Radio Production Evaluation.

1. Radio Production Evaluation. Vivien Tang

2. Aims & Objectives: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? Conventional because of the language we used and the way we spoke. For example, “However, have a brolly prepared because of the light showers “. Instead of using ‘umbrella’ I used ‘brolly’ instead. It is similar to Radio 1 because of the target audience its aimed at. Radio 1’s radio stations are aimed at 16-24s within the UK. On our script we decided to structure it with hard stories first, soft stories, entertainment, sports news and then traffic and weather. Moreover, many radio stations use this structure so we have stuck to the ‘traditional’ way of radio news.

3. Aims & Objectives: How does your media products represent particular social groups? Our media products represents particular social groups because when we first started our production we immediately presumed what would interest out target audience. We aimed our radio production at 16 to 25 year olds who are on their way to work, college and school. As a group we instantly thought music, films and general entertainment. With our news bulletins they didn’t include anything political or much international news; apart from one story on the Australia Bushfires. In one of our stories it was about a taxi driver being stabbed by who were described as ‘baseball bat wielding gang of thugs’. Also, the taxi driver was said to be ‘brutally attacked’, therefore, we have included hyperbole in our news story. The language we used created a stereotypical representation of what the attackers were like – a ‘chav’.

4. Aims & Objectives: What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why? As our radio production includes a lot of information that the younger generation can relate to, I would think a large company such as IPC will be interested. Due to the fact that they already own NME who are music based and always up to date with their audience. More importantly for NME their average readers and listeners are 24 years of age and most of them are still studying.

5. Aims & Objectives: Who would be the target audience for your media product? At first we decided our target audience would be young adults aged between 16 and 25 years old who have a big interest in entertainment. Which includes music, films and television. Furthermore, I felt that our news stories were suitable for our target audience seeing as We stuck to our original idea of what we were going to broadcast. Our idea from the beginning was more entertainment based and less political. Therefore, we didn’t have any political issues and only one international news story.

6. Aims & Objectives: How did you attract/address your audience? We will attract our listeners by basing news topics that will interest the target audience. Furthermore, we used spoken language that our targeted audience would use. For example, we chose the story of the taxi driver being stabbed because of the stereotype it created. Within this story it included the line “baseball bat wielding gang of thugs” which will make our stories relate to our audience because gangs of young people nowadays are usually described as thugs, so they will have a mental image of what the attackers are like. ‘Thugs’ relates to people being in gangs and acting inappropriately. Also, we kept our station local, therefore, our news subjects will be based mainly around the area. We kept our station local by our accents, referring to local news and events. However, we did use a few stories that are out of the regional area and an international story because everyone would be interested in it. We chose the jingles, beds and stings that we used because it is more modern (fast paced). Therefore, this will catch our audiences attention, also, it is quite up lifting music which will brighten up their day because we are broadcasting our show in the mornings.

7. Aims & Objectives: What have you learnt about the technologies from the process of constructing this product? I have learnt that recording a radio piece is not as easy as I thought. A lot of things have to be prepared before recording for example, setting levels, producing two scripts (one for the technician and one for myself). To make sure there are no or hardly any hyperbole’s in the news bulletin because it might come across as biased. Furthermore, we had to organise the jingles and to see which one suited out radio production. Additionally, we had to edit our production in time to hand it in. The time spent on editing was a lot longer than I expected, I thought it would be about a few hours. Instead, it took us about 2 days. Moreover, when we did the vox pops we had to set the levels on the machine to make sure it suited our own voices and the person we’re interviewing, otherwise it will become distorted and will be no use to us.

8. Aims & Objectives: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do your feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product? I feel that I have learnt a great deal throughout the time between the preliminary task and the full product. For example, when writing the script we had to structure it in an appropriate way (hard stories, soft stories, entertainment and sports news). If we didn't use this structure and placed entertainment news first then hard stories it may offend some listeners because it will come across as entertainment and sports news is more important. By making it a good news broadcast we have spoken about topics that our target audience would like, such as sports we have based it on a local team Stoke City. In our scripts we also tried our best not to include any hyperbole’s otherwise it will come across as biased which our audience might not like. I have learnt how to edit our radio piece on a software that I have never come across before. I believe, that I have also improved on vox pop recordings because I am more use to the machinery and the techniques.