1st Session - Rationale

We've decided to do an Arts & Literature online ezine. This is a personal preference for both of us, based on our inclinations toward the arts, and the vast amount of books we both seem to have consumed recently.

By keeping the site light, not based on hard news, it gives us a bit more freedom in terms of writing style. Furthermore, it creates a better atmosphere in our eyes, and gives the site a nicer feel.

At this stage, we plan to have the two main sections, Arts and Literature, as well as a homepage, and an 'about us' page.

The Literature page can be split into reviews of books, potentially 'what's new' and 'what's not, but you should have read', and also a personal contribution page where the editors can either post general opinions on happenings in the literature world, or possibly short stories, etc. This opens up the interactive aspect of the site in that users can comment on the reviews, stories, opinions, and potentially post their own.

The Arts page can be split much the same, reviews of current works/exhibitions and potentially past works that people should go and look up, and a personal contribution page where the editors can either write opinions on art world happenings, or submit their own works. This again opens interactive options for site users as they can post comments against the works or submit their own work.

When considering a 'news' based element, we can either find news specifically related to our chosen fields and then link to them (much as MSN links to SKY Sports for its sport news), or just include a simple RSS field which would enable people to see general news whilst they search the site.

In terms of cross-convergence with the other units, we're looking at potentially assisting the TV unit with their YouTube channel set-up and graphic composition. Whether or not we include work produced by the other modules is dependant on whether or not they produce anything relative to our target market.

Our target market is 18-35 year olds, who are interested in contemporary art and literature, but need some direction as to what they should be looking out for/reading next. We want to avoid being high-brow, whilst not writing to a lowest-common denominator.