During the process of creating our media artefact for Project 4 I have learnt a lot about different aspects of the working process. I have been involved in group projects in the past, but this group project, I felt was quite different to others. It required extended thinking and for all group members to come together to have an input to the main ideas. Because the task was more complex than most, the collaboration and thinking from all group members was very important in order to be able to have a successful outcome. In the end Kelsey, Amalina and I all came together to create a magazine styled website aimed at young girls and their interactions online and especially through social media. We were to comment how they (young girls) as audiences connect with and interact with online devices. We each did our own research on our own chosen topics within the larger theme. From that we created our own major articles, our own question entry to the ‘dear diary’ section, as well as any interesting videos or media we found.

I feel that one of the most successful parts of our work was the whole aesthetic of the website. When entering the site you get the feeling straight away that it is girly. Each page that you go to changes slightly but also keeps the main ‘girly’ theme, without being full on, in your face, pink girly. Doing it that way, we were able to aim the site to all types of teenage girls, not just girly girls. Our ‘dear diary’ section is quite cute and quirky and is something I used to love reading in magazines like Girlfriend or Dolly when I was a young girl. I also feel like the concept of all of our articles were very good and stayed very on topic, all relating to each other in some way or another as well. We did come over a few little problems along the way. To begin with we wanted to make our articles quite ironic but we felt that this was a bit difficult as you have to be quite skilled and not everyone can pull it off writing in that style. We felt it would be easier to write more generally as it would relate more to our research as well. I also feel like the media page is not as strong as the others. It contains relevant material but I feel like our main focus was on the articles and that section was a little neglected. However, what each of the videos is conveying is relevant and relates to our whole theme of the website.

At the beginning of the project I was not to keen on working in a group as it requires more effort and I also had my doubts about group members pulling their weight. However, I feel as though I ended up with sufficient group members that were easy to work with and put in as much effort as I did. That is such an important thing when working with other people, that you will all put in the weight as you are all relying on each other. That is one of the biggest things I learnt during the process. Although I got good group members this time around, it may not always happen and most of the time will not happen in the real world. We will always be faced to work with people we may not get along with or may not agree with, but that is all a part of the learning experience. You have to learn to deal with things you may not necessarily enjoy, which in turn helps to make you a better group member in the long run and people will enjoy working with you a lot more.

Here is the link to the final website: http://elizaat1.wix.com/magazine