Author Archives: The Household Box Office

Essay #2: Reflection As An Online Publisher

One of the common misbeliefs that people have had surrounding the topic of blogging is that it is very easy to do. However, what some people do not realize is how much hard work and hustle it takes to produce quality and meaningful content on a regular basis; to design and produce visual content; and grow/find our own audiences. Since the beginning of this course, my experience as an online publisher has been both rewarding and exhausting. Earlier on in the course, our instructor Suzanne mentioned that when choosing a topic, it was important to protect our passions so that they do not become a chore since we would be producing content on a weekly basis on whichever topic, we would choose our websites’ to be about. 

Originally, I considered creating a website about books. I am a huge bookworm and a fairly fast reader, but I was concerned that reading would become a chore as she had mentioned. Although I am equally as passionate about film as I am about books, I have written papers on film in a critical and academic format, but never simply for the enjoyment of watching and responding to it. In addition, I have always been torn between creating a blog on film, and this course ended up being the perfect space for me to finally take that leap. Thus, the concept of The Household Box Office began to take shape.

My inspiration for my website initially came about through my passion for film. Ever since I was kid, I have loved everything about movies and TV, including learning about the inter-workings of the film industry itself over the years through my own research and studies. The Household Box Office is my own virtual movie theatre that provides me the same wonderstruck emotions that I would experience from watching in a movie theatre but from home instead, especially during the pandemic. My website’s content focuses on mainly movie reviews, but I also provide suggestions/recommendations for movie and TV series in all genres, as well as generate post on upcoming film news, such as new shows, and other film related topics. I created my own graphics using stock images and online design applications, such as Canva and Photoshop. My website’s design is focused on simplicity for clean and easy navigation, while its’ appearance is meant to reflect the colours of a box office/theatre aesthetic. 

The online environment that I have been envisioning since the early stages of my website’s development was to create an online community that was fun, open, and respectful for both myself and my readers/audience. As we saw towards the end of this course, we as online publishers are responsible for the type of content we publish and how our readers interact with our posts, such as on our comment sections. As publishers we are presented with the challenge of moderating our own comment sections and navigating social waters (Norman, Week 12, 2022). Although my readership is small, I have established a set of community guidelines in order navigate these challenges. Originally, I was going to not include a comments section, but ended up keeping them because of the importance of online publics. Publics are important because they provide a mechanism for how we construct our social world (Boyd, 2014), especially in terms of protecting reader identity. The use of online anonymity has both its positives and negatives. Online anonymity protects user/reader identity and often encourages them to participate more, however, it also allows for something called the “online disinhibition effect” where their online social behaviours differ from their in-person behaviours (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). By implementing community guidelines is one way to inform your readers about what type of behaviour is and is not acceptable or tolerated on your website(s).  

This experience has taught me a lot about the process of being in control of my own content in terms of how I choose what my posts are about and how I want them to be presented online. As Audrey Watters stated in her article on “The Web We Need to Give Students,” when students create and have control over their own domains, it allows them much more say over what they present to the world, especially in terms of positioning and presenting their public profiles, professional portfolios, and digital identities (Watters, 2015). In addition, by giving students the control over their own digital domains enables them with the opportunity “… to work with on the Web and with the Web,” (Watters, 2015). All together, these aspects have slowly come together through the development and further refinement for what it truly means to be an online publisher for my own publication of my everyday self. Despite all the trials and errors, I believe I will continue to blog and further refine my online social presence. While I do plan to continue to review movies and shows, my future blog goals would be to expand producing blog posts beyond reviews and watch suggestions/recommendations. Overall, I have enjoyed creating my own little virtual space within this vast network of cyberspace. 

References

Boyd, D. (2014). Searching for a public of their own. It’s Complicated. Wattpad. Retrieved from posiel.com

Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com

Norman, S. (2022). Week 12: moderating your commentariat and navigating the social waters. Lecture. Retrieved from posiel.com

Watters, A. (2015). The web we need to give students. Bright Magazine. Retrieved from posiel.com

The post Essay #2: Reflection As An Online Publisher first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Process Post #11: Developing Community Guidelines for My Website

Over the last few days, I have taken some time to consider and develop community guidelines for my website in order to try to further facilitate an open and respectful online space for myself and my audience/readers. At the end of this post, you will be able to find more information on what my community guidelines are and where they will live on this website.

