Evaluation Question 1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

1. Evaluation question 1 –
In what ways does your media
product use, develop or challenge
forms and conventions of real media
products?
Zsanett Stockdale

2. Our target audience
 We understood to create the best outcome for our news
bulletin, was to follow conventions of real media
products, and in this case the features we expect to
hear in a news bulletin. However, not only should be
follow these conventions, but in order to target our
audience we found ourselves developing and
challenging these expectations. Although to some
extent we did remain with the conventions, as we
wanted to make our bulletin sound realistic.
 Our target audience is locals of the Isle of Wight, aged
15-18 years, with more female listeners. However we
decided to section our target audience into primary,
secondary and tertiary. Primary being females aged
15-18, secondary males in the same age group, finally
our tertiary both genders aged 19-23. After producing
our bulletin, we later discovered that our bulletin
actually targets all 3 sections, rather than females
aged 15-18 specifically.

3. Jingles
 During my research, I discovered many of our
target audience listen to either BBC Radio 1
or Capital FM. As well as their original, local
radio station - Isle of Wight radio, at 17.6%.
Therefore I analysed both BBC Radio 1 (as
they aim at a similar target audience) and
Isle of Wight radio (as they’re the current
local station for the island) news bulletins. I
discovered both included a fast paced jingle,
creating a sense of urgency, however no
mention of news. Both jingles contain
conventions of a typical radio jingle, such as
the name of the station, a fast paced tune
and their slogan.


4. Our following on these conventions

 We continued this convention within our bulletin, however
we included ‘FM and Online’ as a way of explaining to our
audience, we have multiple ways on listening to this
station. We picked up this idea from the Isle of Wight’s
bulletin, as they mention ways to access their radio.
 We believed this would target our audience as young people
are often associated with the internet, therefore they
would be happy to know they can also access via a Wi-Fi
source.

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 We didn’t mention news at all, even within our newsreader
intro, as we believed the urgent tune of the jingle would
give it away. Also when a newsreader introduces
themselves, you usually know it's going to be some sort of
news broadcast.

5. Newsreader introduction
 For our newsreader intro we followed the conventions, by
including a time check, greeting and name of our
newsreader. However we tailored this convention as we
only included our newsreaders first name. We believed
having both her first and surname would sound too
formal for our target audience, despite other radio
stations following this convention. Isle of Wight radio,
includes both names, such as ‘Hi I'm Sarah Leahy’
however we initially thought this sounded
inappropriate for our target audience, as their target
audience is 40+ which is extremely different to our 15-
23. After listening to a bulletin from Radio 1’s
newsbeat, we discovered they didn't even use an
introduction, but instead plunged straight for the news
stories. We thought this seemed too sudden, and a
simple introduction is a convention we wish to remain
following.

6. Our development of these conventions
 We developed this by saying ‘Good Morning, I’m
Phebe and it’s 8’O Clock’. This sounded
professional but not too formal for our target
audience. Following this, we believed this
sounded much more relaxed which would
engage with our target audience, which is the
tone we continued throughout our bulletin, to
remain our audience's attention. When
addressing our audience, we followed the
convention of having a formal tone, however
slightly changing depending on the new story.
 Each newsreader remained a formal tone,
however we challenged this convention as we
wanted to sounded more relaxed and
approachable to our target audience. A
example of this is during our Two-way for our
third story. We structured this as if we were
having a conversation, however remaining a
professional, formal tone. This targeted our
audience as it appeared much more relaxed yet
informative.


7. Beds

A traditional convention of a bed is a continuous
piece of music (no lyrics), fasted paced and with an
intense beat. We remained with this convention, as
a bed is typically used for radio stations aimed at a
young audience, similar to ourselves. This played
under each newsreader speech, cutting out during
clips, vox pops and voicers. Our bed was faced paced
and energetic, to target the youth of our audience.
Our target audience is
youthful teenagers and
young people, therefore an
energetic, fast paced bed
would symbolise the image
of youth.

