Who would be the audience for your media product?

The main body of my target audience consists of people living within a Jewish community. Due to the fact that this is a very specific audience I had to make my station appeal to both males and females with a broad age bracket of 25 years old and over.

From my questionnaire I reached the conclusion that the news which appeals most to my audience is community news. Their listening habits are usually an hour or two of listening, most either at 9-12:30 pm or 4-8:30 pm, which is usually when they take and collect their children from school.  

Here is a link to my blog post about target audience:

Target Audience

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Due to the fact that my station has such a niche audience it is not really similar to any other radio station, with the exception of JCOM (the station I based most of my research around). The only other type of media that would have similar content is possibly newspapers for example the Jewish News or the Jewish Chronicle.

My radio station is a local station, broadcasting in the London area, broadcast on weekdays (there would be no Jewish listeners on Friday or Saturday). Whilst the station is based in London and many of the news stories would be directly relevant to people living in this area, my station may appeal to a broader audiences of members of the Jewish community across the country. As such, my community radio would be available not only on the FM frequency but also on DAB and online, so that members of the Jewish community who live outside of London could tune in.

Here are some links to the research I did regarding Jewish news publications.

Jewish Chronicle Post
Jewish News Post



JFM will be a commercial radio station, funded by advertising. The adverts reflect not only the community I am serving but also give an indication of the genre of my station. It was essential, I thought, to create adverts if I was going to realistically reflect the kind of radio stations I had researched.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

The radio programme I created for my AS media production was the afternoon news on JFM. In order to make my radio show sound authentic it was crucial to do some research into existing radio programmes to listen to the structure, content and news stories; making note of the news values and techniques, such as voxpops, outside broadcasts, soundbites and special guests, used in different radio programmes. I also listened to get an idea of regular radio conventions such as adverts, jingles and the use of music and sound effects.

Here are some of the music tracks I used in my radio show. They are authentically Jewish which I felt would appeal to my audience, and was a good way of showing my understanding about representation.





I mainly focused on the stations Jcom of Leeds, as it had the same target audience as me, BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Elements I gathered for my own production were jingles, adverts and various news techniques. When analysing adverts I realised that they all appealed to the target audience of the radio station. This made me aware of how important a target audience is and how it is crucial to make every convention and detail appeal especially to them. They will be expecting very specific representations if they are tuning into a Jewish radio station that represents the Jewish community.

Here is one of my adverts that would only exclusively appeal to my target audience.



I actually found that the best way for me to find adverts appealing specifically to my target audience was to look at the JC (Jewish Chronicle), there I found adverts for things like catering companies and schools, although this was a different media platform to the one I would be creating myself it was very beneficial in terms of adverts, and getting the representations right so that they were appropriate for my chosen demographic.

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

When listening to real radio I noted down all the conventions that appeared. I made a note to use them in my extract.

The first convention that appeared in every single piece of radio I listened to was a jingle. These included music that gave a clear indication of the type of  audience that were listening and the content of the show. The jingles all featured the name of the show, the frequency number and a slogan. On many radio stations they had more than one jingle, for example news jingles, show jingle, weather jingle and a travel jingle.



Here is my jingle, I used music that would relate to my target audience. Like in existing radio shows, my jingle has the name of the station and the frequency number, however I did not use a slogan as I wanted to keep my jingle as short and catchy as possible.

The second convention and possibly the most important considering the radio clip I created is based
around news was the news bullitens. I listened to a variety of radio news noting down the structure, format and the order of the news stories. They usually featured 3-4 stories and the tone was more serious when compared to other features of the show. I listened to examples from Radio 4 and BBC Newsbeat and attempted to make mine sound as authentic as theirs. In most of my stories the presenter delivery the crucial information with outside broadcasts or Voxpops delivering further information.

Below is a clip of one of my news stories, this news story took place in the studio.



The third convention were Voxpops, I listened to a story from Radio 1 News Beat about suggestions to cut down road accidents.



I used voxpops in my Mitzvah day story. This was a good technique and helped create diversity in my news programme. When listening to existing radio, many of the news stories were told in different ways, rather than just a presenter reading the news.

The fourth convention was outside broadcasts. When listening to existing radio I found there was often a cut to a correspondant who was "on the scene" delivering the news first-hand.



I used an outside broadcast for the story of the community centre, as it was supposed to be a huge event, I felt it would be appropriate to have somebody describing the scene as it happens.