Monitoring the Comments Section

In her article on “The Psychology of Online Comments” by Maria Konnnikova, she cited that “anonymity has been shown to encourage participation; by promoting a greater sense of community identity, users don’t have to worry about standing out individually,” (Konnikova, 2013). However, user anonymity can often create a disconnect between the commenter’s identity and what they are saying. By doing so, this may also change their social behaviour either for better or worse. This effect is known as “online disinhibition effect,” a concept originally coined by psychologist John Suler. In this course, we read an article by John Suler (2004) where he outlined six types of online behaviours that people engage in. It was most often seen that online users prefer partaking in the online behaviour known as dissociative anonymity (Suler, 2004; Konnikova, 2013). Both Suler and Konnikova draw from how the “protection” and or “freedom” of not being seen or known online for which enables them the opportunity to behave in specific ways that they would not normally engage in if they were face-to-face. There are two types of disinhibition effect: 

  1. benign (positive or neutral – e.g., feeling safe or open enough to reveal secret emotions, fears, wishes, wants, and or other personal information about themselves)
  2. toxic (negative – e.g., rude language, harsh criticism, anger, hatred, or threats)   

When it comes to commenting online, there appears to be an increase in negativing and or toxic commenting on social media and website post sections. However, turning off or removing comments also affects the reading experience itself because it takes away the motivation for readers to engage with a topic more deeply, and thereby, share it with wider groups of readers (Konnikovca, 2013). This is because of a phenomenon known as “shared reality,” in which our experiences of a particular event/topic are affected by whether or not we choose to share it socially (Konnikova, 2013). 

One of the ways that content creators (or anyone) can try to overcome this is by creating boundaries, or by establishing community guidelines. Community guidelines are a set of rules and regulation policies created to ensure a certain standard of behaviour is implemented online for the purpose of creating safe online environments for users to interact within. People do have the right to free speech, but it is important to be civil even when others disagree so long as there is no harm to others in any form is involved, such as threats, hate speech, inciting violence, misinformation, and disinformation. I have chosen to keep comment sections on my posts so that readers can interact either with each other and respond to the posts, if they so wish. Community is about finding your own place within a collective world or group of people where mutual interests can be shared. There are already enough terrible things in this world without having people trying to virtually tear each other down in the comments section or on any online space. We have very little control over many aspects of our lives and the events that place within in, but what you can control is how you behave and react. 

Here are my website’s community guidelines: 

  • Be respectful of others and their opinions
  • Respectfully disagree when opinions do not align 
  • Comments are welcomed and encouraged
  • Inappropriate behaviour will be removed and blocked
  • No self promotion of any kind

As of this moment, these guidelines can be found on my website under the “About” section titled “Community Guidelines.” 

References

Internet Matters. (2022). Understanding community guidelines. Internetmatters.org. Retrieved from www.internetmatters.org

Konnikova, M. (2013). The psychology of online comments. The New Yorker. Retrieved from posiel.com

Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. Cyberpsychology & Behaviour. Retrieved from posiel.com 

The post Process Post #11: Developing Community Guidelines for My Website first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Community Guidelines

Top priority community guidelines for the The Household Box Office (or The HHBO):

  • Be respectful of others and their opinions
  • Respectfully disagree when opinions do not align
  • Comments are welcomed and encouraged
  • Inappropriate behaviour will be removed and blocked
  • No self promotion of any kind

The post Community Guidelines first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Top Watch Picks for Easter: Movies & TV Specials

[Image credits: IMDB]

Grab those Easter baskets, fill them with delicious, chocolatey (or candy) goodness, and sit back on the couch in front of your screens! Easter is just two weeks away, and even if you do not celebrate the holiday, you can still check out these movies and TV specials featuring lots of adorable and hilarious bunnies.

