Category: General Research

Throughout the project, a significant amount of our research was done through talking to people and as result, it is important to discuss this. The first example of this is was when we went to speak to the Lincoln and Linsey Blind society as they told us an awful lot that we didn’t know and we could then take the information they have given us an apply it to another interview such as when we interviewed Ben.  Furthermore, certain groups were also exceptionally useful in helping us gain more contacts, most notably the Lincoln and Linsey society who got us in touch with Di, which turned out to be a very useful interview. Furthermore we also had me, I had my own personal experience of speech therapy and  as a result this where the questions for Michelle comes from, as naturally we followed my story rather than asked general questions.

Within this section, I shall discuss relevant and similar documentaries to what we are trying to achieve in our own series of podcasts. Whilst our project is podcast based there is a large amount of crossover between the podcast idea and documentary, be this short or long form alongside being both visual or audio based.

Guide Dogs Victoria

This documentary was made by an Australian charity to put on Youtube and explain the benefits that guide dogs bring to people if they are given the chance to be able to have one. This documentary follows four people/children ranging in age ranges through their journeys in learning to live with blindness. It does this by creating a good personal connection with the four people they follow within this documentary, with one being a toddler, the other being a child going into school, a university student and a middle-aged woman.

 

I liked this documentary because of each of these different people have different stories to tell and the way the documentary jumps from person to person is done in a manner that keeps you being able to follow each story and not forget the people.  Another good element of this documentary is the age ranges it shows as this allows the viewer to understand the process of how a child grows up with blindness, goes through school alongside the hardships of trying to find a job when you are blind and finally what life is like when you are middle age. While we are not intending to talk to jump around with who we talk to, as we will be focusing on a blind or partially sighted person within the age range of Siren FM’s target audience and sticking with this person to lead the story.  However, I am keen to implement the way in which this documentary jumps effectively and I believe this do-able as we will be speaking to relevant people such as support groups and there will also be my narration mixed with this.

 

The next documentary I looked at was a BBC Three One called Blind Me:

https://learningonscreen.ac.uk/ondemand/index.php/prog/01632759?bcast=50263665

 

This documentary was aired in 2010 as part of BBC Threes Adult season at the time. The documentary again follows four blind people but all within the young adult age range and shows their struggles in being able to enjoy an ordinary life and growing up into a fully fledged adult. Every one of the people featured in the documentary has differing stories with each of them wanting to achieve something different in their life, for example, one girl Karen wants to be a fashion designer but realises it would be near impossible.

The reason this documentary was good to analyse was due to the fact that it is very similar to what we want to try and achieve with our piece this is because it gives you a sense of being able to relate to the people that are featured within the documentary, this is done through seeing someone on the programme do something which is very easy for a sighted person to do alongside things that both those with and without sight struggle at for example getting a girlfriend.  The documentary also mixes with the emotions of those who view it, because it shows people not being able to achieve their goals, but at the same time, there is also a positive outlook presented at times via their being funny elements within it.

 

More relevant is this documentary/podcast series produced by BBC Newsbeat on psychosis, it is narrated by Alice who takes us through her own experiences and stories, with her story being that she hears voices.  Each episode talks about a different voice and the way it makes her feel and that voices characteristic, in the episode linked it is Donna, a voice that makes Alice feel hateful and resentful.  This podcast is effective due to the use of just one voice, with it being an own voices podcast, meaning that it doesn’t feel cluttered and gets straight to the point. Furthermore, the lack of sound effects and the music being used sparingly means that the point isn’t lost and doesn’t introduce cliches which would otherwise make it lose meaning. This is also the podcast series that I will using to benchmark our own podcast.

My client for this project is Siren Radio, where the programme will be broadcast and the relevant content will be distributed on their website. Despite my best efforts in asking the relevant charities if they want to distribute the content only one got back to me to discuss what the project was about and where it would go, meaning I did not have a suitable client. As a result of this I then approached Siren Radio who said they would broadcast our podcasts if they were merged together in a 57-minute radio programme.

This means that having prior knowledge of what Siren Radio’s target audience and their key commitments is vital for me to make sure that the content is relevant to their audience.

Siren FM was established on the 11th of August 2007 and has a 10 year FM license to broadcast on 107.3 Mhz which was extended from 2017 t0 202.  Siren FM is a community radio station meaning that it has to fulfil certain objectives, these are: To allow young people, students and community groups to become more media literate and improve their communication skills. Alongside this, it also means that there is a media outlet which reflects what the community wants to talk about.

In terms of benefits that Siren FM has brought to Lincoln is that it has allowed people of varying ages to express their opinions on a wide variety of topics and gain invaluable experience. By allowing people to volunteer on a working radio station due to its community radio status.

In terms of programming, its flagship programmes are the breakfast show and which broadcasts from 7am-9pm on weekdays. Due to it being a community station the scheduling varies from week to week due to people’s availability. In terms of daytime programming, this is mostly music output with hourly news. From 7 pm the output switches to more specialist programming in terms of music and speech programmes.  For example every Monday from 7-8Pm there is an hour soul music programme. Siren’s Ofcom license states that it should broadcast a vast array of genres in terms of music e.g. Pop, Indie and Folk. Regarding speech programmes it this should come from News and discussion programmes. (Ofcom,2016)

Siren’s target audience is for under 24-year-olds, so its content should reflect this and allow the audience to engage with the station’s output. This is mostly through the content that produces with it being aimed at this audience and is reinforced by the music that is outputted for example Siren broadcast a majority of the top 40 music in their daytime programming to keep themselves relevant to a younger audience.

To extend their audience reach they also utilise social media platforms that allow them to link and promote their content to new people alongside their preexisting audience meaning that overall they extend their reach. Siren FM operates on both Twitter and Facebook meaning that they can appeal to both types of audience. This is because Facebook has the bigger amount of users meaning that Siren can appeal to the bigger audience, however, Facebook isn’t utilised enough in my view and is utilised in a different method to Twitter.  This is because with Facebook they utilise long videos by recording items or make use of Facebook Live to live stream what is going on in the studio, finally, they use facebook to post photos and status’ about the weather, news and events.

 

 

 

With our piece being targeted at a radio 1 audience and presented in a similar manner to that of radio 1’s educational podcast that are spoken about here it makes sense to talk about their audience and its profiles.

Radio 1 is demographically based meaning that they target young people in the age range between 15-29-year-olds, however, what is key is that it should have a distinctive mix of music and speech-based content and be a place for new music (BBC,2016). This means that the treatment we utilise for the programme will be significantly different from that of a speech-based programme on radio 4 with us having to try and reflect and make the content relevant to young people. Ultimately the programme will have to snappy and to the point with use of music beds throughout the piece and not use flowery language to extend things beyond what they need to be.

Alongside this, it has been well documented that in the current media environment young peoples attention is more spread than ever with programmes now having to be supported through the likes of digital content such as Youtube or Facebook videos to attract listeners and be a more multiplatform brand compared to what radio was many years ago(Guardian,2015). This also means we need to consider how we utilise social media and do so in a way that is similair to radio 1 currently rather than say radio 2 with this being our target audience.  The way we have done this is by utilising short-form video such as filming interviews and relevant clips that support interviews with subtitles underneath, alongside this some of those who listen to it will be most likely be deaf so its appropriate for subtitles.

Radio for young people has also morphed into an on-demand platform with users being able to listen to what they want when they want through the likes of the Iplayer and Spotify podcasts, this again makes a relevant case for a podcast due to it being able to be downloaded at any time.  It is also different in the that it is focusing on something that is otherwise not talked about very often.