CULTURAL AND CULTIVATION FEATURES
ON WEB DESIGNING:
A Case Study of Gold Peach Community
1 Objective and Significance
This series research was based on the fundamental ideas of Cultural and Cultivation Features to develop a web community service for children and juvenile. The series was conducted from 1996 to 1999. There were tree generations of web user interface and interaction has been developed and tested.
1.1 Culture
Internet makes the earth smaller, brings the world into a village. When we are celebrating the international boundary is falling down; do we regret that the pluralistic colors are also vanishing?
Though there are millions web sites, we have found the inevitable trend that the web characters grow similar faces, wear same uniforms, their interactions are more and more following consistent pattern. We can not tell which web site is from a certain corner of which continent.
It worried me when I called for a seminar of designing a new web with my college students. When we needed an innocent leading actress, there was only Snow White left in their mind; when we made up a worrier model, the Black Knight came out; when we set up exploring plots, they were thinking of Star Trek. They ignored or forgot there are plenty of symbols and scientific fictional stories in Chinese history and mysteries. The young generation is losing its heritage of cultural imagination. (Wu, 1997)
The author suggested that we should remind web designers to consider cultural feature to be an essential factor for designing web. It would be not interesting, if there were no cultural differences in the webs net. (Wu, 1998)
1.2 Cultivation
Medias form and content as well may produce cultivation effect to children, according to Gerbner et al. (1979)s series work concerning Media Sociology perspective.s form and content as well may produce cultivation effect to children, according to Gerbner et al. (1979)s series work concerning Media Sociology perspective. This idea may come from a long tradition of The Medium is the Message (McLuhan, 1966). It argued that media itself would affect audiences recognition, attitudes, and even behavior.
There were rich studies and documents on TV cultivation theories in 1970s and 1980s. (Anderson, 1980; Hughes, 1980) Scholars advocated that there are heavy effects influencing children by television. They also found that television would build up an unreal world, solid evidence was discovered and considered a serious problem.
However, there is still a positive angle to this effect. We may conclude that although media may distort ones behavioral development, while it also may inspire ones mental potential especially in his/her childhood.
WWW is the most powerful media next to television. When we review the lessons from television, the author wants to suggest that developing web is not only a mechanism but also initiating a community that may cause cultivation between community members.
2 Methodology
As an application research, four methods were employed:
Literature reviews.
Depth interviewing with focus group who are experts in children education.
Web systems analysis and design.
Interaction analysis by users feed back.
3 Results
The web was named Gold Peach Web Community. Gold Peach is a magic fruit in West Holy Mothers garden based on Chinese ancient legend. You could navigate the cloud and explore unknown world after eating the Peach.
Since Gold Peach also appears in the famous Chinese classic fiction The story of the venture tour to West, we adopt the characters and plots from the story to create the cyber environment of the web.
The child users could act roles as Magic Monkey, Pig, Sandman, Dragon Horse or Master Monk etc. The could steal Gold Peach to surf the WWW, or to break in 81 forbidden area that were controlled by different monsters, or join one of chat rooms in Flower Island.
The teacher or expert users could apply to be god or goddess in South Heaven Palace. After verification procedure, they would be authorized to be in charge a specific interest group to develop the interaction with child users.
4 Discussion
4.1 Culture: A deficiency, excess and integration trace
Three generations of the user interface were developed during 1996-1999. It revealed the introspection on seeking the cultural feature of web design.
Though the culture requirement was highlighted according to the web developing strategy for the 1st generation, the implement was relatively unsuccessful. The artists in the project team were still lost in the long term Westernized training. The leading role, Magic Monkey, was cute, but lack of originality. The presentation of icons and background were inevitably under European shadow. (See Figure 1)
Figure 1. 1st Generation
The effort on discovering lost tradition inspired the using of Chines ink and calligraphy art to stylize the home page for the 2nd generation. The cultural specification wasThe effort on discovering lost tradition inspired the using of Chines ink and calligraphy art to stylize the home page for the 2nd generation. The cultural specification was distinguished, however, the black-and-white idea was too abstract to attract childrens attention. (See Figure 2)
Figure 2. 2nd Generation
We did not find a balance between cultural skill and modern technique until the 3rd generation. We inherit the 3-D model of Chinese flour idol and the styling interest of folk drama to cerate cyber characters. The objects in the background were Chinese materials with modern simplified geometric outlines. The real culture should be a living idea that contented historic and current context. (See Figure 3)
Figure 3. 3rd Generation
4.1 Cultivation: A ferment attempt
The result of this research Gold Peach Community is expected to guide a new direction and a new method for children to develop their abilities of learning and problem solving under silent and positive cultivation. This research investigated and accomplished the followings:
1. Reviewing and categorizing current information and webs that are suitable for children and juvenile.
2. Providing interactive learning setting by web information that is combined with primary schools curricula to form a learning community.
5 References
Anderson, James A. (1980); The Theoretical Lineage of Critical Viewing Curricula; Journal of Communication; Vol.30, No.: 64-70
McLuhan, Marshall(1966); Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man; NY: McGraw-Hill; Ch.1
Gerbner, George, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorielli(1979); Television Viewing and Fear of Victimization: Specification or Spuriousness; Annenberg, Penn.: The Annenberg School of Communications, Univ. of Penn.
Hughes, Michael; (1980); The Fruits of Cultivation Analysis: A Reexamination of Some Effects of Television Watching; Public Opinion Quarterly 46: 287-302
Wu, Tung-Xiung; (1998); Gold Peach Web Community: A Research and Production Project; Taipei: Project of NSC: NSC-87-2515-S-128-001-CH
Wu, Tung-Xiung; (1997); A Research on Cultural Specifications of Internet Services; Shih Hsin Journal; No. 6:115-27
