RADIO PROJECT - Final Radio

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Final Radio

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

Credit: Ilona

Sourced songs:
Credit: Rania

Lukrembo (2021) Rose. On Rose [Audio file] Retrieved from https://youtu.be/E0Om1LC-XeU

Alex T. (2013) Why’d you only call me when you’re high. Arctic Monkeys, On AM, [audio file] Retrieved from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6366dxFf-Os))

Soyeon J. (2020) Oh My God. (G)-Idle, On I trust [audio file] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om3n2ni8luE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om3n2ni8luE))

Daniel C. & Kali U. (2017) Get You, On Freudian [audio file] ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQFVqltOXRg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQFVqltOXRg))

RADIO PROJECT - Self-Reflection

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Self-Reflection

> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

AS MEDIA - TERM 2 RADIO PROJECT: SELF-REFLECTION by sharon

THE ENTIRE TEXT

Introduction
As our term project for Media Studies, we were told to form groups of four and produce an original radio show in a time span of 8 weeks. My group consists of me and three (3) of my classmates: Ilona, Sera, and Rania. We must also create a logo as one of the ways to target audiences through appearance, and we must post updates on our development, research, and progress on our blogs. Our team made the decision to produce an R&B, alternative, pop, and K-pop radio show that leaned further towards western culture. There are other tasks involved, including featuring an advertisement on one of the canteen stalls and producing a radio jingle.

1. How does your product use or challenge conventions and how does it represent social groups or issues?

News, music, sound effects, advertisements, and/or gossip are typical conventions (things we typically see/hear on a radio broadcast for their audience/genre) associated with the product — a radio show. We have kept up with some of these, such as news (a news segment on current events in western culture), an advertisement for a new dish being served in the school cafeteria, and celebrity gossip. However, since our radio show is broadcast in the mornings and it would be fantastic to provide our listeners with a forecast for the day's weather, we have challenged typical conventions by adding one.

Teenagers, who make up our target demographic, are typically represented as being drawn to dramas, controversies, or gossip and sometimes going through emotional roller coasters; being understood. By integrating a news segment about the most current events and issues in Hollywood and western culture, we have furthered this point. Second, we have also integrated relatable dialogues or talks about the songs played, such as those that relate to the audience's own lives or experiences.

2. How does your product engage with audiences and how would it be distributed as a real media text?

Teenagers, young adults, and adults interested in pop music as well as other genres including K-pop, R&B, alternative, and western culture make up our target audience. First, we specifically targeted them by regularly playing a range of musical genres on our radio show. Second, the show's choices and selection of news featured current events relevant to western cultures, such as celebrity controversies, celebrity lives, and current celebrity events. Thirdly, we suppose that the name "All Star" would be a great place to start in order to leave a lasting impact on our target audience. Last but not least, the speakers are young people and teenagers between the ages of 15 and 25, which may help the target audience relate to or understand us better, perhaps through our relatable discussions.

By playing songs that are currently popular and featuring advertisements for new cafeteria dishes that they might like, our radio station caters to a specific (niche) demographic. In addition, our news portion features dramas and/or issues in western culture that teenagers may find interesting, as well as discussions of the songs that are relevant to their personal lives and/or experiences. This might encourage our target demographic to tune in to our next radio shows.

Due to the significance of our genre (pop music, K-Pop, and R&B), we feel that our radio will be broadcast in the morning, sometime between 7-9 am, to assist those teenagers, young adults, and adults in getting their day began through the upbeat songs. Additionally, we have speakers who are outgoing and lively to give a positive impact on our target audience. Finally, we think a peek at the weather forecasts is important to get our audience ready for the day.

3. How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

I had doubts about whether I would be interested in or be able to perform this radio project well at first. I think I've improved my ability to be responsible, and organized, communicate with my teammates, and—most importantly—understand the value of teamwork, without which this radio program would not have turned out as I had expected. Along with learning new ways to improve my blog, like creating labels or sections for certain tasks, projects, theories, etc. Unexpectedly, we were also taken to the school's radio room, where we were shown how to use the podcasting and radio equipment, but due to time limitations, we were unable to do so.

We have made some adjustments to our initial plan, nevertheless. First, we simply intended to include pop music for everyone, but we think it would be better to add other song genres (K-pop, R&B, alternative, rock) to appeal to a wider audience since some people have a variety of preferences within genres.