8. Stabs

For our stab, we challenged the convention as it is typically a
very short version of the jingle, with no words. We customized the
traditional stab, as we included the word, news, as well as a
different tone altogether from the jingle. After inserting a couple
of stabs into our bulletin, we then decided to create additional
stabs for different sections of our bulletin, such as Entertainment
and Sport. This again was challenging the convention, as if a radio
station does have a stab with words, it usually doesn’t change
depending on what content the news is. We did this as it directly
tells our audience we are moving away from a particular section of
news to another, this makes the transition obvious rather than
getting our audience to almost guess. We also included a lot more
stabs to separate news stories, as felt it sounded more obvious and
additionally the stab alone is quite powerful to keep their
attention.



9.  The stab and bed were from the same tune, but with
different rhythms. We included word ‘news, sport and
entertainment’ as we didn’t want our stab to act in the
role of a S.O.C. We wanted to break up some of our
stories, however we also wanted to reinforce to our
listeners, more news is still to come.
 We also used this after our newsreader’s introduction, as
we hadn’t incorporated any mention of news, thus this
established the news bulletin. The tune behind it is of
the same style as our bed and jingle, as it resembles an
energetic, fast paced tune, again to reinforce it is a news
bulletin, as well as an energetic sound appealing to our
target audience.


10. Conventions of news stories
 The first story featured in our bulletin was structured as a
Cue and Voicer. The Voicer was classed as outside
broadcast, as Maddie, our reporter, was stood at Cowes
terminal, when recording. Both Radio 1 and Isle of
Wight radio, used a Cue and Voicer for their first news
story. I followed the traditions of this convention as both
of these radio stations, were opted as their frequent
listening in our target audience survey.
 However not both of these Voicers we classed as an outside
broadcast, as Radio 1’s was actually done in an
additional studio, this is where we slightly adjusted this
convention. As Radio 1 has a similar target audience, we
wanted to follow in the direct of their conventions,
however also within the style of a local radio station
(IOW Radio), thus we decided to have our Voicer as an
OB (outside broadcast) to reinforce the localisation, as
we named in the script, Maddie was in Cowes, on the
Isle of Wight.
 We also believe the change in scenery, would remain our
audiences attention, as they would feel there's something
new to experience, for example the voicer can be heard
with the sea as a background noise, which diverts from
the stations bed.

11. Radio 1’s Newsbeat bulletin
 We looked into how many stories of Radio 1’s Newsbeat are
actually classified as an outside broadcast. In the
bulletin I analysed, no stories were recorded outside of a
studio, with only one Cue and Voicer. The remaining
stories were structured as Copy Stories. Despite Copy
Story’s being a convention frequently used in radio
bulletins, I initially thought Radio 1 would include a
range of ways to present their stories to engage with the
audience, especially aimed at a younger generation. Our
bulletin was structured in a range of different ways,
however followed the convention of included one or more
Copy Stories. We included 3, and the Weather forecast.

12. Why we challenged this convention
 The proposal of introducing different ways to format your news
stories, became apparent this was the correct way to
structure our bulletin. A bulletin full of Copy Story's, with
only a couple of exceptions would bore our audience, as they
would feel the news has just be listed out to them. Instead by
using people of their age group giving opinions, and
additional newsreaders would result in our audience
continuing to listen to the bulletin, and engage with the
stories.


 Isle of Wight radio included 5 out of the 6 stories as outside
broadcasts. Therefore we followed the conventions of
structuring your news stories, within a local radio station.
Embedding both of these approaches created a diverse,
interesting bulletin, with little possibility for our audience to
become bored or disengage. A voicer doesn’t purposely aim
for younger audience, however it is conventionally used in
stations aimed at young audience, even if only one is used.