Down the Rabbit Hole We Go

  • Hop (2011)
  • Peter Rabbit (2018)
  • Rise of the Guardians (2012)
  • Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005)

The Classics

  • Here Comes Peter Cottontail (1971)
  • It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown (1974) *TV Episode Special

Bonus Watch Suggestions

  • The Easter Parade (1971)
  • The Ten Commandments (1956)
  • Looney Toons: Bugs Bunny’s Easter Special (1977) *TV Episode Special

Watch options: available to watch on Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Disney+, DVD or Blu-ray, on-demand, or rent.

The post Top Watch Picks for Easter: Movies & TV Specials first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Process Post #10: Bingo Cards As Transmedia

“Transmedia storytelling is the ideal aesthetic form for an era of collective intelligence,” — Kevin Britteny Lauren

Some of the ways that I hope to incorporate more transmedia integration for my site is by creating interactive engagement activities, such as this movie night bingo card, and by posting inspirational quotes from movies and TV shows on Instagram stories at least once a week to foster engagement.

In his blog post, Kevin Britteny Lauren wrote about Pokemon as an example of transmedia storytelling back in 2013. In his post, he stated that “transmedia storytelling is a process. Elements of a fiction get dispersed across multiple media for the purpose of creating a coordinated entertainment experience,” (Lauren, 2013). By incorporating mini games, puzzles, and activities such as a “movie night” bingo card, I can attempt to facilitate engagement and (hopefully) encourage others to take part in a unique experience that can be enjoyed in their own way and on their own time. 

Other ways that I have thought about for incorporating more transmedia integration for my website is by utilizing the website’s social media channels more (currently, I am only posting on Instagram while I continue to grow my website’s readership). To do this, I could adjust the description format that I use for sharing/promoting my blog posts by taking it one step further. The general description format that I have been using for posts has been simply the “blog’s title” and “read more on www.thehouseholdboxoffice.com.” Going forward, I plan to start formatting my Instagram posts to include shortened and or summarizations of my blog posts’ content as sneak peaks or excerpts of the blog posts. By doing so, this may incentives my readers/followers to visit my site to read the full review or to learn/find more information or film reviews.

References

Lauren, B., K. (2013). Pokemon as transmedia storytelling. Retrieved from https://kevinbrittenylauren.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/pokemon-as-transmedia-storytelling/

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Peer Review #3

Happy Monday, everyone! This week, I’m taking some time to review another class peer’s blog/website. Unlike my last reviews where we talked about movies and fashion, we will be talking about all things in the fast lane! That’s right, we’re talking cars. I will be reviewing and providing feedback for Christian at http://christianwilliams.ca. In this post, I will be writing directly to Christian.

Hi Christian, I hope you find some of these comments and feedback helpful.

Website Marketability 

The type of niche market/audience that you have established for your site is clearly indicated within the type of posts you generate. Your posts go into detailed encounters and experiences from various topics, such as buying a vehicle and getting it detailed. Although your website is about cars, your readers do not need to be car and or automative experts to follow along in your posts. This makes it very inviting for both automative and non-automative enthusiasts. The type of niche market/audience that your website is intended for works well for beginner and current automative enthusiasts, but also for casual viewers too who may be interested in learning more about cars and other automative topics.

Just have a few suggestions for you to make your website more marketable for your audience/readers. One of them is to have a few more photos, such as maybe a gallery of photos of your favourite vehicles either as a post or somewhere on the homepage as a click-through gallery. My final suggestion would be to display your social media handles on your homepage, or either at the top or bottom of your website’s page. I noticed that your social media handles are only visible on your “about” section page. By making them more visible on your website, this may help to increase reader-traffic to your website, offer other ways of engagement with your readers/audience, and help improve your website’s visibility.

Design

I really like your website’s main header/logo. It does very well to visually represent your website and without reading the site’s title, it automatically indicates to readers what your website is about. When I look at the image, it makes me want to go for a drive with friends or take a road trip up to Whistler with my family. The mountains, the lake, and the trees all work together to illustrate the “adventures” part of your title. In addition, the visualization of the car and the park sign help to place your images, as well as create a personal, geographical connection to yourself as the creator of the website. Also, the dawn setting of your photograph creates a relaxed and tranquil tone overall, for which further illustrates the laid back and friendly environment of your website for your readers. All together, they contribute nicely to your website’s title “Christian’s Automative Adventures.” 

