Jobs within the interactive media

1. Average salary for interactive media jobs, compared with average salary for IT jobs in general 

The average salary of the interactive media jobs compared to the average IT jobs is around £12,000 less. The average of the Interactive Media jobs is around £38,000 but the average salary for an IT job is around £50,000.

2. How many Interactive Media jobs have been advertised on this website over the past 3 months? 

In the last 3 months there have been 34 jobs advertised on the website.

3. How many of these jobs were likely to have been Junior positions? 

Around one would have been a junior position because of the price. Which was the lowest out of the available positions and jobs.

4. Which parts of the UK have the most jobs? 

The most built up areas of the UK have the most jobs, and the surrounding areas because of the higher population and demand for workers. Rather than I the less populated areas of the country.

5. What IT skills are most in demand at the moment?

The most demanded skills currently appear to be coding languages and web development based skills, such as CSS, HTML5, and Flash/AS.

6. What computer applications are most in demand at the moment?

The most demanded applications currently are Photoshop, Illustrator, Maya and 3DS Max, and also other multimedia authoring programs. 

7. You might notice that many jobs are advertised by job agencies. What is a job agency and how do they make their money?


Job agencies are companies that take jobs from other companies and offer them to applicants who apply to them. They make money from this by earning part of their first year salary.

A job agency is an establishment that collects and stores information on possible jobs for their applicants. If a company would like to hire some, they would put out an add via the job agency.

8. Explain what is meant by 'Permanent' and 'Contract' in the job market.


Permanent jobs are stable jobs that you will be in until you leave or are made redundant. Contract jobs are less common but higher paying jobs, which will not be a steady income or always a guarantee of having work all the time.

The job I wish to apply for involves graphics design and typography, one of the aspects of graphics I am interested in. I would like the job because it is relevant to interests and hobbies I currently have.

Link to job desc.

In relation to this job I would need to expand my knowledge of the program Illustrator and InDesign to a level where I can create professional looking products.  I already have a good knowledge of Photoshop and feel comfortable using it to create professional looking products. I also have experience of working in a technically-orientated environment from completing projects at college, although this may not be considered adequate experience because it is during education. Although I do have a GCSE grade C in Geography. "A general knowledge of Geography" being a desirable skill. 

Although I do not yet have a good understanding of HTML or CSS or basic Java script, those are some key skills I would need to improve to be able to qualify for this job although it was in the desirable section for skills listed, it would be beneficial to learn these skills for other jobs. Despite designing and creating several websites in class for projects, I do not have experience of web design in a real scenario. This can be changed by applying for a lower position (junior) and gaining experience in a work environment or furthering my knowledge of web design and continuing to study it.

Currently I try to design to a professional standard whenever possible and create the highest quality work possible. From this I have gained knowledge of various styles and thus I would be able to design to a formal standard and style when required.

A lot of the requirements can be fulfilled by work placement or previous jobs as they mostly require experience. Although gaining experience does give you an advantage over other applicants who do not have any. Although some of the skills, such as knowledge and understanding of HTML, CSS and Java can be self taught whilst gaining experience of designing and coding with it the languages. Although I would need to improve my confidence when working in a team and be able to back-up my designs and ideas and be able to confidently present them. Something I cannot do now, but will hopefully be able to do so by the end of the course.

WorkFlow

In the interactive media industry and media industry in general there are companies also known as agencies who will do work for other companies. However there are several people involved in the production of this, ranging from coders to project managers. All of the roles are important and are required to create a better finished product. Each role manages different aspects of the project.

To begin a pitch for an idea for an application several people are needed to predict the outcome of the application, for example a designer to make drafts of the finished product and other roles and people would do other aspects of the product such as planning and technical details as to how it will work. Some companies will put out an advert asking for anybody with an idea to bring it forward and pitch it to them, or a company can approach an agency and request them to design and make a product for them. The developers/designers would then pitch the idea to the client via a presentation with mock ups, ideas and functionality notes on how the product will work if needed. This would be displayed to the clients via a presentation, with the key employees present to explain how the product will look, feel and work to give the client a full idea of how the finished product will be. Assuming this goes well and the client is impressed the agency will then have to develop the product

The project manager will create a project specification noting the important details. The project manager will also allocate resources to it, for example allocating people to a specific task. The project manager overlooks all the other workers and manages them, setting deadlines and having discussions with them to help relations between them and improve workflow. The project manager needs to be an organized person to be able to manage the resources, people and keep it all on a schedule. The manager also oversees all work and makes sure it does a by a certain deadline, because of this the person will also need good time management skills.

