Saturday, 28 February 2015

28. G321 Coursework Evaluation Question 5

How did you attract/address your audience?

The target audience for our radio news bulletin was ages 30 - 69 years old so we targeted middle aged people by implementing local news and providing older music. To satisfy the audience we looked at the lincs fm psychographics as we wanted a very similar news radio to them, we had to interest them with local news and older music. The genre of our radio is factual, we provide them with information on local news by including interviews and vox pop's on local peoples opinions. We included all the essential codes and conventions for example music, jingle, voice and idents.

We had our media teacher listen to our news bulletin as she is in our target audience age, she gave us feedback on what we could improve on and we listened to her feedback and changed some stuff such as a better jingle and sound more professional. Whilst editing we made the news bulletin seem more professional by adding background music and effects on the presenters voice so it sounded more clear and suitable.

We could have improved the news bulletin by listening to other examples of radio stations not just BBC and lincs fm. The more knowledge we have of radio stations and what they do, we could have implemented that into our news bulletin. We could have better audio quality especially with vox pop's. To do this we could have used a better microphone or edited the sound quality by adding effects and removing background noise. If we had more time we could have made a better jingle for the intro and different transitions.

Here's our main task news bulletin which has an interview and vox pop included:

Sunday, 15 February 2015

18. Script

This is a script we did for our main task script, it helped organize our news stories and give us something to say which we used in our radio podcast. The sports section was read by me and the rest was ready by Michael as he was the best person to do it in our group.
Michael: Hi I am Michael and this is Lincs FM news at 1:00. First, Police are hunting a man who tried to force an 11-year-old boy into the back of a black van in a Lincolnshire market town. The attempted abduction happened at about 08:00 while the boy was walking to school along North Road in Bourne. The offender is described as 6ft and white, with short spiked brown hair and a tattoo on his neck. Police officers are warning the public to not let children go out alone. Deputy Inspector Pete Grayson, from Lincolnshire Police, said the boy was very frightened by the incident. We now have the views of the public
(Insert vox pops here)
We now have an interview with one startled individual.
(Insert interview here)
A cat was thrown into Lincoln's Brayford Pool. This message was posted on Cats in Crisis Lincoln’s Facebook page early yesterday evening, Saturday, December 15 2014: “Cat owners living near the brayford please beware. My poor little cat was thrown in this evening & is now cold wet & terrified.” The post attracted prompted a lot of concern and sympathy on the facebook page.  The cat’s owner Sophia Granger then posted: “She's in my bed, wrapped in warm towels but still shivering. Thinking of taking her to live at my partner's out of the city centre.” the cat is now safe from attacks and we hope that the person who did this is caught.
In other news Lincolnshire’s fire and rescue are to escort santa’s sleigh across the country. Whilst this happens, firefighters will be collecting money for the firefighters charity which supports the fire and rescue personnel who are both serving and retired.
The firefighters will be stopping at Local areas such as Gonerby Hill Foot and Gonerby Village and Grantham on Tuesday 23rd December.
Finally, The first round of the FA trophy will feature an interesting encounter between Lincoln City and fellow Conference premier side Alfreton. This is the First Round for both sides in what’s looking to be a great tournament this year.  This tie is a carbon copy of the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup. The tie will take place on December 23rd at Sincil Bank.
Thanks for listening, this has been Michael on Lincs FM.

Saturday, 14 February 2015

17. Contacting participants & questioning

I arranged vox pops and interviews with the local people to get opinions on the news stories we included in our podcast. The peoples opinions reflect the views of the local people, they can also relate to it due to it being local. I asked questions about the news stories we included in our podcast for example I asked people there opinions on abduction in the local area.

Friday, 13 February 2015

16. Equipment Listings & Requirements

Equipment needed:
Dictaphone/Microphones
Pop shield
Computer

We needed a dictaphone to record interviews and vox pops outside, we used it instead of a microphone because it is more portable than a mic as its a lot smaller however it did affect the sound quality a bit as it's not as clear as a studio mic. We used a microphone with a pop shield, the pop shield helped increase sound quality by removing unwanted sounds. We made sure we where in a quiet room with no outside noise when recording our radio news bulletin. However in the vox pops and interviews we wanted outside noise so it sounded like other news reports when there at the scene. We used a computer to edit and export the recordings, the software we used to do this was adobe audition. It's a professional piece of software which was straight forward using.

Thursday, 12 February 2015

15. Legal & Ethical research

Throughout my radio broadcasts I made sure I didn't insult anyone as that would cause a huge ethical problem which could result in losing the radio station or paying a fine.
Also I made sure I didn't use any copyrighted material without gaining permission from the owner first, the only material I used was from the internet was from non-copyrighted websites for example the sound effects I used were free and available for use. There was no discrimination against anyone featured in our broadcast. I made sure our podcast was presented in a positive way

Saturday, 7 February 2015

RESIT - News Stories Research

In my group we all researched different types of news stories, we had a mixture of serious and celebrity news. We thought a mixture would target all our audience especially in the local area. An example of a news story we found was an abduction attempt in Lincolnshire of an 11 year old boy. We included this news story to spread awareness and feel sad for boy's family. We included celebrity news to gain viewers as that's what most of our audience wants to listen to for example charity events, football news.
An example of a news story I will use is shown below, I will use this in our podcast as it is an interesting story listeners will find entertaining.
The headline of the story is Bourne attempted abduction leads to manhunt
Police are hunting a man who tried to force an 11-year-old boy into the back of a black van in a Lincolnshire market town. The attempted abduction happened at about 08:00 while the boy was walking to school along North Road in Bourne. The offender is described as 6ft and white, with short spiked brown hair and a tattoo on his neck. Police officers are warning the public to not let children go out alone. Deputy Inspector Pete Grayson, from Lincolnshire Police, said the boy was very frightened by the incident.

We chose this story as it is an on-going crisis which the people can help with, unlike most of the news stories which are murders and the viewers can’t do anything to help them. The news story is a good story as it informs the viewers what is happening in their local area. We could interview local people about their opinion on the crisis. We will interview using a dictaphone or a microphone as we need a portable device when we’re roaming the area for people to interview. There shouldn’t be any legal and ethical issues with this story.  ,
The news values presented in the story are negativity and unexpectedness.