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My radio programme "A Local's Guide to Brick Lane" is a lifestyle talk radio programme that captures the experiences of people who have visited the area in a interview-style format. An example of a talk radio programme is talkSPORT, which is the most popular sports radio station which features a talk radio format where they do exclusive interviews.
My radio programme "A Local's Guide to Brick Lane" is a lifestyle talk radio programme that captures the experiences of people who have visited the area in a interview-style format. An example of a talk radio programme is talkSPORT, which is the most popular sports radio station which features a talk radio format where they do exclusive interviews.
Talk radio programmes have many different codes and conventions. In terms of codes, in radio this can be in the form of music, speech, sound and silence which all have different purposes, respectively.
Music is a type of code that helps identify the atmosphere of a radio programme, which will allow viewers to understand what the direction of the radio programme is going in, as music sets the mood and setting of the scene depending on the type of music used and its genre (i.e. jazz or rock guitar could signify that the radio programme will be upbeat and exciting). In a talk radio programme, music isn't emphasised too much, unless the music blends in with environment being portrayed (i.e. a subtle music track that makes the atmosphere of the interviews appear more lively). In my radio segment, I use a recurring soundtrack during the first and second interviews as it captures the vibrant and uplifting nature of Brick Lane, as shown here:
Speech refers to words that are spoken, and this can be in a specific way like the kind of accent or dialect the person speaks with, their tone, and their pronunciation. Delivery of lines can affect the interpretation of a sentence i.e. someone could ask "What are you doing?" in form of a regular question, but the same person could then shout "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" which would create a completely different meaning with the same sentence, so speech delivery is vital in radio as there are no visual cues to identify alternative ways of a person's expressed emotion. In my talk radio programme, I have interviews that showcase the code of speech (however in the interviewee's regular voices, as they are not acting) i.e.:
Sound effects help the listener to identify the different collisions or actions that are happening within a scene such as explosions which would evoke the idea of a disaster occurring or rain which would help users understand what the weather is like and will give off the impression that the location is outside on the street. I have sound effects such as car sounds that give off the impression of what the environment is like:
Conventions of the content of a talk radio programme include distribution cast credits, title, aural signposting and narration.
Aural signposting is a technique that is often employed in many talk radio programmes where environmental noises such as cars, trees rustling, water, sticks and birds establish an outside setting of the radio programme as there is an absence of visual cues which would otherwise help the audience identify the environment instantly. I recorded a long segment of the environment which is used partially in my first interview:
Cast credits and title are also rather important radio conventions whereby they introduce the listeners to who will be talking in the segment in terms of the cast, and the title allows listeners to hear what the name of the segment is so that they can roughly form an idea of what the radio segment will be about.
Cast credits (presenter introducing the cast) i.e. Desmond and the title (presenter introducing the title 'A Locals Guide to Brick Lane'):
Methods that fall into both the "codes and conventions" category include access and distribution, the type of medium it is and the audience it caters to.
Speech refers to words that are spoken, and this can be in a specific way like the kind of accent or dialect the person speaks with, their tone, and their pronunciation. Delivery of lines can affect the interpretation of a sentence i.e. someone could ask "What are you doing?" in form of a regular question, but the same person could then shout "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" which would create a completely different meaning with the same sentence, so speech delivery is vital in radio as there are no visual cues to identify alternative ways of a person's expressed emotion. In my talk radio programme, I have interviews that showcase the code of speech (however in the interviewee's regular voices, as they are not acting) i.e.:
Sound effects help the listener to identify the different collisions or actions that are happening within a scene such as explosions which would evoke the idea of a disaster occurring or rain which would help users understand what the weather is like and will give off the impression that the location is outside on the street. I have sound effects such as car sounds that give off the impression of what the environment is like:
Finally, silence is employed in various different ways, either to evoke suspense, provide a break in dialogue or the ending of a scene (which in a script would be referred to as a fade out).
Conventions of the content of a talk radio programme include distribution cast credits, title, aural signposting and narration.
Aural signposting is a technique that is often employed in many talk radio programmes where environmental noises such as cars, trees rustling, water, sticks and birds establish an outside setting of the radio programme as there is an absence of visual cues which would otherwise help the audience identify the environment instantly. I recorded a long segment of the environment which is used partially in my first interview:
Cast credits and title are also rather important radio conventions whereby they introduce the listeners to who will be talking in the segment in terms of the cast, and the title allows listeners to hear what the name of the segment is so that they can roughly form an idea of what the radio segment will be about.