There would need to be a document which states what the finished product is required to do e.g. certain features might be wanted by the client which would have to be met ( for example if an application had to do a certain feature, such as auto save every X amount of minutes. ) This is done by the client and the head developer to then create a list of requirements of which will need to be incorporated into the product. This is done with the client to get exactly what they want from the product, also making it easier to create.

The designers make plans and make visual content for the product. They may do this before the pitch to show the possible client what the intentions of the product is and to better explain what the outcome might be like.  Many larger companies such as AQKA (Developed the Xbox Menu) do this to predict what the finished product will look like and to show at the pitch. It can also help the client see the intentions of the project, thus helping the group get possible employment. The designers would also create rough drafts to help the coders and to help develop further ideas for designs.

The head coder would create a document stating what the program needs to do for the coders to work towards; this is based off the specification and functional requirements documents. It is created to help the other codes create a product which can be understandable and easier to create. There would also be somebody in charge of databases and such to keep track of things such as budgets, time and information that would be stored in a database.

The company would test the product internally initially to find and fix any immediate bugs such as crashes. This is known as inDev (In development) I would then move to Alpha then later, Beta. It is common for companies to release playable betas for new games so that the public can play it and find more bugs and provide feedback. This can be done via private methods or completely public. Some companies give out beta keys to certain people, or require users to sign up for something. Most of the time users who are participating will have to sign and agree to a non-disclosure agreement, meaning they cannot spread information about it openly and publicly.

Although before the actual release of the product there will be allocated testers, who will be given a list of everything the product does, they then go along and check it does everything. The coders then fix any errors and it is released.

Before deployment of the product it will be checked by the client and more testers to assure that it fits the as stated before specifications and briefs. Before launch there may be an advertising or promotional campaign to attract more attention to the project. This might also be part of the agencies’ responsibilities. If so then more items would be made, for example banners for the product. The project manager would have collected all the preproduction pieces of work and kept the others to their deadlines. By this point the product should be virtually bug and glitch free from the help of extensive testing. 

Game Analysis: The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

If you were to take the hypodermic needle theory literally then the game would influence players to become more racist, violent and leave them questioning reality. This is because Skyrim’s main storyline is based off of a civil war in the homeland of a race called the ‘Nords’. The empire has entered the province and because they have sided with another faction, the ‘Thalmor’ a faction made up of ‘High Elves’ from another province. The Thalmor have recognized one of the Nord’s gods as false, because of that the Empire, (made up of all races from another province which the previous Elder Scrolls game was based in) have taken on that view of the false god and outlawed worship of him. This is the main drive behind the main storyline, which is obviously based upon religion and freedom to choose who to worship. The Nord’s are not all a part of the rebellion against the empire, some are in favor of it, the rebellions are known as the ‘Stormcloaks’. From playing the game and interacting with the Stormcloak characters the player can see that they are oppressed by the Empire and they are trying to gain back free reign of Skyrim.

From this the game makes the player think about oppression in reality, and those who are told who they can and cannot worship and are being denied of free right of worship. This is known as the Agenda Setting media theory. The game also involves heavy racism against others races, for example the Thalmor do not like anyone who isn’t a High Elf, and the Stormcloaks do not like anyone who isn’t a Nord. Upon entering a city in the game, the user encounters two Stormcloaks harassing a Dark Elf (Another race) and making accusations of the character. After this the Dark Elf forces conversation with you and asks if you to hate the Dark Elves. In which the player can respond negatively or positively.

In the same city as mentioned last, there is a character that underpays his labor workers, which are another race, the Argonians. In which there is a quest to help the workers achieve better pay and equality. This too makes the player think of equal rights and treatments of other races in reality.

