Proposal

‘The World is a Global Village’

The Concept behind my Website

Marshall McLuhan spoke out about communication in 1964 with his ideas about the world being seen as a ‘Global Village.’ At the time, nobody believed that a world so reliant on print media would become so fixated with electronic media such as the Internet and World Wide Web. I want to take McLuhan’s idea about the ‘Global Village,’ the way in which an event happening in one place of the world can be shown in another part of the world through interaction such as the web. I want to base my website on the idea of the world map, and I want to use that idea to focus on the divide and differences throughout the world that the ‘Global Village’ has created. With my world map, I then want to include the main continents such as Asia, Africa, Australia, America, Europe and Antarctica. As the audience for my website click on a continent it links them and gives information about different countries that are part of Global Village today. My inspiration for the website is Africa as I have travelled there, and seen how less fortunate they are and I want children in the UK to be educated on how lucky they are to be benefiting from the impact of media. Also I want to incorporate images I captured whilst out there to show how countries such as the UK, have an advantage over third-world countries. 

Target Audience

Therefore, the target audience for my project will be children aged 10 to 15 in the UK, as they are at an age where they start to notice the impact that media has on the world. This is the age in which they are introduced to new media, and where having the latest gadgets is most important. To reach my target audience it is important that I use lots of imagery and bright colours to captivate them. I do not want to exclude adults as an audience though as they too can view my website and learn about the Global Village and be able to get an insight into what their children are learning. Also teachers would also be viewing my website and I want their approval of my website from the aspect of it being an excellent educational tool.

Project Timeline

Phase	What needs to be completed?	Completion Date
PRE PRODUCTION 1	Design of the map	March 5th
2	Gathering Images	March 9th
3	Research for content of website	March 11th
PRODUCTION 4	Colour scheme for website planned	March 19th
5	Setting up the Homepage	March 19th
6	Adding further links to Webpage	April 1st
7	Focus on sound	April 8th
POST PRODUCTION 8	Presentation Ready	April 22nd
9	Feedback and Evaluation	May 13th
10	Any final changes to be made to website after Presentation	May 22nd

Product Description

My product is an educational website giving children an understanding to the media around them today, and to put into perspective how it came about. The idea of the ‘Global Village’ will be broken down for them and related to them with links to their everyday life now. The first stage of my production is to create a world map for my home page. I will do this using my own hand drawn map outline. Then I want to finish off the design in Photoshop by including imagery and colour to make it more ‘child friendly’. I want my map to be basic and only include certain countries as I do not want to over complicate my website for my target audience. The inclusion of a map will make it easier for young children to understand Marshall McLuhan’s idea of the world being like ‘a single village’ dominated by the media and will hopefully make them understand how messages can be passed quicker across the world by the influence of the Web. The audience will then be able to click on different continents and it will give them further links and history into whether other countries are in sync with us today or behind us on the media front. As well as links to other countries I want to give a background profile on Marshall McLuhan on my website, a page on different forms of media and history on them and finally a page on the Global Village.

Storyboard

This is a rough sketch of how I want my Homepage to be and the different pages I want on my website. This is the colour scheme I would like on my homepage, bright colours for my world map against a blue background. I want the colours on my website to be earthly colours in relation to the world. I think this is suitable for my target audience and will capture them when they enter my website. One criticism that has emerged is that maybe my titles at the top of the page could lose the attention of my audience. As I am designing my website for a younger audience perhaps it would be better to use alternative titles as the words ‘Marshall McLuhan’ and ‘Global Village’ might discourage them from entering the website

This is a rough example of how I want my pages to be that are linked off from the Homepage. This is a picture of an African family I have taken; they are excluded from the Global Village and are not aware of its existence. I want young children to be shocked by my website and I want to do this with imagery as children tend to not believe until they see evidence. They are naïve due to the influence of media and communication and do not know a world without it.

Bibliography

Marshall McLuhan - The World is a Global Village (CBC TV), 2009 Youtube, online video, last accessed 23^rd February 2013, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic&feature=player_embedded>.

Existing educational websites for children

I am going to start my idea of an educational website by looking at existing educational websites and getting ideas and critiquing what I don't like.

http://www.kidsknowit.com/
The first thing that struck me about this website was how colourful it is. I think yellow is a good option on a homepage for an educational website for children. At first it wakes them up and colour is more appealing for them. A negative comment is that I think there is almost too much going on, I think it needs to be simpler for children to be interested in it. I don't really like the layout either, I think it's messy and all over the place. I don't know where to start myself. Although there is a good mixture of things for children to do on the website.

http://www.kidsgeo.com/
I have chosen to look at this website as it's about the world and my own website will be educational on the world and the global village. I prefer this website because I find the layout more organised. The colour scheme links with what the website is about. The font is kept the same which makes it easier to follow. There also isn't an overload of images and I think children are less likely to click away from this website than the previous one.

Furthering my Idea

I want to start with the idea of doing an educational website for children on the Global Village to give them an understanding of how fortunate they are. My first thoughts is for my homepage to include a world map including the main continents so as well as educating them on the Global Village they learn about the world map.

From looking on google this is the kind of map that I wanted to include, with lots of imagery as children relate well to imagery. So therefore my first starting point will be to design a world map on photoshop and to draw out some ideas of how my homepage will be. I then want to create links when they click on a certain continent it links them and explains to them where each place situates in the Global Village today.

(http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-maps/world-map-for-kids.html)

I have an idea

For my website, I want to focus on the divide and differences between the world that the global village has created. Having been to Africa I want to use photographs I captured whilst out there to show how Countries such as the UK, have an advantage over third-world Countries. I want to education young children about how lucky they are living in an advanced Country compared to others less fortunate. This way, my website will be personal to me and something I can be passionate about creating.

Marshall McLuhan

'The World is a Global Village' and 'The Medium is the Message'

The Global Village is Marshall McLuhan's idea that we are in a single community dominated by the media. This explains how we communicate across the world as one person can be in one part of the world and see what someone else is doing on another part of the world in real-life. Also we can experience things before we've done them through electronic media like going on safari in Kenya.

The Medium Is The Message was another idea of his that media creates the message. Both theories by McLuhan are important because he published these theories before the world became this way.

The theory I want to explore of his, is 'The World is a Global Village.' I find the whole idea of how we can speak to other people on other sides of the world fascinating. For example, when people go on holiday we can still keep in contact with them so there is no such thing as ‘goodbye’ anymore. Also how we know about other countries before visiting them is interesting as we have pre-set ideas of what places will be like. When really this isn’t how it should be. I also am intrigued by continents without technology, like Africa and Asia, they have no idea what England is like yet we are fortunate to know through the web.

                        (http://nextnature.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/mcluhan-5301.jpg)