Webisodes for Kids

Well, technology has done it again! With the creation of webisodes, anyone can watch their favourite dramas online! A webisode is basically a short online movie created for the Internet audience and is basically for marketing purposes (wisegeek, 2009). I myself can not belief the fact that now I can watch my favourite science fiction action drama, Battlestar Galactica online! Although its short, and (in my opinion) rather amateurish, it is still addictive as its televised version. (Check out the Battlestar Galactica's webisode website!)



Example of Battlestar Galactica webisode

Tailoring entertainment and and advertising to children is an enormous and growing industry in Australia. In the transcript, the director, writer of kids webisode Tiny Town, Chris Corbett discusses about his general aims and genre, and the challenges faced in the creation and distribution of the webisodes in the Internet. He emphasized the need of being concise and not long winded. He also states that Internet users will lose their patience in a short time if they do not understand the plot. This is clearly argued by Clay (2009), that the time limit of a webisode must be around 3-5 minutes, so not to make audience lose interest and feel like they have wasted valuable time.

Besides that, Corbett suggests that the web makes an ideal series genre, as people can watch the webisodes easily, as and when they like. This indeed is plausible, as Schirato and Yell (1996) explains that genres are the ways of meaning associated with social purposes and social occasions, and the importance of identifying which genre is suitable for social occasions should be emphasized.

As a conclusion, I feel that full attention must be given on the type of genre we are using, the general audience we aim, and also the characterestics of the webisode we are creating. Otherwise, the audience may be confused or bored, thus leading to unpopularity and loss of money.


Reference:

Clay, 2009, 10 Keys to creating a successful webisode, Advent Creative.com, viewed 15th June 2009 <http://www.adventcreative.com/10-keys-to-creating-a-successful-webisode>

Media Report, 2007, webisode for kids, viewed on 15th June 2009, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2124198.htm>

What are webisodes? 2009, Wisegeek.com, viewed 15th June 2009 <http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-webisodes.htm>

Schirato,T , Yell, S 1996, Chapter 5: Framing Context, Communications and Cultural literacies: An Introduction, pp. 90- 117

Walsh, M 2006, ‘The textual shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal text’, Australian Journal of Language and literacy, vol.29, no. 1, pp.24-37