Coursework questions

Research and Planning

for your research and planning you must include information on the following:

• Research into a variety of local radio stations
• Conventions of local radio news
• Example of local radio news
• An analysis of how these clips fit into theory of your choice
• A detailed timeline of your radio news
• Notes about how you contributed to the task

Evaluation Questions

• How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our Media project is based on a local radio station to us called 'Jack FM'. This radio station does not have a particular social group that it is aimed at, it plays a variety of different types of music to suit a wide variety of social groups. We aimed our radio station to be slightly more urban compared to 'Jack FM' because that is the sort of culture that we are from so we would be suited to this type of radio station more.

We have quite a laid back approach to the radio show because its a breakfast show and people want to relax in the morning and they're not in a very energetic mood so people would not want to listen if people were hyperactive. It is quite a casual radio station but when we are doing the news bulletin we make sure that we are formal because it is an important time in a radio show and if we have a casual approach to that, so that there is a distinction between casual chat and the important news bulletin.

• What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Jack FM is owned by a company called ARI Consultancy, they are quite a big company owning radio stations from all around the world including stations all the way over in USA. This shows that it is a big business and it is very unlikely that they will want to run 'Shoot FM' because it would be a small station not the sort of thing that ARI Consultancy would usually run. Also i think that it would not be a very good idea for this company to run 'Shoot FM' because as it runs lots of stations in different countrys, i think this means that it wont be as successfull as it could be with a company that only runs stations in the UK because their views about how to do the station would be different.

Heart FM is owned by Global Radio, this company owns a number of quite successful radio stations across the UK. This would be a good company to run 'Shoot FM' because with them owning quite a lot of successfull radio stations across the UK they will have a number of ideas to improve the station from other successfull stations that they run. However i dont think that Global Radio would want to run 'Shoot FM' because it would be a much smaller radio station than the other ones that they run so they would not be used to having a much smaller audience.

• Who would be the audience for your media product?

We haven't aimed our media project at a particular audience, we feel that a verity of ages and social groups can listen to it and enjoy our show. Its a breakfast show that plays a collection of the latest songs and whatever is in the chart will be played on our show, whatever the type of music. The culture that we come from is more of an urban culture so naturally the show is going to come across as slightly urban but anybody can listen from any culture without feeling out of place.

It is also not aimed at a certain gender, we play songs that any gender could would like so there is no reason for any gender difference in listeners. Our show is chilled out so any people could listen.

• How did you attract/ address your audience?

We used a number of different ways of addressing and attracting the audience in our media project. This included speaking to the audience, involving them in a small competition. We addressed the audience when we opened the show by saying good morning. This is just how you would address anyone in the street so it is a nice and friendly approach. We had quite a casual approach to the show because we didn't want to be too formal, we wanted it to be quite fun. But we also needed to make sure that we didn't make it too casual to the point that people would take it as a joke. There's a thin line between causal and taking it as a joke but i think we managed to create the right effect to the listeners.

We made sure that when doing the news we were formal. This shows the distinction between the fun and laughter of the studio with the seriousness and importance of the daily news to the listeners. As well as speaking about the national news we also talk about the local news because this is going to be important for the listeners as it is a local radio station. This addresses the audience in a way because it specialises the show by making it for the local audience.

We included a small competition to include the audience and get them involved in the show. We played a clip of the guest that was going to be in the studio and if they guessed the right person they had the chance to text in and then one lucky listener would be able to speak to the guest later on in the show. This helps address and involve the whole audience because even if they don't text in with an answer, they will all still have a guess at who the guest is. This creates a bit of excitement and competitiveness to the show.

• What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We used a number of different technological devices and softwear when recording, edditing and uploading our media project and when doing reaserch for our project. We recorded our peice using the recording softwear Loigc 9.0. We created our whole 5 minute peice using Logic, this meant that we made our jinge, backing music and all of the other sounds that we used in our clip. We were very pleased with the effect that all of this had on our clip.

The most important thing that we used Logic for was improving the quality of the sound of our clip. After recording our best take there were quite a lot of differences in the volume of our voices and this made it sound very unprofessional so before he added any jingles or effects we needed to try and make all voices about the same volume in the clip. then we could add the gingles and the beats to make it sound more like a radio station.

We had to use softwear called Podbean to actually upload our preliminary task and our final 5 minute peice to our blogs so that people could listen. When doing reaserch, to show evidence of our reaserch we needed to record a clip of news from a local radio station, we did this using softwear called audacity. This meant that we could post evidence of our reaserch to our blog.

• Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

when we looked back at our preliminary, we came to the conclusion that we came across very casual to the point that it came across almost like a joke. We didnt think that represented a local radio station very well so we knew that we needed to change the way we came across as an audience. We also came to the conclusion that our radio show was very urban, we thought that it wasnt a good idea that our 5 minute clip was like this because then it completely limits the audience but we did want to make it slightly urbal still so we made sure whe did this for the 5 minute clip.

When listening to the news in our preliminary it was very laid back and it sounded very unprofessional. we knew that for the 5 minute clip we needed to make the news section a lot more serious as this is the most important part of the show for most people.