My Research Outline

I still have a lot of trouble deciding what to do, but right now I’m thinking of comparing the official Empire Online Magazine, called www.empireonline.co.uk to the actual British Empire (film)Magazine. Overall, I want to find out “what an Online (film) Magazine has to offer and if it can, and really, offers more than a printed Magazine”. And if possible, I also want to find out “in what way the Internet challenges people to do something with an advertised film on the Internet.”

Motivation

My initial plan was to pick a film and compare the advertising on the official site to the way fans notify other people of the film on their fansites. I also wanted to compare the official Internet-advertisement to other material, like movie magazines and TV-trailers newspaper reviews etc. However, I couldn’t really find a recent film I wanted to focus on and that’s when I thought about www.empireonline.co.uk. I used to read this magazine quite often, but I never really visited this website before. It’s a combination of the actual magazine and extra information about the films and the possibility for interaction. So, the main reason why I decided to choose this subject is because I like films and I wanted to combine this to Internet and advertising. www.empireonline.co.uk has all of this, plus it has a message board where people can form communities (so I could also look into that). Besides, I’m somewhat familiar with the Empire Magazine, so I hoped this might help.

Phenomenon

So far my motivation, the phenomenon itself is ‘Online film-advertising versus film-advertising in Magazines’. As I mentioned before, I would like to use the British (Online) Empire Magazine for my research and most likely the ‘June 2004’ issue. To make it more specific (or easier) I could select one film, for instance, “Troy” or “The Day After Tomorrow” that I can find in the Magazine as well as on the website.     

Theory

Furthermore, I still haven’t really been able to find many books or information about my research subject. I guess the main theory should be about film marketing, and the way the Internet can be used as an audiovisual archive, with specific options and possibilities etcetera. One book that could be useful for my research is the book “The New Media Book” by D. Harries. I might also use some of the books or links he provides for his notes in Chapter 4.2 (of this book). For instance, Anne Friedman’s book “The End of Cinema” and the Internet article “Short Attention Span Theater” by John Geirland (http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/07/21/short_films/index.html). Although I do like the research subject I have now - and I don’t know if I can still change it - I’m also quite fascinated by (short) Internet films or so-called ‘shorts’. In other words, I’m still thinking of analysing a websites with Independent films, made by all sorts of people. If I decide to do this, I think I would compare the website www.foxsearchlab.com (where you can watch independent shorts) to www.fox.com. So, as you can see I still have to look into that some more and any advice would be more than welcome.  

Method

I’m sorry to say that the method I want to use is still a bit unclear. Because my idea is to compare the Empire film Magazine to the Empire Website, I want to do a textual analysis, with the emphasis placed on the different options they offer, how they advertise the film (and other things) what the possibilities are for their readers, what the main (dis)advantages are etc. I might have to do a financial analysis as well, but only if it’s really necessary. If I were to decide to focus on one film in particular, for instance “The Day After Tomorrow”, I think I would include more sources. On their website “Empire” provides a link to the official Fox “The Day After Tomorrow” website and most likely there will appear fanpages about the film. Today I even heard that Greenpeace uses this film to warn people about global warming on their own website www.thedayaftertomorrow.org. It’s a spoof of the official website www.thedayaftertomorrow.com, and this is one way of doing something different with it. So, I’ll have to look into that as well.  

Relevance

I often find it difficult to describe the relevance of a research like this one, but I will try. First of all, I think this research can be relevant to magazines, film companies and advertising (or marketing) companies, because it can hopefully provide new information. For instance, if people are more inclined to go to the cinema if they are able to see or read extra information about it on a website, then it’s probably a good idea to continue with it. If not, maybe it’s best to try something else. In other words, does (film)advertising on the Internet really offer something new? Furthermore, this research could also offer some new insight in what ordinary people and different organisations (like Greenpeace) can do with an advertised film on the Internet. And maybe I can also find out what the benefits of creating messageboards and interactive filmquizzes are.