The final convention was advertisements. I went on the Radioville website and looked at a variety of adverts such as alcohol awareness, TNT and one that was made by a school. Many of the adverts I heard on existing radio stations reflected the station's target audience, when writing the script for my radio I kept this in mind and thought that using adverts would be an excellent way to connect with my audience.

Below are the two averts I used in my radio show, both are specific to the target audience:

Music

I got all of my music tracks from the college music library.
 
This news music is called Top of the Hour Report,unlike all my other music tracks it was important not to make the headlines music Jewish again so as not to make the individual news programme to specific.
 
This Mitzvah day music is called Hora Medley by Kol Simcha, I used this music because it is upbeat and positive, following the negative story just before. It is also celebration music and Mitzvah day is a day of celebration and I wanted the music to reflect that.


The music for the Simon Kaye advert is called Kosher Nostra by The Jewish Monkeys. I felt this advert was the opportunity to use quite cheesy Jewish music due to the fact that it was an advert specifically aimed at Jewish people and their events. This music is both appropriate and subtle as I feel it does not distract from the advert itself.


The music for my jingle is called Babyschlep by Ghettoplotz. I listened to varous pieces of music for the jingle as I felt it was the most difficult. I decided to go for music which gave a modern twist on a typically jewish song. I first listened to various mixes of the traditional Hava Nagila and eventually decided it sounded too much like a spoof which is why I decided to use one for the Jewometer programme, a more comical and lighthearted section,and go for a less recognisable track but keep in the Jewish element.

Sound Effects

All these sound effects were from the BBC Sound Effects Library and the College's own sound effects library.





I needed three different street noises for my Mitzvah Day segment, these three street sounds sounded different enough to make it seem as if events are taking place in different places. However they weren't so different as to confuse the listeners.



After listening to various camera clicks for my Simon Kaye advert, I finally decided on this one as it sounded authentic and it was clear what it was unlike other effects I had listened to.



I used this moderate crowd noise for my community centre news story. It had the right amount of volume that an event like this would have.

Voices

Daniel- John- I chose John for this voice because:

He is able to sound professional.
He is also able to sound relatable at the same time
He is well spoken so listeners would be able to understand what he is saying
He speaks at a good pace

Miriam- Gabriella- I chose Gabriella for this voice because:

She has a friendly and approachable voice which is appropriate for an outside broadcast as it requires civilians to talk to the correspondent
She speaks slowly and clearly

Eva- me- I said this line myself because:

Its a fairly short line however it requires a certain tone which I felt comfortable I could do myself

Elijah- Reza- I chose Reza for this voice because:

His voice was exactly how imagined this characters to be when scripting
He was able to insert the correct emotion
He speaks clearly

Bookworms presenter- Sam- I chose Sam for this voice because:

He has a friendly voice which would be needed for a presenter who is presenting a daily show as listeners need to feel familiar with them

Benjamin- Joseph- I chose Joseph for this voice because:

Benjamin is a young child and Joseph's voice is fairly high
Joseph was able to sound young and quite immature

Sandra- Jodie- I chose Jodie for this voice because:

Sandra is a mother and Jodie has a motherly voice
Jodie was really good at giving us a variety of different tones which gave us a lot to choose from

Samantha- Courtney- I chose Courtney for this role because:

The character was friendly and Courtney's voice is fairly friendly
She speaks at a good pace and her voice is easy to understand
I originally wanted a man for this role but due to the fact that It was hard to find enough males who were able to sound Jewish I changed it to a female which worked as well

David- Alex- I chose Alex for this role because:

He speaks clearly
He has a friendly and relatable voice
It is a big role therefore I needed someone who would be ale to be consistent
He was able to sound natural

Isaac- Daniel- I chose Daniel for this role because:

He has a good professional voice
He speaks clearly and at a good pace
An added perk was that he was able to sound Jewish

Voice Over for the Jewish Women's aid advert- me- I did this voice myself because:

It was very serious and I knew I'd be able to take it seriously
My voice is quite clear which was needed to get the message across

Simon Kayes VoiceOver- Nathan- I chose Nathan for this role because:

He is a male which was needed for this advert in order to represent Simon Kaye
He speaks very eloquently
His voice is good for selling

Nicola- Raquel- I chose Raquel for this voice because:

She has a friendly voice which would be needed for a presenter who is presenting a daily show as listeners need to feel familiar with them
She is well spoken at a good pace
She is good at putting emotion in her voice, she would be likeable to listeners