Webisodes

"A new breed of independent film is growing on the Internet — webisodes." (USA Today 2007) Webisodes are short web episodes or series, ranging from about 4-15 minutes. These webisodes may feature as a part of a collection of drama series, whether it was already published beforehand in a movie, elsewhere or a whole new set of storyline. Viewers have to download it from the Internet to gain access to these webisodes. There are also webisodes which are created relatively targeted to teenagers to entertain as well as educate them on the dangers of drug abuse and the spread of HIV infection. For example:

Educational:

#1 Learn the link between drug abuse and the spread of HIV infection in United States

Entertainment:

#2 Happy Slip

This particular webisode had 2,156,980 views, 343,356 suscribers and 10,981,883 channel views.

It is also awarded the #15 - Most Subscribed (All Time), #6 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors, #13 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Partners and #62 - Most Viewed (All Time) - Directors on Youtube

I myself, have been a loyal suscriber of HappySlip, as I enjoyed every episodes of the webisodes. I find myself anticipating for new videos every month!

#3 The Chad Vader Series

This webisode had 8,528,770 views.

The reasons for creating webisodes (Chad Vader):

We had been making videos for the Internet and other places for several years," says Sloan. "Chad Vader was one idea in a pile of ideas that we had pitched to some networks and gotten some positive feedback. Things move so slowly in the television and film world, we didn't want to wait around for approval. We wanted to make it ourselves." (USA Today 2007)

According to Walsh (2006), the Internet has the power to combine words and images in complex structure with "logos, menu bars, hyperlinks, hot spots, video clips, animation, graphics, music, sound effects, voice-over or write-over." All these features help so much in enhancing the website as it able to link from pages to pages of interconnections in and between the sites.
Technology is now the greatest tool for anyone wanting to tell a story and made it heard. How does it attract the viewers? A production which is dead and boring shuns the audience away.

Interaction with the audience is one of the main reasons why viewers get attracted to a particular webisode. People tend to connect with the words, pictures and videos in order to fully understand and enjoy the texture of stories (Reagen & Revels 2007) Out of curiousity and interest, audience will want to come back for more.

Television works and functions in the same way how a webisode does, that is to engage its audience. "The single most important concept in this new industrial discourse is that of audience
“engagement”, a term that has generated a tremendous amount of debate and disagreement, with television and advertising executives alike struggling to understand what engagement is, how it works, and what its practical consequences will be." (Askwith 2007)

References

1. Askwith, I. D. 2007, 'Television 2.0: Reconceptualizing TV as an Engagement Medium', Program in Comparative Media Studies (Online accessed 9 June 2009) URL: http://cms.mit.edu/research/theses/IvanAskwith2007.pdf

2. Gambito, C. 2006, ‘Happy Slip’s channel’, Youtube. (online accessed 10 June 2009)
URL: http://www.youtube.com/user/HappySlip

3. Kornblum, J. 2007, 'Check out these episodes of webisodes', USAToday.com (Online accessed 10 June 2009) URL: http://www.usatoday.com/life/2007-11-12-webisodes-side_N.htm?csp=34

4. National Institute on Drug Abuse 2007, Information on HIV/AIDS and teen drug use from NIDA (Online accessed 10 June 2009) URL: http://hiv.drugabuse.gov/index.html

5. Reagen, B. W. & Revels, A. 2007, 'Mapping the Loss of Reflexivity in the Age of Narcissism',
National Association for the Practice of Anthropology.

6. Sloan, M. & Yonda, A. 2006, Blamesocietyfilms, Youtube. (Online accessed 10 June 2009)
URL: http://www.youtube.com/user/blamesocietyfilms

7. Walsh, M. 2006, ‘Textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp.24-37.