Ella Patrick A2 Media

“Digital technology turns Media consumers into Media producers.” In your own experience, how has your creativity developed using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?

In my own experience, as a media student I, along with all others, have had an advantage in the process of my coursework production because of the digital technology that has been available. As we were able to use technology such as Photoshop, YouTube etc. we were able to further develop our skills in the product, but not necessarily further develop our creativity. I think that it would have still been possible to explore our creative sides and apply it to our coursework if it wasn’t for technology; however, everything these days revolves around it. Therefore, it may have been difficult to get quite such an accomplished result without it as it would be in comparison to products using technology, and I think that a large part of Media, for better or for worse, is in fact technology.

For example, I think that it would still be possible to create a music video without having the access to other examples on YouTube to give you inspiration, however having inspiration such as these is a large part of creativity. If you don’t have inspiration, how can you create something? The new product minus the influence of existing products may be completely different to how it would be with other examples as it would have nothing solid to go on, but it would still be possible.

In AS, I mostly used actual magazines as examples of existing products for inspiration, rather than finding them on the internet so in that respect I could have done without technology, however a large part of the rest of it relied upon it; without Photoshop or other editing software it would have been difficult to accomplish a result that looked professional. It was also helpful during the process of making the magazine to have access to images on Google as I was able to further explore the styles that I wanted to include in the product. I think it was good to have access to things such as Kerrang online though, as I was able to look at covers that I liked, such as the My Chemical Romance one, and try and emulate it in order to develop my skills and then get ideas from the inspiration that I got from it. As I have previously said, I think that a large part of your creativity comes from what inspires you, so as long as you have this whether it is accessible through digital technology or not, I think that you would able to complete your coursework production. Overall, digital technology personally did help develop the outcome of my coursework production, but I don’t think that my creativity relied on it. Not using it may not necessarily have had a worse outcome than using it, just different.