4. How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware and online - in this project?

Hardware and how I've utilised each of them:

• iPhone: to record the dialogues, taking pictures and videos when we were brought to the radio room, and communicate with team members

• Laptop: to access all the websites/online resources used throughout the 8 weeks, along with communicating with team members

• Earphones: to improve the sound quality of the voice recordings
  
  

Software and how me and my team members utilized each of them:

• Medibang Paint (used by Ilona): creating the final "All Star" logo (Ilona has lots of experience with this app and great features coming across, such as adding details)

• BandLab (used by Sera): producing the jingle, which has many components to compose a rhythm

• Audacity (used by Ilona): editing and compiling all the recordings

• Voice Memos (used by me): record the dialogues for the show; saves time as we don’t have to set time schedules for all team members to record altogether in the radio room (excellent quality with the mic on earphones)
  
  

Online (websites):
The presence of online (websites) has made this radio project so much easier, along with all the research that must be done. The online websites I've made use of are:

• Blogger: where I compile all the research done, results, progress, developments, etc. as a part of this project's score

• Canva: making this self-reflection for the project (creative templates available!)

• Google: mainly to research radio shows, target audience, logos, etc.

• Google Drive: to compile all recordings (both trial and error/drafts and finals), and pictures/videos from the radio room visit, which makes it much more convenient for all team members to access

• Google slides: outline of this project (all compiled altogether by the team)

• YouTube: extracting songs (easy as it has all kinds of songs, and easy to search)

• Gmail: where I asked for feedback and receive feedback from the teacher

• Discord: to communicate with my team members by making a group

RADIO PROJECT - Editing Process

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Editing the Jingle

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

EDITING THE JINGLE

All credits to Sera (editor + comments + pictures)!

"BandLab" is the app used by Sera to produce the jingle.

The steps:

• Recording the radio show's name (All Star) and tag (comin' through your life) with her laptop and headset to improve the quality of the sound
• Adding after-effects to the tag to have effects of reverb and echo
• Applying 'sampler' for the jingle's rhythm and melody

In addition to that, her struggles faced were finding the correct sound in order to make the jingle an adequate sound to the audience. Another one was composing the melody and rhythm, finding the most desired rhythm for the opening, such as for the rhythm being energetic and upbeat to fit into our concept of being dynamic and lively. However, these struggles were overcome.

Note: (drafts and) the final jingle can be accessed via https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bZf4UGZz1n8aeOyNwaDESrmnAhf1u5JN?usp=share_link

EDITING THE SHOW

All credits to Ilona (editor + notes + pictures)!

"Audacity" is the editing app Ilona has used to compile and edit all our individual recordings. 

The steps:

• Putting the recording clips in order
• Cut out unnecessary bits, such as dead airs in our individual recordings
• Converting the songs from YouTube to WAV format
• Settle the songs in the order in Audacity based on our breakdown
• Insert fade-out transitions to make the audio smoother

Nonetheless, the struggles faced are converting the audio as Audacity, the app, requires it to be in FFmpeg form, but after hours of researching, it turns out a WAV format is supported. Secondly, splitting the audio took a while to get it all figured out, even so, it was easy once it has been found out.

All credits to Sera (editor + notes + pictures)!

"BandLab" is the app utilised by Sera to insert and edit the additional parts of the radio show (such as the weather forecast recording)

The steps:

• Retrieving and inputting the additional recordings from Google Drive to BandLab
• Finding the parts of the recording with uneven volume
• Resizing

Two struggles occurred to happen, that being the uneven volume must be resized, and knowing the placement of the back sound in and out.

RADIO PROJECT - Logo Design: Research + Draft + Development + Final

 AS MEDIA RADIO PROJECT - Logo Research

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

LOGO RESEARCH

My research: Here shows a variation of logos, mostly radio logos that give "pop" or early '00-'10s design and typeface, with a few consisting of food logos and a brand. I don't quite like the 104.9 radio logo due to its choices of dark colours (dark red and black), which doesn't particularly seem 'inviting' towards our demographics (teenagers-young adults), unlike Radio Disney's and New 102.7. However, I do like Radio Disney and Subway's divergence of colour and typeface, although I'm not sure if Radio Disney's design would match nowadays' preferences.

LOGO DRAFTS + DEVELOPMENT

[DRAFT] Here shows my sketch of various possible options for our radio logo. I started off by trying out different sizes of typography, and whether to fill it in with colour or not. Soon after, as a development, I attempted to put a hint of stars bit by bit to match our radio name, "All Star". With the presence of the stars, you can see how I've tried to see how the star would look in different spots, along with the typography. Although, none of them strikes as much, therefore, I believe it would be a better option to use the other drafts of my teammates.

