What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Listening back on the radio production we have composed as a group, it appears likely that a local media institution such as Heart FM Oxford and BBC Oxford would hopefully distribute our product. I say this because obviously the news being broadcasted is local so therefore would not be as much of an interest to stations such as Five Live, which is broadcasted all over the UK.
Heart Fm Oxford have a jingle of 'Heart Breakfast, with Matt and Gisele' or the most common 'This is Heart, This is Heart!'. The SJDJ radio station also has a jingle which is adjacent to our news piece, 'This is the SJDJ show with Sam, Jack, David and Jenni'. Also, Heart talk about international news to begin with and then move on to local news as well as weather and travel, all in a small amount of time. The SJDJ show has used the ideas from Heart to construct our own finished media product.
Who would be the audience for your media product? And how does it represent particular social groups?
Overall the mass media, demographic audience suitable for our production ranges from around 16+. 16 is probably the most common age for people to start taking a better interest in the news and all the things that are happening around them. Also for those who are travelling to work in their cars and other vehicles with radios during drive time. This is because we have a traffic and weather update which is a big interest to those travelling back and forth from work and for those who are generally commuting.
How did you attract/address your audience?
As our piece of news is likely to be broadcasted at a prime time, we have included different forms of news such as local, national and also weather and traffic. By listening to a different range of local radio stations we noticed that the main thing they have in common is the variety of news. This helps attract different and bigger types of audience. Celebrity news may be more of an interest to the younger generation whereas traffic may attract the older, working type. Informative news such as the Haiti news is aimed to engross everybody. By having different types of news is a big advantage to attracting a large audience.
Something that other local news stations also have in common is the use of a jingle. Jingles are actually a very good way to attract an audience. Even though to an audience a jingle is just a short piece of music played now and again throughout the day on the radio show, it is actually a very clever idea. Having the same short jingle played at specific times, the audience begin to recognise that when they hear it either a news piece is coming up or a song. It is also to inform the audience that they are listening to that specific radio station. Jingles are used in radio and also on TV. For example Eastenders' themetune and the famous 'Dum Dum!' informs the audience that Eastenders is playing and to come and watch! Our jingle is short and catchy which is important in attracting the audience.
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
In order to successfully construct our piece of local news we first of all needed a programme that we could record onto and then use to edit. The programme we used is called Audacity and is a free programme that can be downloaded from the Internet. It allows you to record your voice and edit it to make (in our circumstances) a good quality news piece. Over the course of around 5 months i have learnt how to master Audacity, how to record myself and how to dub in voiceovers on other speech pieces. I have learnt how to use a microphone properly without creating a 'breezy' effect by standing too close to it! I have been taught briefly how to use a large piece of equipment that allows me to speak live and have the whole of my school listen to me (our very own live radio station at school!)
I have learnt how to use a handheld voice recorder which was used to create the outside broadcast and also how to add sound effects into our piece of news. For example we found a short clip of a helicopter which we then added into our traffic news.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Our preliminary was just a play around and helped us to start grasping how we were going to make a really interesting piece of local news that would attract our target audience. Looking back, i have learnt a lot more on how to edit voices and how to copy them into Audacity. In the preliminary we did not have an outside broadcast nor a voxpop. I have learnt what a voxpop actually is as i didn't really understand it at first! I have learnt how to record my voice outside of the media room using the hand-held voice recorder and then how to upload it onto the computer to then copy it into Audacity. I have learnt how to merge voice clips into our local news station when we felt we needed to add more so it made more sense.
The best thing i have learnt is how to work with other people and making sure everyone has a say in order to have a really enjoyable time whilst making this piece of work. I have found this task really entertaining and realise that working together as a team is indeed the way forward!
Jenni showed a proficient level of research and planning. She gave three thorough examples of her analysis of local radio conventions. Jenni was instrumental in organising her group, ensuring that targets and deadlines were met, where and when meetings too place and feeding back information to her subject tteacher. She also made reference to theory in her planning, relating it to the local programmes she had studied. Main Task:The main task was well executed showing excellence in the creative use of of many technical skills. The candidate must not be marked down for the quality of the equipment available to her. Voices were recorded clearly in a studio setting, samples were edited and mixed smoothly and jingles, sound effects and music were used to good effect. There is a slight issue with the clip from Sarah Brown as the news jingles comes in too quickly. The group made use of a wide variety of local news broadcast conventions, such as local weather and travel news. Their script used accurate register and language. Jenni was instrumental in the performance, editing and recording of her final piece. The piece had excellent continuity and was easy to understand. Jenny should be rewarded for her excellent level of creative and technical skills. Evaluation: Jenny was able to evaluate her product at aproficient level. She usnderstood the issues surrounding institution and targeting an audience. She used both film and blogging to deliver her evaluation. She showed she understood how she had devloped from the preliminary task to the final piece. Jenny could have analysed her final piece in greater detail, picking up on the issues and how they could be resolved in a future task.
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