One of the main flaws of the game is how repetitive the NPC (Non playable character) conversations are when passing them. So much so that there was a well-known line that the fan base of the game exploited and made a joke out of online, the line is now one of the most iconic phrases associated with the game. This means that players of the game can interact with each other from using NPC speech, just by saying one well known line can start a conversation or give an opinion of a person. It also shows they play Skyrim. This is known as the Uses and Gratification media theory, of users fulfilling social needs from using the media, for example using an NPC line to start a conversation or make a joke.

Because the game is based upon role playing, there are many non-human races of which you can play as an encounter throughout the game. There is very little racism in game directed at the human races, however there is a lot of racism aimed at the non-human races, for example Dark Elves, Khajiit and Argonians being the worst. This is because each of these races comes from another province and far away from their homeland. This can be related to people who migrate to different countries and areas in reality.

Because of the vast variety between races there are different colours and shades of people, literally there are characters which are completely different colours to the last you see. For example, Argonians can be any colour, being a reptile based race it does not look out of place and fits. As far as racism due to colour of skin goes in Skyrim, there is only the Dark Elves which are referred to as “gray skins” because they are, as the name states darker toned elves.

There is not obvious sexism in the game either. There are females and males doing the same thing. Throughout the various guilds and factions in the game there are both female and male characters involved and you encounter both important males and females throughout the main storyline. There is no obvious sexism stating that women should be doing a certain thing. For example in one of the cities there is a male chef, in another quest there is another male chef.  

In conclusion The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim does not appear to be sexist or racist against any real life races/ethnicities /religions. Although there were some issues with Christian parents before about the ability for two males to get married which caused outrage from some parents. Aside from that, there have been no major issues with the game. It displays genders equally and makes the player think about their play style as the game involves consequences for actions. 

Authoring vs Programming

Authoring can be done in certain programs and applications, such as Microsoft Power Point or Microsoft word. By definition authoring is;

“Authoring involves the assembly and bringing together of Multimedia”

Dave Marshall. (2001). Multimedia Programming vs Multimedia Authoring. Available: http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node25.html. Last accessed 15/5/2012.

This meaning that in short, authoring is creation and collaboration of a multimedia product. Authoring is generally more limited to what can be done in comparison to programming as you are limited to what the program or application can do. When authoring you are using a premade application or program to create something, these programs are considered high level assembly programs, and programming is considered low level. Although programs were mentioned earlier, there are other programs which can consider to be an authoring program and a programming one because of the freedom it allows, for example Adobe Flash, you can program and code something to work, or you can do it via tools the program offers. In this case, it is considered an authoring program because the base of the program and main use of it is authoring.


Thus, Programming is creating something entirely of your own, with code. Perhaps using a program such as GLbasic, this is another program which can be considered programming and authoring, although it is more of a programming program because it does not offer many features to avoid coding something manually. Although it does help with aspects and have features designed to help the user. By definition programming is;



“Programming involves low level assembly and construction and control of Multimedia and involves real languages like C and Java.”

Dave Marshall. (2001). Multimedia Programming vs Multimedia Authoring. Available: http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/Dave/Multimedia/node25.html. Last accessed 15/5/2012.

A mentioned before authoring programs are considered high level assembly and programming is considered low level. As you go along the scale, the more something involves doing things manually with code, the lower it is, and vice versa for authoring programs and features.  An example of a high level program for authoring would be Power Point, a lot lower down would be GLBasic, because the program does not do many things for you, you have to manually input the correct code and make it work yourself.

Assets can be also known as external sources of information such as sprites, or sounds. These are used in programs by importing them, or telling the program to import a certain file in a location. When using sound in GLBasic you load it in the beginning of the program and set it as a global, then tell the program to play that sound when you want and then tell it to stop. You also load in images for sprites and backgrounds for example.

Programs that you use and programs that you make will normally and nearly always include some kind of button, a button is an interactive part of the program which lets the user press it, or interact with it and the program will react upon that. For example press a “Help” button might display help options.  As shown below, even in the program I am writing this in has a vast selection of options which are triggered by buttons.

The buttons are also used in games, as well as functional programs, for example you could create a game based on clicking buttons where the objective is to hit the button before it vanishes and collect a high score from doing so repeatedly.

