Category: BCM206

My Digital Artefact

Background

In order to outline what ‘The Femme Edit’ entails, it’s vital that we break down what it is, the social utility and the iteration process through the lens of Marshall McLuhan’s ideology in ‘The Medium is the Message’. The Femme Edition is an online website made for women, by women. It is built with ideas surrounding literature, travel and university and was made with the intent of providing young women (aged 16-25) with a safe, fast, inexpensive and simple online space to chat, discuss and debate all things femme related without feeling judged in any way.

I wanted to make this website because women only appear in a quarter of television, radio, and print news (Rattan, 2019). My website will benefit women because there is a severe lack of representation for women online. In a 2015 report, women made up a mere 19% of experts featured in news stories and 37% of reporters telling stories globally. The website was built utilising the platform ‘Wix’ and was promoted through the likes of Twitter, WordPress and Discord.

The progress of my DA involved several iteration processes outlined in both my Pitch and Beta. For example, one feedback loop that I received through twitter was that audiences didn’t feel attracted to my online presence and weren’t interacting enough. In order to fix this, I narrowed my audience to young women and started producing content based on my feedback and research about the misrepresentation of women in the media. Below there are extracts and examples taken from primary and secondary research as well as my Beta process.Take a look at my Beta video below to see my exact process broken down.

Data Comparisons

I really focused in on what my audience wanted. As you can see above, I received a comment asking for more regular posts so I introduced the book of the month posts!

The Medium Is The Message

A major part of my process was incorporating secondary research regarding inspiration from other similar blogs and ideas but utilising them in a unique way to suit my artefact. I researched colour palettes and literature blogs, as shown below.

Marshall McLuhan’s Ideology ‘The Medium is the Message’ is quite an obscure and different idea. When we’re talking about mediums, the content is what we usually focus on rather than the actually form of the medium itself. McLuhan is trying to reiterate that while the message may be important, it is the medium that makes the message in the end… Let’s try to break it down a bit further in regards to our digital artefact and how it assisted along the way.

When we look at my digital artefact, we can see many different elements that all relate back to this one concept of ‘The Medium is the Message’. We can see elements such as old fashioned trajectories such as the written word shifting to an online platform, displaying this idea of a ‘global village’. Our medium’s main goal is to extend out into the world and interconnect us all. The technology that the message is transferred through is said to shift us as individuals and societies. It is the technology that holds the power. When discussing this concept, it is also valuable to state that “the medium is an extensions of ourselves” (McLuhan 1964). So how does this help our digital artefact’s process?

By incorporating McLuhan’s ideologies into our project we can create our own global village for young women that tackles our issue of misrepresentation of women in the media whilst showing a clear growth and progression from pitch to beta. By shifting using these technological platforms in order to spread our message, we can successfully interconnect our users by using this technology. This progression was made with thoughts to primary and secondary research as shown above as well as the critical insight of Marshall McLuhan’s ‘The Medium is the Message’.

BETA #BCM206

My Process and Rebranding 

Starting my DA was a process, that’s for sure. I went through so much ideating that I went crazy! I decided initially to create a platform that surrounded women. It was called ‘The Eggplant Emoji’ and it was to be centred around feminine literature.

Women are not being as prominently shown in the Australian media which was disheartening for girls. I developed the skeleton of a blog for ‘The Eggplant Emoji’ and asked for feedback on whether other people though that women were misrepresented in the media and the response was not great.

 I didn’t generate enough feedback to make a decision on my blog and this made me re-evaluate. I took into consideration the feedback I received on my pitch, that the process was too big, which was true. I decided to continue with my process which I found effective in BCM112. I decided to develop my website, quite similar to my original idea, focusing on women in general. It will still involve books but will incorporate aspects of travel and uni to involve more of an audience. It will aim to be inclusive of girls and give them an space to talk, discuss and debate. It’s important for girls to have a space that isn’t Instagram as many find that their self-esteem is lowered. I rebranded my pitch as ‘The Femme Edit’ and it is already developed so I can grow, attracting more of an audience. I also took inspiration from other sources to be reflected on my site! 

Feedback Loops and Iteration, Iteration, Iteration!

I found that the project wasn’t just about developing but actually reaching people and making a meaningful imprint on the web. It was a learning experience for me, I made mistakes and I worked to remedy them through the iteration and feedback loop process. 

1. I found that I wasn’t gaining enough interaction to make a decision about what to produce on my blog. This was shown in the analytics and stats of my blog and the lack of interaction with my surveys. So what could I do from here? Based on the feedback I had at my hands, I decided to market and promote heavily. I did this through twitter surveys, tweets and posting on Discord. This allowed me to understand my target market and develop accordingly.

1. The project was also too big to develop properly so I decided to iterate by not completely scrapping my idea, but further developing my previous project, which I found worked in the past but could still use some love. Having an already developed website was also a major help due to the time saving and cost effective aspects (FIST). 

What next?

Rebranding is a great learning moment for me as it makes the web page less intimidating and more comfortable for everyone. Basically I changed the target audience, altered what I was selling to my target market and I relied on my audience feedback to make these changes! From here, i’ll continue to develop my blog and consistently ask for feedback from my users. Learning from my mistakes and developing accordingly is my prime goal.