Over the last fortnight, in the name of my final doctorate assignment of this year, I have been thinking about the youth theatre’s internet profile. It’s actually a much more fascinating topic than I realised before I began to look in detail and I thought I’d share some of my “preliminary findings” with you…
The questionnaire showed up a few patterns…the first one is the gratifying popularity of the forum… our oldest and most individual format…this made me smile because I love the forum…I feel it’s a genuinely good way of keeping in touch in between sessions and I like to think it’s a balance of idle chatter with like minded, creative individuals…and a good place to get information and ask questions. We’re hoping to give it a face lift in the near future so watch this space (or rather the space the forum is in.) Other things the questionnaire identified was that our facebook fan page was pretty popular… especially for the photo’s… and that the least known about/visited was the bebo, myspace (which has just been improved somewhat) and twitter. The last point was that everyone who responded to the questionnaire reads the blog…another smile for Sarah with that result…hurrah!
However as my research preferences (and yes I do have research preferences oddly enough…) already suspected the really interesting stuff came to light in the interview I undertook…
The information gleaned was rich, full of complexity. There emerged a picture of a subject very much worthy of a full and valid research process, whereas to begin with I had embarked on the process very much with the attitude that it would do for this assignment. One interviewee talked about the youth theatre forum being, “The most equal possible place, everyone is judged on what you say and not on looks, everyone is on an equal footing…you get to be in charge of yourself.” There was much discussion on which was the best, the most favoured, the most important and what became clear is that they have very different purposes and as such different ones will be favoured by different people. So you have the forum for chat, questions, trivia and when you feel like a nostalgic trip down memory lane there’s about three years of youth theatre at your disposal. You have the blog for my thoughts in a more structured, thought through form – and of course the thoughts of your fellow Yew Tree members. Twitter for a stream of the things that occur to me as they occur to me and then there’s Myspace, Facebook and Bebo for photo’s, information and the occasional status banter…At least that’s how I see it…the magic is that you might see it in a completely different way…feel free to share those views in your preferred format…or not…whatever you like really…
So there you go…all that remains is to say thank you to those of you that take an interest…and I guess because you’re reading this blog that’s probably you…and in so doing making Yew Tree’s online personality another vibrant aspect of our community…
Oh and thank you for giving me the excuse to write my blog…none of this is allowed to be in my assignment…so without this opportunity it’d all just be swimming around in my head with no outlet…so yeah…cheers…
Yew Tree Website www.yew-tree.com
Forum www.yew-tree.com/phpBB2/index.php
Facebook fanpage www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Yew-Tree-Youth-Theatre/30010381823?ref=ts
Myspace www.myspace.com/yewtreeyt
Twitter www.twitter.com/sarahyewtree
Bebo www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=9400056519
And if you fancy it I have a non Youth Theatre blog…
www.kaleidoscope-digital.com/SarahOsborne/blog.html
The questionnaire showed up a few patterns…the first one is the gratifying popularity of the forum… our oldest and most individual format…this made me smile because I love the forum…I feel it’s a genuinely good way of keeping in touch in between sessions and I like to think it’s a balance of idle chatter with like minded, creative individuals…and a good place to get information and ask questions. We’re hoping to give it a face lift in the near future so watch this space (or rather the space the forum is in.) Other things the questionnaire identified was that our facebook fan page was pretty popular… especially for the photo’s… and that the least known about/visited was the bebo, myspace (which has just been improved somewhat) and twitter. The last point was that everyone who responded to the questionnaire reads the blog…another smile for Sarah with that result…hurrah!
However as my research preferences (and yes I do have research preferences oddly enough…) already suspected the really interesting stuff came to light in the interview I undertook…
The information gleaned was rich, full of complexity. There emerged a picture of a subject very much worthy of a full and valid research process, whereas to begin with I had embarked on the process very much with the attitude that it would do for this assignment. One interviewee talked about the youth theatre forum being, “The most equal possible place, everyone is judged on what you say and not on looks, everyone is on an equal footing…you get to be in charge of yourself.” There was much discussion on which was the best, the most favoured, the most important and what became clear is that they have very different purposes and as such different ones will be favoured by different people. So you have the forum for chat, questions, trivia and when you feel like a nostalgic trip down memory lane there’s about three years of youth theatre at your disposal. You have the blog for my thoughts in a more structured, thought through form – and of course the thoughts of your fellow Yew Tree members. Twitter for a stream of the things that occur to me as they occur to me and then there’s Myspace, Facebook and Bebo for photo’s, information and the occasional status banter…At least that’s how I see it…the magic is that you might see it in a completely different way…feel free to share those views in your preferred format…or not…whatever you like really…
So there you go…all that remains is to say thank you to those of you that take an interest…and I guess because you’re reading this blog that’s probably you…and in so doing making Yew Tree’s online personality another vibrant aspect of our community…
Oh and thank you for giving me the excuse to write my blog…none of this is allowed to be in my assignment…so without this opportunity it’d all just be swimming around in my head with no outlet…so yeah…cheers…
Yew Tree Website www.yew-tree.com
Forum www.yew-tree.com/phpBB2/index.php
Facebook fanpage www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/pages/Yew-Tree-Youth-Theatre/30010381823?ref=ts
Myspace www.myspace.com/yewtreeyt
Twitter www.twitter.com/sarahyewtree
Bebo www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=9400056519
And if you fancy it I have a non Youth Theatre blog…
www.kaleidoscope-digital.com/SarahOsborne/blog.html
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