Time lines are commonly used for authoring programs to, obviously control when things happen with time. It also can display what is happening within the program/project in a neat and easy to understand view.

Above is a screenshot that uses a timeline to as a master control point of the project. Taken from Adobe After Effects. Although other Adobe programs now use timelines, for example; Flash, Photoshop (CS6), Premiere and Edge (In dev), as you can see there is a trend which is more programs are starting to adapt and use timelines.

Slideshows are by definition a series of slides, traditionally made up us static images and later on information, such as charts and such for business and education uses. However in recent years you have the ability to add video into them. One of the most common programs for making slide shows is Microsoft PowerPoint. As far as users being able to interact with it, you cannot really go further than being able to control what you view, e.g next slide, previous slide or perhaps a menu.

Authoring programs are as stated before more limited to what you can do with them as opposed to programming, in which you can create what you wish, if you know how, that being the major setback of programming. However authors are limited when using authoring programs because they can only do what the program permits. For example trying to create an interactive game in Microsoft Word would not be very effective because that is a text based authoring program. Likewise for other authoring programs, they are made to help others create things within their boundaries, not to expand upon them and create new things, such as making a new application, program or game.

GLBasic is very close to a real language, as it compiles the code you have input into C. This means you are very close to actually writing in C. Of course it is better to actually learn how to write C first hand rather than using a program for numerous reasons, one being it can help you further understand how C works and how to make a better product in that language. Although I have only mentioned C, there are other languages which this can be applied to, for example Java, HTML or CSS. Learning any real language is a big help and will also look great on a CV when applying for jobs. In a related post I found that employers are looking for those who know languages such as HTML, Java, CSS, AJAX and others. Obviously these were for jobs that involved using such languages; however it still shows your knowledge, ability and will to learn. It is also common sense to learn something like a language if you wish to be part of the interactive industry; it also makes sense if you only know how to code in a program which makes parts for you because when you don’t have that program you will struggle.

There are many ways to learn a language independently such as online courses and tutorials written by others who already know and understand the language. There are also websites and courses set up to teach people. That on its own shows that learning languages is important and a major key skill.

Communication protocols

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee proposed that ENQUIRE, a software project written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1980 at CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research). ENQUIRE was the predecessor to the World Wide Web, a simple hypertext program At the time around 10,000 people were working at CERN with different hardware and software. The objective was to make a new system that was compatible with different networks, disk formats and encoding schemes. Before ENQUIRE trying to exchange files and information across systems was an impractical and difficult task.

(2012). Tim Berners-Lee. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee. Last accessed 02/05/12.

In later years Berners-Lee realized that ENQUIRE was not a great solution for everybody because most of the people did not know how to use it, nor did everybody have the ability to make cards/pages. ENQUIRE also did not allow hyperlinks to already existing, external databases. From this he saw a new system was needed, one that would allow everybody to interact and create with it.


In 1990 Berners-Lee submitted another proposal in hope to replace ENQUIRE, this time to make a hypertext project called "WorldWideWeb", the objective of this project was to make a system that was publicly accessible and allowed everybody to author and create pages.

(2012). ENQUIRE. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENQUIRE. Last accessed 02/05/12.

One of Berners-Lee's breakthrough was marrying hypertext to the internet. While no one took him up on this invitation, he eventually took the project on himself and created three new technologies;


· The Universal Document Identifier, an identifier of resources on the web.


· HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the publishing language


· Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), an application for protocol distribution, collaboration and hypermedia information systems.


Communication protocols are a set of standard instructions sued by computers to communicate with each other when they are dissimilar systems. Computers must follow these instructions and rules otherwise they cannot communicate. The protocols will determine how data will be sent from one machine to another; they will also determine how the packet information will be organized when being sent. Packet size, authentication, signalling and data compression are also handled by the protocols.


VOIP allows users to transmit their voice to other computers and users. Whereas a normal telephone/landline is analogue based, however analogue is not recognized digitizer and thus the protocol changes the data to be digitized. This also accounts for fax, SMS and other voice messaging services like voicemail. These are also known as “internet telephony” because they do not use the public switched telephone network, obviously. VOIP is used very commonly in everyday life, for sending SMS messages to another or transmitting themselves to an audience.


