Crirical Self Reflection (Radio)

Shown above is an interactive presentation on prezzi showcasing my critical self reflection, if preferred the link is also provided Prezzi Link

Introduction

At the beginning of this term, we were assigned a project of making a radio show. We started with choosing our teams, I ultimately chose my team of Me, Maxi, Satria, and Theo. We then conducted research on our audience. We did this by looking at other radio shows and finally created RegentsX FM. We then recorded, edited, created logos, and jingles chose songs, and more, which ended in the final product of our 15-minute radio show.

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

Our radio show, which we created titled "RegentsX FM" focuses towards high school students in Regents Secondary School. This is why we created segments on the show that talk about school events, we also created a gossip segment that will only interest the students in Regents Secondary School. We created this segment based on the results from our survey which we created through google forms, which resulted in a large majority of students wanting to hear a gossip segment.

RegentsX FM mostly conforms to the norm of other radio shows that target similar audiences. Firstly an example of an Indonesian radio show such as Phoenix FM, from Indonesia, targets similar demographics to our radio show, and includes news segments in which hosts generally talk about events that happen locally. Secondly, another radio show that our show conforms to is the radio show MTV, which uses gossip to attract an audience as well. Similarly, our radio show follows these tropes and conventions of the radio industry and conforms to audience expectations. Additionally, RegentsX FM follows conventions by using songs that are popular in the current time. This was confirmed by the data we got from our survey, which told us the type of music our audience is most likely to enjoy. In this case, music from artists and bands like The Arctic Monkeys, Childish Gambino, The Neighborhood, Etc would be the most enjoyable to our targeted audience. We concluded to further conform to the norms by hosting the radio in English, this is done to expand the reach of our radio show to more people.

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

Our radio show targets and appeals to the demographic of teenage students (aged 15-18). This is because we created our gossip segment that will most likely cater to people of that age range, an older age range would not be as interested in listening to gossip and rumors and a younger age range wouldn’t necessarily understand the relevancy of the gossip. Furthermore, our radio show mostly appeals to Indonesians specifically, instead of people outside of the country, as events discussed will mainly consist of events happening in Indonesia. 

I think that RegentsX FM is a very suitable radio show that can be aired by our school's production house. This is because our target audience is incredibly niche or specific, as only students from our school would understand the gossip or even the news that's currently happening. Our radio is suitable for play at any time of day, however, it would best be played in the afternoon to adapt to the school hours, this is to allow students to relax and cool down after a long day and be entertained. Other than being broadcasted by the school, however, we could also incorporate forms of new media like YouTube. Technological Convergence creates outlets such as YouTube that can allow the audience to re-listen once uploaded. 

The Uses and Gratifications Theory is a Mass Communication theory that focuses on the needs, motives, and gratifications of media users. The theory states that media consumers are passive consumers of mass communications; rather, they play an active role in media consumption. The theory is attributed to researchers Jay G. Blumler and Elihu Katz. Our radio this radio show falls under the category of "diversion", "surveillance" and "social relationships", as audiences are most likely to tune in and listen to the radio for leisure/to be entertained. This is achieved by the gossip segment of our radio show. The music played on our radio show also achieves this, this is because music also serves as a form of diversion from everyday life for most people. 

Our radio show consists of 2 male, 16-year-old, Indonesian hosts. This is a way to be representative of the high school student audience and also the male and Indonesian audience, this is because the theory of representation states that audiences will be more attracted to consume media where they feel represented. However, this also means that we will not effectively reach out to a full audience, as our hosts are only 1 gender, which in this case are men. This might make our radio show less attractive to females, this is because females might want a certain gender to feel represented, in this case, if there was a female host they might feel more connected and interested in the show. 

How did your production skills develop throughout this project?

After successfully producing the radio show, I learned a lot about sound engineering. This started with the introduction of equipment from our teacher. I then fiddled with the equipment and successfully set everything up by myself. I tested with software settings and learned through trial and error the perfect gain level for my personal volume of speaking. We also did the recording of the radio show on the recording software OBS, this recorded Me and Maxi’s audio perfectly. With this, I have also enhanced my teamwork and communication capability as I had to work and cooperate with a team and was able to do so successfully.

How did you integrate technologies - software, hardware, and online - into this project?

To finally create a well-produced radio show, we used a variety of different software and hardware to create it. Hardware-wise, we used our own audio setups at home, using a Scarlett 2i2 Studio Mic and BM800 Condenser Microphone respectively. We then entered an online voice call on the app Discord, which is a VoIP and instant messaging social platform where users have the ability to communicate with voice calls, in which I recorded our dialogue through OBS recording software. I then had to monitor the recordings to check for any problems, if the audio was clear I uploaded the files to a google drive where Maxi (our team audio editor) transferred the files into Adobe Premiere Pro, where he edited all the recordings together. Furthermore, The jingles were made by Satria using the application Bandlab, a free online audio editing software, using his recordings made from an iPhone 11. On the other hand, Theo created the logo using Adobe Photoshop, a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. In conclusion, this new technology has massively assisted us in creating this radio show. Furthermore, the fact that most of the software used are easily accessible makes our process that much smoother.

Conclusion

Overall, this project has helped me understand how to cater to a specific audience, how to work efficiently as a team, and how to be time efficient. Other members such as Theo who is gifted in design decided to do logo creation, Maxi and I decided to become hosts, as we have the most chemistry, and ultimately created an entertaining duo of hosts. I now also know more details about other software my teammates used, our logo creator (Theo) gave me a brief overview of his logo creation which helped me learn more about photoshop. Our jingle creator (Satria) guided me through his process in bandlab which helped me as well. Needless to say, I am pleasantly satisfied with the results of our radio show.


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