The minimalistic approach you used for your website’s design creates a clear and concise layout, for which allows your readers/visitors easily access and navigate the site throughout. I like how you used two tones for your website layout, which are white and grey. The white background works to highlight your blog post content, while the grey background behind your posts allows for greater contrast, especially in terms of your posts readability. In addition, I like the incorporation of different sidebar headings, such as “archives,” “recent posts,” and “categories.” This neatly organizes all your work and content that makes for a very clean and professional appeal. Great job!

Content

As someone who does not know much about cars/automatives, I like how none of your posts are car jargon heavy because it allows for non-car/automotive enthusiasts to comprehend and enjoy your posts. My favourite blog posts are your “purchasing a vehicle from another province” and “superhero guest appearance.”

Your content clearly reflects how you have been developing your website in terms of its’ cyber-frastructure, particularly in your first blog post where you discussed the importance of cars in your life. This helped demonstrate to your readers for why you choose this particular subject for your blog/website, and further elevates it in conjunction to your “about” section. However, I noticed the little disclaimer you have at the top of your “about” section that says, “not finalized yet.” I look forward to seeing the final edit for that page. One suggestion that I have for that page would be to link it to your first blog post where you talked about why cars are important to you and your life. By doing so, you can keep your “about” section brief by linking it to that blog post for people to find out more about your site, as well as help to more strongly prompt readers to your blog posts section. 

Overall, great work and I look forward to seeing the rest of it come together!

The post Peer Review #3 first appeared on The Household Box Office.

RENEWAL ANNOUNCEMENT CELEBRATION – Nancy Drew

[Image credits: The CW, IMDB]

NANCY DREW RENEWED FOR ANOTHER SEASON! The CW series recently announced that they will be coming back for season 4 this fall, and fans cannot wait (me included).

About the show:

To celebrate this great news, here are my top 5 Reasons for why this show is fantastic:

  1. The characters: a diverse range of characters whose personalities balance and complement each other.
  2. The friendships: the friendships between the characters, including between the cast and crew are 😍.
  3. The writing: excellent plot twists, pacing, and foreshadowing throughout.
  4. The cinematography: grotesquely brilliant makeup and costumes, mysterious and spooky atmosphere.
  5. The location: the show is filmed in BC that features its’ beautiful forest and coastal scenery.

If you haven’t seen the show yet, check out season 1 and 2 on Amazon Prime, or watch it on HBO Max, or buy and download seasons 1-3 online.

The post RENEWAL ANNOUNCEMENT CELEBRATION – Nancy Drew first appeared on The Household Box Office.

Drum Roll Please… – Whiplash Review

[Image credit: IMDB]

Whiplash (2014) is a psychological thriller that dives deep into the music world and seeing what it takes to make it in the music business as well as revealing that world’s darkest and most abusive moments. The main character Andrew has all the ambition and dedication towards achieving his lifelong dream and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there, even if it means being a personal punching bag to his teacher Fletcher. 

The film explores three main themes that often occur in real life situations but are not often seen on the big screen: the life of an aspiring (and struggling) musician; mental and physical health; and personal sacrifice.  

The Film’s Themes

The life of an aspiring musician is not an easy nor linear path, however in film, the lesser seen gritty underbelly of instrumental music is not often portrayed. I have had heard stories from friends who were in band and orchestra before about the grueling process and hours spent practicing, including hearing a few stories where the teacher/instructor would throw music stands at their students if they began playing out of tune or misbehaving. In Whiplash (2014), Andrew frequently faces abuse from Fletcher but enables because he believes that his methods will lead him to success. 

Since Andrew meeting Fletcher, his own mental and physical health has often been in jeopardy. At one point, the film does address the cruelness of Fletcher’s teaching methods, but Andrew remains adamant that Fletcher can help him be a better musician. For instance, following the falling out between Andrew and Fletcher, Andrew and his father meets with another parent whose goal is to get Fletcher fired from the music school due to his past/present abusive behaviours towards his students. She informs Andrew of past incidents where some of Fletcher’s ex-students went into deep depressions and “had their sanity whipped clean from this earth”. Fletcher wants his students to succeed, however, his methods are cruel, unorthodox, and rarely affective. Except when it comes to Andrew, so he continues to him in the same ways. Andrew’s dedication and obsession for becoming the greatest drummer of his time leads him down destructive path that both rewards and harms him, physically and emotionally. 