13. Cue’s
 With each story we followed the convention of a Cue, with two
simple sentences to give basic information on the story
(Four men were arrested on suspicion of drug offences
after being involved in a boat crash in Cowes. The men
were aboard a twenty foot boat when it collided at
high speed, at 3 O’clock Sunday morning.) and one in
line to introduce the stories further detail (Our reporter,
Maddie has more). We continued to follow the conventions
of a cue throughout our bulletin, with only occasional
challenges, such as including one sentence before the in
line, instead of the traditional two.
A segment from our
final script,
showing how we
challenged a
traditional cue.

14. Copy Story’s
 Our second story was a Copy story, which we used twice more
within our bulletin. This is a typical way to structure a news
story, in any bulletin, thus we decided to use it three times. In
Radio 1’s bulletin, they used a Copy Story for all of their stories
but one, therefore it was apparent these stories are conventional
within targeting a younger audience. This is because they provide
substantial information, without the need for extra audio, which
in some cases can distract away from the point of the story. In
order to avoid this, we used additional audio for only stories that
would benefit this, such as those who want the opinion of the
audience, for example our story of Bestival’s move to Dorset.

15.  We used Copy Stories for both our Sport Stories and our
second Entertainment Story, as each of these stories
didn’t require additional audio as it may bore our target
audience. Outlining the story and giving basic facts
appears much more approachable and interesting to our
audience as young people may become bored of
continuous long stories, which is why we included a
range of alternate stories, ranging from hard hitting to
softer news. We followed the traditional structure of a
Copy Story, 3 or 4 sentences read by the newsreader. We
didn’t make any changes this convention as we believed
its traditional structure would continue to target our
audience, especially once heard in Radio 1’s Newsbeat.

An example from
our final script, of
two copy stories,
used in our final
news bulletin.

16. Conventions of additional audio
 When using additional audio, such as Cue
and Clip or Voxpop, we arranged to only
use additional audio when the story
requires opinions of the locals. Bestival’s
move was a straightforward story, we
gave where it's moving to and why, which
gave us the opportunity to give opinions
of the locals. This made the story sound
much more interesting, as it provided
opinions from people within the age
group of our target audience, which
would become more relatable to our
target audience. A vox pop is also a
convention used when requiring local
stories. We included a mix of genders,
with 4 people giving their opinion,
following this convention, due to it’s
popularity on local stories and bulletins.

17. Clips
 In our story concerning the hope to reopen Ryde Ice Rinks, we initially thought of
asking the leader of the community group to provide an interview. However to
follow the conventions of a younger audience, we thought asking a young person
would be beneficial. As a result of asking Ella, a former member of Wight Jewels, a
figure skating group whom used Ryde Ice Rink to skate, shows a level of authority,
as well as keeping within the age of our target audience. Additionally, after this
story was to change to entertainment news, thus we wanted to broadcast a more
softer news story in order to create a smooth transition to the entertainment news.
This would also engage with the audience as this story would particularly affect
them, as well as constant hard news could potentially bore our audience.
 Our second clip was from an interview with Jade, a victim of Revenge Porn,
concerning our story on Facebook’s new action again Revenge Porn. This again,
provided a personalised view on story, especially as this story can be particularly
aimed at our target audience, linking to the association of young people and social
media. We used various locations for each story, to create diverse scenery and
background noise which would allow our target audience to engage, as each story
differs from a typical studio broadcast.

18. Back-Annos
 We used the convention of a back anno, after our two way,
despite it not being an excessively long piece of audio,
which is what a back anno is usually used for, we
believed it was needed to separate the stories. It also
reinforced the idea on our station being accessible
through multimedia platforms, in this case our website.
It also interacts with the audience, making them engage
with the direct proposal. The convention of a back anno
is also used after a voicer, which we didn’t follow as our
story used in the format of a voicer (Drug Bust in
Cowes), we didn’t believe the audience needed reminding
of the newsreaders name, as this was the first story. In
the back anno we used, we also didn’t say the
newsreaders name, but instead offered a way to access
new updates. The tailoring of this convention, allowed us
to directly speak to our audience, as well as reinforcing
the idea of internet access, popular within our target
audience.
Our back
anno used, in
our bulletin.