The first email was sent by an engineer named Ray Tomlinson in 1971, at the time you could only send messages to other users on the same machine, however, Tomlinson gave the ability to send emails to other machines via the internet using the @ sign to pick which machine was to receive the email. At the time emails could only be made up of text, however now you can attach files and images to emails very easily, although most emails generally are text based with a few images. Many companies use email newsletters to keep customers informed of sales/offers and news, many of which will contain the main body which is text and a header, logo and footer.


To view an email there are various different ways, for example you could use a client based program like Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express or others. Many people use browser based clients such as hotmail or yahoo. This is generally because they are free and /or cheaper to use than clients, which you may have to pay for. Although in places of work it is not uncommon for each employee to have an email account and the ability to use an email client. Mainly because the software can be bought in bulk for many users. Because of the increase of online shopping, email newsletters have become more common and people receive multiple emails a day, some of which are considered spam and automatically moved to a spam folder.


GSM, Global System for Mobile Communications is the connection of phone and sending and receiving of messages, such as SMS. Currently there are three generations, all developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The current generation, 3G is making use of the internet and connectivity. This has several disadvantages and several advantages. One huge disadvantage is that it interferes with instruments on planes, for example the instruments the pilot uses, and this can have extreme after effects, for example crashing a plane. Despite this it can be very stable with low interference in buildings whereas 1G had a lot more interference and less signal strength. The second generation, 2G was made of digital cellular networks as a replacement of 1G, the first generation which was made up of analog cellular networks. As you can see from the names, the update was obvious, going from analog to digital, an automatic increase in quality, less interference and a larger area base of where it could be used. GSM networks are separated by frequencies and those are split into generations, for example 3G is on a different frequency range to 2G.


Instant Messaging, IM is a popular form of communication using the internet. This form of communication has become very popular as people have gained access to better computers and connections. Many of the IM services provide a client to use it, for example Windows Live Messenger/MSN or Skype. Instant messaging has replaced emails because of the speed and rate at which you can exchange messages, which is in close to real time, depending on the user’s internet connection. Most IM services also allow file transfers, which also removes the need for emails. MSN also has a feature which allows one user to paste a picture into the conversation and it will show a preview to the other users, without having to send the file to the other user. Despite being able to use clients, Gmail has an in browser version for those who do not want to use the client, other services have also done this, such as MSN. IM is also used in business to interact with the customer on a new level, mainly for customer support. Many services now offer live help rooms.

What is HTML? HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is what most websites are coded in, thus making it a very common language to know. Although recently HTML5 has been released and started to be used. HTML5 is a direct upgrade from HTML4, allowing users to do more with HTML. One of the other main sources of websites, Flash based ones are being threatened by the presence of HTML5 because it can do more things, which is one thing Flash had over HTML, the ability be able to create more. Which is now becoming more and more available with HTML.

HTML is primarily made up of code consisting of <CODEHERE>Some stuff also goes here </CODEHERE>, HTML can be learned at different levels. For example I have learned basic text formatting from posting on various forums and making note of the code that is input upon pressing a button. For example; <b> ### </b> makes the text in the brackets bold.


"HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the main markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages.

HTML is written in the form of HTML elements consisting of tags enclosed in angle brackets (like <html>), within the web page content. HTML tags most commonly come in pairs like <h1>and </h1>, although some tags, known as empty elements, are unpaired, for example <img>. The first tag in a pair is the start tag, the second tag is the end tag (they are also calledopening tags and closing tags). In between these tags web designers can add text, tags, comments and other types of text-based content."

(2012). HTML. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML. Last accessed 01/06/12.

HTML is commonly used to create layouts and templates for web pages also commonly used with CSS, another coding language to produce web pages. For example many Tumblr themes are made using HTML and CSS. The main rival of HTML is Flash based content this is because of the ability to create more things easily and without knowing a lot of code to do so. Although products are beginning to stop supporting Flash such as Apple who do not support Flash based applications or programs. Thus making HTML better as it is available over all systems and platforms.