Tamanna AkhtarCandidate number: 4669

In what ways does your media

Product use, develop or challengeForms and

conventions of real media products?

Use of real forms and convention of media products:

To ensure that we have created the correct atmosphere for the newscast we have used dramatic music appropriate for a news bulletin.

Like Radio1 we also provide a quick weather forecast straight after the newscast.

Developed forms and conventions of real media products:

We have used some of the forms and conventions of real media products but we have also developed our own unique ones too. For example, the music playing whilst the headlines are being read is much more lively and upbeat than the usual media conventions.

Challenges forms and conventions of real media products:

ICE FM does challenge forms and conventions of real media products. In our newscast we try to represent young people as eager to help improve the borough, breaking initial stereotypes of young people not ‘caring’ about politics and issues concerning the environment; instead we are challenging this view.

How does your media product

represent other social groups?

Entertainment: The Young Mayor of Tower Hamlets

This story represents young people as being very:• Competitive• Articulate • Intelligent• Interested in politics • Determined to make changes and improve the

borough

Boris Johnson interview: unemployment

• The young are represented in this news cast as being deeply affected by the high rates of unemployment.

• We also wanted to break the stereotype of the young not caring about unemployment

• The mayor is represented as dedicated to helping those in need by offering advice.

Food review

• The young in this news story are represented as being interested in cultural differences and new experiences in food

• The young are also represented as needing a rest from the stress’ of studying, so food is usually one way to release this stress.

X-factor

• This story would represent celebrity hopefuls- with the desire to perhaps one day become famous

• We also represented how the young are optimistic and desire to achieve more.

Overall all our news stories represent the young in a positive light, as our target audience is the youth we wanted to present them in a manner that they would be proud of being represented as.

What media institution might distribute your

product and why?

Radio 1 • BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station

operated by the BBC• Radio 1 specializes in current popular music and

chart hits throughout the day• Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm

including electronic dance, hip hop, rock or interviews.

• It is aimed primarily at the 15–29 age group.

ICE FM

•Similarly our target audience are the young who are attending either: school, college or university

•We provide a wide range of popular music including: electronic dance, hip hop, rock or interviews.

Why choose our Newscast?• Our target audience is the young • We provide news that will interest the

younger generation• We give the younger generation a voice

and empower them making them feel more involved with the community

Who would be the audience and why?

Our audience • To find a suitable audience for our radio station

we carried out questionnaires that will show us the general pattern in the use of radio.

• We focused on peoples age, gender, geographic location, news interest and the time of day they would like to listen to the radio and how these factors affected their radio experience.

Our results%

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5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

16-21 22-35 36-45 46-55 55+

%

We found that in general people aged 16-21 were least likely to listen to the radio.

People aged 55+ were most likely to tune into radio.

46%

54%

Male

Female

On average women were more likely to listen to the radio than men.

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

North London

South London

East London

West London

Series1

People from East London listen to the radio the least out of people from West London, South London, and North London.

Decision time: who would be our audience?

• Looking at our results we found that young people and people from East London were least likely to listen to the radio.

• Although women did listen to the radio station more, we did not want to exclude both genders so our radio station is for both sexes.

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10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Weekends Weekdays

Series1

Our results showed that students prefer to listen to the radio during the weekdays.

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10%

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30%

40%

50%

60%

Daytime Mornings Evenings

Series1

Students also preferred to listen to the radio more during the evening.

Taking the results into consideration we decided to air our radio station every week day at 6pm.

To find out what topics interested young people, we carried out a questionnaire asking 100 people about their news interest and what they would prefer to listen to on the radio.

Results showed young people preferred listening to music on the radio. They also like the idea of listening to interviews with special guests, live studio chat and general advice on personal or educational matters.

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Educa

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Perso

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Fashio

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Live

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chat

Series2

Having reviewed the results from the questionnaires we decided on our main aims of our radio station:

• Provide a variety of music • Provide a news update every hour • Provide the latest gossip• Provide reviews on places i.e. reviews on local

restaurants, films, books etc. • Give advice to students on educational or personal

matters with our live studio chat• Bring in special guests and interviews

How did you attract/address your

audience?

Our appeal

To attract our audience, young people aged 16-25 we had to present to them issues/topics they could relate to. Our target audience were those in education or working.

For example we discussed issues to do with unemployment

We also gave advice and reviewed places people could visit.

News feature/technical effects

upbeat contemporary music for the newscast to appeal to the young audience

presenters with conversational tone

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?

Technology has allowed people to become producers as well as consumers and it has been able to reach more people around the world.

Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB)

• Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations

• DAB offers more stations in the same broadcast spectrum than analogue FM radio. It is more robust towards noise and multipath fading that is a common problem in mobile reception.

Digital versus Analogue

• Compares the two ways sound is recorded and stored

• A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete (discontinuous) values.

• non-digital (or analogue) systems use a continuous range of values to display information.

Benefits & criticisms of DAB radio

Benefits: Improved end-user

features More stations Reception quality Less pirate

interference Variable bandwidth

Criticisms:Music radio stations broadcasting in monoReception qualitySignal delayCoverageTransmissions costCompatibility Power requirements

Parallel mediumIs a medium which allows you to access technology whilst performing other tasks for e.g. you could listen to the radio while washing the dishes.

Convergence Convergence is when different technological

systems evolve towards performing similar tasks. For example the radio can now be found on the internet.

For example: Wii- incorporates web browser Mobile phones- incorporate digital cameras, mp3

players, camcorders, voice recorders, and other devices.

Software and equipment

Software• Audacity • Garageband• Logic studioEquipment • Studio microphone • Mp3

Future!

Technology is always developing to improve our lifestyles. The future looks bright as many more breakthroughs of technology is yet to come!

What do you feel you have learnt in the

progression from it to the full product?

Looking back..

• I have developed many knew skills during this preliminary task, my knowledge and understanding on issues concerning the mass media and radio has also developed. I have learnt new media terminologies such as parallel medium, convergence etc.

• My understanding on how radio stations and mass media in general function has also grown.