Evaluation

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
I believe that I used the codes and conventions in the follwing ways. By keeping the jingle short and sweet the audience's attention is grasped and not lost by a repetitive or long introduction which would be better off used as a bed track. As the the jingle normally acts as an indicator for the type of music broadcasted on the programme and on top of this the jingle acts as a means of conveying its own demographic target audience, I believe I have done this well. By maintaining a consistent theme throughout the show, from start to finish with Tarantula by Faithless, the audience clearly feels at home in terms of their uses and gratifications; feeling part of something as well as entertainment.

There is a constant flow to the radio show, something that all of them need, and thus I feel I've accomplished that goal quite well - there is no absence of sound, a radio show's worst nightmare, and in fact the way in which the bed track fades out so that the last lines of dialogue from the hosts - "I don't know what made her do that. But I don't ever want to see it happen again" is accentuated, enhancing the meaning behind the statement.

I believe I have challenged the normal codes and conventions of a radio show in that normally television shows are not televised. The way in which I justify my choice is that, for those who may have missed an episode or perhaps just a snippet of a program, can catch up on some "gossip" - as shown in my example by the bad cooking in my show.

I furthermore challenged the codes and conventions of a normal radio show by leaping straight itno the conversation between the two hosts of the main show - as I feel, if the purpose would be to inform people of missed gossip, an introduction would be viable, but not as necessary as with other talk shows for example.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?
My media product adresses its social groups in the following ways; the ways in which I composed my jingle with the accompanied vocal piece of "exciting week", the bed track and the archive clip and finally the song that plays the show out.

To start with, the jingle. The use of dance/club-esque music with the synthesisers and dance loops carrying connotations of what, arguably, the audience may also like to do - have fun at dance clubs. Due to the intertextual knowledge the listeners will have of the types of music played at clubs and the like, upon hearing the jingle the combination will act as a signifier for the already conceived concepts that they have about all the notion entails - fun, a generally awesome time. Thus, this demographic is represented, those between 18-28 more or less are represented in this way by my selection of the music. However, if this was the case - would my demographic be wide spread enough? By incorporating the presenter of the real TV show's voice I can represent those, including the group already mentioned too, who watch the show and upon hearing his voice understand all the denotations of something as simple as hearing his voice. They recognise who he is, and can therefore guess - if not instantly tell - what kind of show is about to take place. Thus, those who watch the show are represented by the use of the presenter's voice.

The same theme in attempting to represent the groups is apparent throughout. During the exchange of dialogue, the language used is not very group-specific, thus, the representation is a lot more open than if the exchange had been something like "That chef is whack, she don't know jack 'bout cooking" - notice the use of italics. If that had been the case, the demographic would be clearly aimed at teenage boys who talk amongst themselves in a similar fashion, and thus upon hearing, would allude themselves to the show.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
If any, the BBC, for the obvious reason in that I am using an idea which is already in the media. Albeit this, I do believe that my version of the concept would not be suitable for airing due to the fact that it's just not up to the standards of normal radio broadcasts - I would need to re-record the archive clips in a much more isolated - for the purpose of clarity - space where there would not be people making noise. However, the concept's target audience is, I believe, a valid one; in that in previous series' of Master Chef the same type of trance/dance up beat music is incorporated whilst the contestants cook.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
Realistically speaking, 16-35 year olds interested in cooking. I don't really believe that in terms of demographic it would be important as to whereabouts the audience was aimed (whether that be a/b/c etc) as due to the fact that it is a Radio Show with a fairly broad subject of interest - cooking, the income in question of the potential customer would not make such a huge difference.

How did you attract/address your audience?
I attracted my audience initially with a very upbeat, evenly paced jingle which engaged the audience almost immediately with the speech saying "This is a very exciting week for us". The tone of the voice giving the welcome to the master chef radio show is confident and attention holding. The attention was maintained furthermore with a bubbly bed-track, whilst the two hosts exchange gossip-like banter about a recent chef they've had to talk about. To end the track, the voice ending it all off sounds cool and relaxed as the end-song plays out, as the attention is already grasped, they don't need to be shouted at that "WE'LL BE RIGHT BACK" or something to that extent.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I have familiarised myself with the basic uses and post-production aspects that Garageband has to offer. I have learnt how to drag and drop loops that I need specific to my target audience, how to create new tracks in a pre-set instrument so that I can hope to input my own music if needs be. As well as this I've learnt how to monitor the levels of sounds so that they are appropriate to the track's job, and change them if necessary, learnt how to cut sections of sound up so that they better fit/blend with the music around them and finally how to create the finished product into a format suitable for MP3 players.