaging. Therefore, we decided to centralise all fragments of the project onto one centralised platform. The major aspect of the project is the videos, broken into two chapters, which chronologically outline the case of Maria Ridulph. The videos are uploaded onto YouTube, and provide hyperlinks back to the major platform. Moreover, we also provided hyperlinks to a Maria Ridulph Facebook group and the #mariaridulph feed on Instagram.

Creating the project allowed me to focus on the overriding characteristic of interactivity, as both the qualities of cross platform and hyperlink driven are innately interactive. Relative to the difficulties of incorporating the cross platform characteristic, we also struggled to generate audience interaction. Creating this project has allowed me to understand content creation with the intention of generating audience interaction. As I reflected on in my third development post, I have never thought about audience interaction from the perspective of the producer. While it is relatively simple to create numerous media artefacts on various platforms, generating audience interaction is actually relatively difficult. In the end we decided to utilise not only structure but content to attempt to generate audience interaction. At the end of the second video we asked the question ‘Who do you believe is the perpetrator?’ and also included a poll on the website with the same question. The intent behind this was to urge the audience to click on the hyperlinks and obtain a better understanding of the case so as to generate an opinion on the case and answer the question.

Throughout the process of developing the idea for The Case of Maria and also producing it I found myself grappling with the concept of linearity, as I explored in my fourth development post. While my partner and I were sure that the overall project would be non-linear due to its interactive components, I was more focussed on how we would portray the case in video form. The intention for the videos was to give an outline of the overall case. The videos were intended to be supplemented with the other forms of media and hyperlinks. Initially, I wasn’t sure if I wanted the videos to be linear and I explored ways in which to present the narrative in a non-linear manner. However, for the purpose of audience comprehension I believed it would be more effective in linear form. I would, however, like to further explore creating non linear work in an interactive situation.

While I believe that what we have created is an example of an interactive media project, I would like to create something much more immersive and consequentially more interactive. The question I have about the changing landscape of new media is, is this just the start of audience interaction or can it be taken to another level? How far will the ever evolving technology take interaction? Is it possible for lines between content producer and audience to be blurred even further?

 

 

 

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