Credit: Ilona, Rania, Sera

[DRAFT + DEVELOPMENT] These two sketches are all part works of Ilona, Rania and Sera all done on two separate papers. The paper on the left shows the trial and error of fonts, designs, placements and concepts. The paper on the right shows the development, which is relevantly coming towards the final. They have mentioned how they wanted to focus on making the logo generally in a star-shaped form. Next, Ilona had done a development by adding a line, surrounding the star in the "All" to give an implication of "going all places in every corner". They initially wanted only images or "messy" concepts, but they ended up with a more eye-pleasing composition that is more aesthetic and soft; started off abstractly at first. To add, another development they did was transitioning from sharp shapes to rounded fonts. 

FINAL LOGO

Credit: Ilona

The app used to create this final "All Star" logo is Medibang Paint, with a duration of approximately 30 minutes, more or less. Although there were some struggles, it took Ilona a while to make the shape of the star. However, the details were erased to make it seem like the font. We can see how the "All" is placed on the line (the "ring") surrounding the word "Star" shaped in particular to a star form. The typography of "All" and "Star" is relevantly different, where "All" has a block-shaped font in white with black borders, whereas "Star" has a swirl-like font, following the shape of a star in black. There is a "ring"-like form that surrounds the star, this gives a similarity to the planet Saturn - having a ring around its body. The spectacular details include how the ring is white when it crosses the word "Star", showing more of its form. Additionally, with simplicity, which represents most of us and the audience in the present time, Ilona only applied the colours black and white. The logo also gives off and/or represents our primary genre on the radio show, pop music, a hint of K-Pop and western culture for our news segment. Moreover, Hollywood is the heart and core of pop music and they are typically represented by the stars (actors, actresses, singers, pop stars), also representing our target audience (teenagers, young adults to adults) as they have a significantly huge interest in pop-stars and/or actors they watch in movies!

RADIO PROJECT - Radio Room

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Radio Room

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

Image 1.1

On our 4th week, we visited the school's radio room to get introduced to radio equipment and tutorials on how to utilize them by one of our IT teachers. For the basics, the equipment for audio are a laptop, microphone (dynamic), and audio interface.

The basic radio equipment

Image 1.2 (Credit to Rania)

Microphone.

Image 1.3 (Credit to Rania)

Audio Interface.

Image 1.4 (Credit to Rania)

The microphone connected to the XLR connector.
Image 1.5 (Credit to Rania)

Steps:

• Connect the audio interface to a laptop with a USB charger
• Connect one of the XLR connectors to the microphone's XLR plug
• Connect the other XLR connectors to the audio interface

Note: To know that the audio is coming from the microphone, it shows feedback when you apply sensitivity onto the studio/individual microphone (tapping/speaking) (Image 1.6), whereas it doesn't show feedback when you exert sensitivity (such as tapping) on the laptop's microphone, near the webcam (as seen on Image 1.7)

> Apple's Voice Memos is used to test for the result of the connections

Image 1.6

Image 1.7

Note: other pictures/videos can be accessed via https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1w7m_9mYl3ww9NKTitQERD0oUa___VV_E?usp=share_link

RADIO PROJECT - Progress/Changes

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Progress/Changes

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1m1P7YZJ7FuLABnJ7L_pJS_mfj2CO8nkg?usp=share_link
Here is the link to some of our radio recording drafts

Feedback on the radio show from my teacher after the first draft:

• Add a jingle at the very beginning, before the song (a new jingle, not the same as the other jingles used throughout the show)
  Changes we made: using the longer version of the radio jingle first thing on the radio show, and a quicker jingle in between the shows
  
  
• Insert the jingle in the dead air between the two songs
  Changes: made
  
  
• Introduce the song/artist before or after the song(s) - make the radio show more conversational
  Changes: Rania has recorded an introduction and a comment after the song was played - to the first song by Arctic Monkeys, with a lively tone in order to make it more casual. Another improvising she has made would be an introduction to another song
  
  
• A weather report on the final 3 minutes - make it conversational between 2-3 speakers
  Changes: it has been recorded, although it was just 1 speaker due to time restrictions
  
  
• Include a quiet/no-lyrics song playing in the background throughout our discussion
  Changes: we have featured a calm/relaxing song played for the duration of our conversation
  
  
• Too much time for songs and not enough speaking/conversation
  Changes: additional recordings regarding a forecast on the weather, and more introduction to the songs
  
  
• Remove a song
  Changes: we have decided to keep all 3 songs, however, we included more conversations in between
  
  

Feedback on my blog from my teacher on the 7th week:

• Making the images larger in my blog posts
  Changes: made
  
  
• Mention how your content will fit the results eg. in the morning time, thus, have a morning recap, what will happen in the day, traffic alert, etc.
  Changes we made: including a weather outlook on the day to inform and give awareness to our audience
  
  
• Include more information about what influences we have from each one of the radio research (radio shows, podcasts, etc.)
  Changes: made
  
  

Feedback on my blog from my teacher on the 8th week:

• Adding more images (screenshots) in the editing process
  Changes: made

RADIO PROJECT - Survey Results

AS Media RADIO PROJECT - SURVEY RESULTS

Survey link: https://forms.gle/XAH7KjDRUVpr26qg7

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

Rock music placed first, RnB, and pop culture stood third. We have chosen to go towards this particular result by including pop music, K-Pop, alternative, and RnB on our radio show

Creating this radio would be a good choice as 60% listen to the radio, although we'll try to not bore them by perhaps, making the news segment quick and include songs that are trending now and according to our target audience (teenagers, young adults)

Nearly all listen to the radio in their car - so it could be good to update our target audience on pop/western culture throughout their way, as well as input pop songs, K-Pop, alternative, and RnB occasionally

A majority have said they listen to the radio on their way to school, so our decision to insert pop music and some other exciting songs on our radio could be a desirable way to get their day started and to at least feel more energized. In addition, we've also included morning news, such as weather predictions for the day.

Getting a maximum duration of 15 minutes for our content in this radio project, with all information to be summed up all at once, including news and pop music, might not bore or get the audience too fed up too quickly

A news section is wanted by most, therefore, we settled on retaining the news. Moreover, the news segment will be short to avoid boredom on the audience

Gladly, pop culture placed first in the survey, that being our initial plan. We are not going against the result, hence, including pop culture discussions and news on our radio

To sum it all up, quite a lot have mentioned radios are boring and the speakers/hosts are monotonous or blabbering too much, along with the lack of freedom as you're restricted to choosing what you want to hear. Solving this problem and avoiding this occurring in our radio show, the speakers will be lively enough to entertain the audience, as well as ensure they aren't blabbering on irrelevant topics. Additionally, our radio is mainly leaning towards the western culture for the news segment and a few western songs, so I believe the audience must acknowledge this information so they know which radio station is to their preference

Our speakers are leaning towards the lively bit and/or sarcastic, but you might also come across them being a balance of it all from time to time! This will exhibit a variety of personalities in our radio team

More than 97% of them prefer English to be the language used on radios, thus, we aren't going against the result

RADIO PROJECT - Radio Research List

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Radio Research List

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

All were evaluated at around 8am WITA (midnight in the UK)

Contents heard on the radios are listed in order

Radio X:

- Starts off with relaxing/calm music

- Host/speaker gives information on the queen's death and funeral

- Transitions to mellow music, perhaps in relevance to the queen's death

- "Radio X" jingle

- Country music plays (a change in the genre)

(Audience > possibly middle-aged, young adults to adults)

How it influenced: music can be correlated to news that is to be informed, such as how mellow music is applied in the background when the speaker is reporting about the queen's death

Classic FM:

- Classical music

- "Classic FM" jingle

- Transitions to another classical music

(Audience > adults/elderlies)

How it influenced: this radio sticks to one genre/type of music, which is very similar to our initial plan for the radio show

Gold UK:

- 00's music

- "Gold UK" jingle

(Audience > young adults to adults, middle-aged, elderlies)

How it influenced: not entirely since we've only listened to a song and their jingle

LBC News:

- Speaker/host gives information on crimes in Ukraine

- Additional information on the queen's funeral

(Mostly news than music)

(Audience > the general public)

How it influenced: the news is simple and quick but recaps as a whole; they won't bore the audience. We're attempting to make the news as brief as possible

Heart 80s:

(Mostly music compared to news)

(Audience > adults, middle-aged, elderlies)

How it influenced: nothing much as it was just music playing

Heart Dance:

(Audience > teenagers, young adults)

How it influenced: nothing much as well

Anything Goes (Podcast) - Emma Chamberlain:

Uniquely, Emma doesn't use any lyrical jingle to switch between topics, it is merely a ring she does to cue between segments (discussions, advert) of her podcast show. She doesn't include songs either, simply discussions on relatable topics, along with teenagers and young adults as her target audience as well! Her podcast show is quite well-known among teenagers in this present time due to how she interacts with her audience/listeners - in a relatable and realistic way, such as ranting. This has reached the target audience since she, herself, is still in her early 20s, making it easier to connect with teenagers and young adults. Therefore, it has influenced us from that point of targeting audiences our age, that being teenagers to young adults