The film also discusses personal sacrifice. You can’t have everything you want all at once, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy having what you already have even if you think you’ll just lose it in the end. However, this wasn’t something Andrew realized until he lost the most important person in his life, his girlfriend Nicole. When Andrew breaks up with Nicole, he does it because he believes she’ll get in his way of his dream. Instead of letting her down easy, he acts like a jerk and dumps her without explaining why. Later in the film (after months have passed since the breakup), Andrew realizes that he made a mistake and wants her back. However, when he calls her, she turns him down.

That End Scene

The most shocking scene in the entire film was the ending scene where Andrew (and the audience) discover that Fletcher set him up to fail in front of thousands of people, including some major recording companies and music critics. However, Andrew does what any performer would and does do best when in the spotlight: he improvises. Andrew performs the longest drum solo ever seen (or at least, the longest one I have ever seen). Even though he had set him up to fail, the camera pans to Fletcher and tracks his movements to the stage where he decides to help and encourage Andrew to keep playing. 

Andrew’s journey to rising success is a long and painful one, but in the end, creates an incredible and powerful ending with a twist and a drum solo that’ll rock your world. 

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Process Post #9: Improving Website Noticeability – The “SEO” Plan

During last week’s lecture, we talked about improving our website’s noticeability by using something called SEO. In this post, I will be talking about what SEO is, how it works, and why it is an important tool/practice for getting your website (including my own) noticed by more people. So to start us off, let’s begin by answering one very important question:

What is SEO?

SEO stands for “search engine optimization” and it is a set of practices designed to help improve the appearance and positioning of your website in order to rank higher on search engine results, thereby generating more readership/viewership to your website.

How does it work?

To track my website’s noticeability, I installed the Google Analytics and Monster Insights plug-ins to track the engagement, impression, and reader/viewer traffic rates for my website.

What have I noticed about my website’s statistics and insights?

Majority of my website’s readership/viewership traffic comes from my classmates, particularly the ones who have been peer reviewing my site (shoutout to them, my course prof and TA). Other than that, the biggest viewer/reader of the site, is myself (prior to filtering out my own IP address). So why is that? I was not practicing using SEO, but also, I was not posting on social media as frequently as I was posting my blogs on my website. In some ways, this has been okay for me because one of the things that I have enjoyed about this course are posting reviews/content for myself. However, going forward, I have been considering continuing posting on my website. Part of my plan going forward is to generate more traffic to my website for other potential film enthusiasts to check out and enjoy or be entertained by my website’s content. As I have started considering this, I have been brainstorming ways to improve my SEO and how to generate more traffic to my site.

As it was mentioned in class, as well as frequently seen on social media, is the popular trend of posting inspirational quotes on our website’s social media channels. This could be a potential method to experiment with for the purpose of increasing my website’s noticeability, such as by participating #MondayMotivation and or something similar for posting inspirational quotes. This may drive more readers/viewers to see where the full post/image came from, therefore, guide them to my website’s social channel and (hopefully), they will briefly check out what the account is about and then visit my website if interested/intrigued. To remain consistent with my website’s theme/topic, I am hoping to post inspirational quotes from movies and TV shows on Instagram stories at least once a week to foster engagement and testing out various hashtags such as #MondayMotivation or simple #quote. I love writing down my favourite film quotes whenever I am watching something, and a particular line or lines of dialogue stick out for me. This would also be an opportunity to share those quotes with others and maybe inspire them or strike up certain emotions in them as they do for myself. So, although this experiment may not work to improve my website’s noticeability, it will be a fun activity regardless.

References

Moz.com. (2022). What is SEO? Online website. Retrieved from www. https://moz.com/learn/seo/what-is-seo

Norman, S. (2022). Week 10 Lecture: data and SEO. Retrieved from posiel.com

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