19. Sport News
 We included a section of the bulletin dedicated to Sport,
which is a convention of majority of radio stations,
including the Isle of Wight Radio and BBC Radio 1’s
Newsbeat. We included two sport stories, one local and
one national, as our target audience opted for a mixture
of local and national. We followed this convention, as a
result of our target audience preferring a 30 second sport
update, as well as Radio 1 and Isle of Wight radio
including a small section of Sport, usually around the 30
second mark.

20. Travel news/updates
 In terms of travel updates, we challenged this convention, as
within a typical news broadcast, a section of the news is
dedicated to any travel updates. However we didn’t include
this as we believed it wasn’t necessary. Our audience wouldn’t
be able to drive until 17, and that doesn’t mean all our 17 year
old audiences will be driving, therefore this wouldn’t appeal to
them. The majority of our audience would travel via buses,
and the ferry and boat information is constantly changing,
which people usually visit their website to access travel
updates. Therefore any travel news wouldn't be appropriate,
as the majority of the audience wouldn't benefit from this
broadcast.
 Instead we filled this time with a Weather update, a convention
we followed. We included this as this would affect our target
audience, in aspects of plans they may of made as well as
general weather updates/forecasts for their upcoming week.
Again, this was in formal tone, however slightly more
emphasised than when reading the hard hitting news, as the
weather is usually conventionally broadcasted in an upbeat,
but formal tone, which we heard in the Isle of Wight’s bulletin.

21. Politic news
 News related to politics is largely conventional to
many news bulletins, via a radio station.
However we challenged this conception, by not
including a section of our bulletin dedicated to
politic news. We decided on this as our target
audience, will hear about politics everywhere,
such as through TV, their work/school/college
and other additional radio station they listen to.
Despite producing some national news stories,
being a local radio station, conventionally
means providing local news, or news that can
be localised, which is what we aimed to do
within our news bulletin.
 We also thought politics would take up a large
amount of our news bulletin in order to provide
informative news, which we simply didn’t have
time for. Politics news usually requires a long
airing time in any media platform, and our 5
minute bulletin was already constructed around
what our target audience preferred. Therefore
this convention was strong challenged by us,
but as a result of referring to our target
audience.

22. Standard out cue
 We used a traditional convention of a standard out cue, also known as S.O.C.
This is a professional way to end a bulletin, as well as a nice transition
into the jingle and then the final ending. BBC Radio 1’s Newsbeat, gave
the time of their next news, which we adapted to fit our target audience.
We avoided giving another update of news, instead we offered our website
and twitter page. We gave our website to propose news updates, rather
than telling the audience when our next news bulletin is. People are
usually aware news bulletins happen every hour.
 We used our website to signpost from our bulletin as this targets our
audience of young people, as well as offering more news. We also used
twitter as a way of contacting us, rather than emails, which are
conventionally used in radio stations aimed at an older audience. Twitter
is a social media account, as I’ve explained in previous posts, social media
is associated with our target audience, therefore they will feel more
inclined to get in touch as it's convenient for them. They can also follow us
a simply get updates on any news at a touch of a button.

23. Outro Jingle
 To end our bulletin, we used a section from our jingle
after our S.O.C to signpost away from the bulletin
completely. The outro jingle was slightly shorter
than our introductory jingle, and included only the
name of the radio station. We included the name to
remind audiences of where they heard this as well
as following the convention from Radio 1’s newsbeat.
We believe this ended our bulletin nicely, without a
harsh stop, due to the fading done in adobe audition.
When researching none of the radio stations we
looked into, included the same jingle they played at
the start, at the end. They either included the name
of their radio station, and their slogan but that was
all. We continued with this convention, by only
including our name and faded our jingle.