Evaluation Questions

1. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
2. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
3. Who would be the audience for your media product?
4. How did you attract/ address your audience?
5. What have you learn about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
6. Looking back at your Preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

How does your media product represent particular social groups and who would be the audience for your media product?
We tried to broaden our social groups in which our media product would represent. We did this through a range of ideas. Our news that we broadcasted was mainly sport and celebrity gossip, however, we did include some international and local news too. This would interest a range of social groups. Through the presenters, we included humor to make the listeners feel at ease when they are listening to 'Vox Radio'.

We tried to aim our radio station at a younger audience, mainly between the ages of 15 - 30. We did this through our name of the radio station 'Vox Radio'. Just by hearing this name, you can tell that it is for a younger audience.We also did this through the presenters talking in an informal tone - if someone made a mistake then they would joke about it and try and make the listeners laugh, this would be relevant for a young audience.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Our five minute radio clip would be distributed by a local radio station. It has many of the same aspects as local radio stations that I analysed such as 'Heart FM'. The news mentioned on Heart FM was related to celebrities and local news. We tried to imitate this by doing the same types of news as well as international news. The local news headline that they used was about a man in oxford getting stabbed. We informed the new updates on what is happening with the student fee's. These stories both affect Oxfordshire.

We did a sports update, this was to encourage men to listen to our radio station. Heart did not include this. I think this is because they have to cut out some types of news in their shows so they can stick to a particular timed schedule.

We also included weather and travel updates to inform the listeners in the local area. This is one of the main expectations of a local radio station. This would encourage a media institution to distribute our media product.

How did you attract/ address your audience?
At the beginning of the show, the presenters informed the audience what would be coming up in the show by directly talking to them. This addresses them and this makes them feel obligated to stay. To attract the audience, the presenters spoke in an exciting tone, because we were hoping by doing this it would excite the audience so they would continue listening. To make the audience feel at ease, we all used a casual and friendly tone so everyone can feel like they can listen to our radio station whilst feeling relaxed. When writing the script for our radio piece, we tried to only say things that will interest the listener. For example, when doing the news, we cut out the less important information and just kept it quick and basic. This is so the listeners don't get bored.

I think that if I had to redo this project; then I would do a questionnaire on what people like to hear from radio stations, and then ask my family and friends to complete it. We would also plan our main piece out more efficiently. This way we would of had time to include the surprise guest in our radio show that in the end we didn't have time to record.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Throughout the preliminary task and our final piece we used the same software to record. We used 'garageband'. The reason why we did this is because it worked so well for the preliminary, so we thought it was only best to use it for our main task. It was very easy to use and we found it easy to go back and edit as we were constantly changing our product. We could move parts of speech into different places in the piece until we were happy with the order. This helped a great deal, as this took the pressure off us recording everything perfectly in the right order. This overall helped with making the product as good as it could be.This did teach me that if we were had to do this task again, we should practise the script more so we didn't have to do so much editing whilst in the recording process.

The software had many choices of sound effects that we could use in our product. For example, our jingle. This made our radio product sound realistic, and like the other radio stations that we have listened to and evaluated. Making our jingle on this software was made to be very easy and successful. However, we did have to practise with a few at first until we found one that sounded right for 'Vox Radio'.

Recording on this software was sometimes difficult. As our group used several different microphones it took a lot of time to make sure we were all talking at the same volume. We didn't get this perfect, this was because some of our individual voices were quieter that others.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
We learnt many things whilst doing the preliminary task. In the main task we learnt to stick to a written script so it was more structured - even though the presenters made a few mistakes, but that's what made it sound like a real radio station. Also, in the main task we were more familiar with the software and we were able to use a greater deal of it. This improved our radio piece as it made it sound more professional.

Our preliminary task taught us what we needed to do to improve to make our main task sound as good as it could be. If we had more time to complete this task we would spend more time planning the recording so we could of included an interview with the surprise guest, and we would increase the use of editing.