Cast credits (presenter introducing the cast) i.e. Desmond and the title (presenter introducing the title 'A Locals Guide to Brick Lane'):
Methods that fall into both the "codes and conventions" category include access and distribution, the type of medium it is and the audience it caters to.
When looking at the access and distribution of my radio programme, audiences will be able to listen to it online as it will be uploaded on YouTube, similarly to talkSPORT which distributes its radio programmes online for free. This means that our radio programme will be able to be listened to on multiple devices such as phones, computers, TVs and any devices that can view YouTube. The medium of my radio is the intimate medium, where the discussion in my radio segment is personal as it has a direct mode of address where the presenter is talking to the audience and guiding them through a journey, as evidenced by script lines such as "Today, I will be walking you through...". This differs to talkSPORT as despite being a talk radio, it focuses on discussion between the interview members and is not necessarily adopting an approach where they are "directly speaking to the audience" like my radio segment attempts to. The target audience of my radio segment is intended to be people living in Brick Lane, as well as other people living in London, of the ages 16 and above as they are mostly likely the demographic who would be interested in hearing a radio segment about a particular area.
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When finalising the production of my radio program, I had to confirm that my radio production was viable to carry out and is appropriate for distribution. This means that I need to evaluate the structure of my radio programme to see if it meets the client requirements. In my radio programme, I included interviews of three people, each respectively being a friend, family member and stranger, in this order, as the client brief required. I implemented these interviews in a specific order, where the radio segment was consecutively ordered as though each interview took part at different times of the day (i.e. a clockwise circadian cycle). The order was indeed successful, as when I presented my radio segment to a focus group, they believed that they were being taken on a journey with audience members being able to indicate that the last interview was taking part in the night for example. As a result, I will not change the order of the interviews.
When editing the project file for my radio segment, the levels of volume for my radio programme were not consistent, as when editing, I constantly needed to adjust the volumes of some of the audio files throughout the timeline of my radio segment. This is because some of the sound effects were louder than the dialogue, and as the dialogue is the most important part of the segment that the listeners must be able to hear clearly, it had to change, i.e:
The yellow line represents the changing volume levels on the sound effects (at the bottom). Presenter and Paul are dialogue audio files that do not have volume levels adjusted, as it would sound inconsistent for a person's voice to suddenly become louder or quieter during a conversation. The sound quality of the files itself were not consistent however, where the quality of speech in the second interview (Claudette) is notably lower than that of the first interview and the third interview when listening to the radio segment. This is because the second interview was exclusively recorded with the WhatsApp audio recorder which doesn't record sound as well as other recording software. To adjust this, I advantageously used this lower audio quality where I made it appear as though it was done on purpose due to the sheer noisy environmental noises that I layered in the background of her interview so it sounds as though the audio quality of her voice is compressed because of the environmental noise of a restaurant being busy and loud. Volume levels were adjusted to its highest point with the second interview, and it still sounds rather low compared to the first interview which means that the only reasonable way to improve the sound quality of the interview is to rerecord the entire interview but with different audio recording equipment (preferably the H5 sound recorder).
The outcome of my radio programme was still engaging, regardless of the fact that there could be some minor improvements. My radio programme succeeded in educating the focus group that I presented it to as they were enlightened by the description of the Brick Lane area which noted how artistic it was and how people spend their time there. It also succeeded in entertaining my audience as the general consensus was that they liked it; i.e. one audience member liked the little dialogue sequences in-between that guided the journey of the presenter, which evidences the success of my presenting style. This was supplemented by the different atmospheres that I established in my radio segment through the use of different sound assets. In my first interview, sounds such as cars, footsteps, wind and buses were ubiquitous, which conveyed an atmosphere of a busy street which helped audiences identify the setting which linked with the interviewee's dialogue of describing Brick Lane as a street. In the second interview, the interviewee was talking about an experience that they had in a Brick Lane restaurant, and I complemented this with sound effects that denote that atmosphere, such as chatter, cutlery, plates and glasses. As well as this, halfway into the second interview I also switched soundtracks to suit what the interviewee was talking about, which was how "Indian music playing in the background" which played subsequently after they mentioned it. Finally, a night atmosphere was created through a subtle ambience track that I obtained online from a royalty-free source (Freesound) as recording sound in the night time is impractical and dangerous.
Further improvements that I could make in addition to rerecording the second interview due to the lower quality sound is my voice as a presenter, as I personally felt it was too subtle and relaxed and would have preferred a more outgoing and expressively loud approach.
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