Diary (Weekly Progress) [TERM 2]

AS Media Studies - Weekly Progress [TERM 2]
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

WEEK 1 (3rd Oct 2022)

• M1: Section A practice (Movie: The Queen's Gambit) and chose a group for the radio project
• M2: Positive and negative representations in media
• M3: Representation theory (Stuart Hall) and connotation of different representations
• M4: Psychographics and demographics, radio project discussion and setting up a survey for further analysis and research of radios

WEEK 2 (10th Oct 2022)

• M1: Introduction to a new editing technique, "jump cuts" and filmed a short clip applying the editing technique (due on the 17th)
• M2: Discussion on representations we should be aware of (gender, sexuality, LGBT, race, age, social class, place, etc.), along with a group discussion towards a designated representation, where my group did representations on social class
• M3: Class discussion on stereotypes, analysing stereotypes in "When They See Us", passive (desensitization, Hypodermic Needle Theory) and active (Reception Theory (Stuart Hall)) audiences. Lastly, an introduction to the audience theory (Cultivation Theory (George Gerbner))
• M4: Analysis of Radio X's "Who Are You?" series and continuation of the radio project: psychographics, breakdown of the radio project, concept, as well as the name

WEEK 3 (17th Oct 2022)

• M1: Binary Opposites - Levis Strauss and Barthes' 5 Narrative Codes
• M2: "What We Do In The Shadows" analysis + application on Binary Opposites and the 5 Narrative Codes
• M3: Identities - David Gauntlett, cultural + personal identity
• M4: Finalising the radio project's timeline + script and worked on the audio recording (script intro) (trial and error), along with experiments on sounds/jingles in BandLab
  
  

WEEK 4 (24th Oct 2022)

• M1: "Stranger Things" movie analysis
• M2: News values
• M3: *PUBLIC HOLIDAY*
• M4: Radio room (introduction to radio equipment + tutorial)
  
  

WEEK 5 (31st Oct 2022)

• M1: "Top Boy" movie analysis
• M2: New Media
• M3: "Inside Man" movie analysis
• M4: Radio logo research design, sketching (trial-error)
  

WEEK 6 (7th Nov 2022)

• M1: Netflix's interactive show "You vs. Wild"
• M2: Unit Test - Camera angles + movements
• M3: Section B practice
• M4: *NO LESSONS*

WEEK 7 (14th Nov 2022)

• M1: Case study research for the question "To what extent is profit more important than creativity to media companies?" (essay to be written in M2)
• M2: Section B practice (essay)
• M3: Introduction to the self-report to be made for the radio project, Mr Nick's feedback (re-record as there is some interference in the background of the recording), blog organisation (making sections for projects (radio)), continuation on blog posts (completing the to-do list requirements for the radio project)
• M4: Continuation on the radio project: discussions on how we can re-record the audio

WEEK 8 (21st Nov 2022)

• M1: Practice planning Section B questions
• M2: Introduction to Component 1 (film intro/magazine)
• M3: "How does the media target, build, and maintain audiences?" through lessons of genre, demographics, agenda setting, as well as intertextuality
• M4: Radio project > re-organizing our blogs in a specific order, how to source the songs used, writing a brief, feedback on blog posts, team photo, embedding our presentation (self-reflection)

RADIO PROJECT - TEAM INTRODUCTION

 AS Media Studies - TEAM INTRODUCTION

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

Our group consists of Rania, Sharon, Ilona, and Sera.

We are a group that came together as we share a passion for the pop culture and all things related to that. Everyone has a speciality that helps round out our groups, such as Ilona as our art expert, Sharon in the advertising department, Rania in the news department, and Sera as our team manager. We all have different personalities and points of view that may contribute to developing a unique conversation.

Links to each of our blogs:

• Ilona: https://ilonaginarthams.blogspot.com/
• Sera: https://nayshasera.blogspot.com/
• Rania: https://raniasurimulyadi.blogspot.com/
• Sharon: https://sharontann.blogspot.com/

RADIO PROJECT - Brief

 AS Media RADIO PROJECT - Brief

Group: Ilona, Sera, Rania, Sharon
> Blog is written by me (Sharon)

We are given 8 weeks to create a 15-minute radio segment in groups of 4, from the 3rd of October to the 21st of November 2022. In addition to that, an advertisement on a canteen stall must be featured on our show and the creation of an original logo. Progress throughout the 8 weeks will be posted and tracked on each of our blogs.