BBC Radio 1 - Life Hacks

BBC Radio 1 - Life Hacks: Blog tasks

Analysis

Listen to the extracts from Life Hacks above and answer the following questions:

1) What do the titles The Surgery and Life Hacks suggest?

They propose lifestyle tips and alternatives for young people

2) How are the programmes constructed to appeal to a youth audience?

They attract a youth audience by discussing subjects that appeal to younger generations

3) What does the choice of presenters (Cel Spellman and Katie Thistleton) and Dr Modgil suggest about the BBC’s approach to diversity and representation?

The three presenters Cel Spellman, Katie Thistleton and Dr Modgil are all from various fields of the United Kingdom, with distinct accents and distinct experiences, demonstrating diversity in the UK.

4) Go to the Life Hacks iPlayer page and analyse the content. What does this suggest regarding the Life Hacks audience and what the BBC is hoping to achieve with the programme?

The website appears to be gender-neutral, so clearly they want to target both male and female. They want to show that young adults do not have to feel completely alone in their confusion struggles and that they are broken all the time because there are Cal Spellman and Katie Thistleton to save the day.

5) Go to the Life Hacks podcast episodes page. Listen to a few episodes of the podcast and explain how the topics may a) appeal to a youth audience and b) help fulfil the BBC's responsibilities as a public service broadcaster. 

The BBC's responsibilities are to 'inform, educate and entertain'

Audience

1) What is the target audience for BBC Radio 1?

People aged under 29

2) Who is the actual audience for BBC Radio 1?

30% of 35-44 year olds think it is aimed at them.

3) What audience pleasures are offered by Life Hacks? Apply Blumler and Katz’s Uses and Gratifications theory.

• Personal identity: Diverse UK representations through presenters
• Personal relationships: Known presenters or guests

4) Read this Guardian review of Life Hacks. What points does the reviewer make about Life Hacks and the particular podcast episode they listened to?

The episode was especially pleasant and watchful as Stormzy interviewed the celebrity.

5) Read this NME feature on Radio 1 listener figures. What are the key statistics to take from this article regarding the decline in Radio 1 audience ratings?

Radio 1 has lost 200,000 weekly listeners since May, when they attracted 9.4 million listeners a week. The 9.2 million listeners that Radio 1 now pulls in each week is officially the second-lowest ever recorded ratings for the BBC station, and is close to equalling the lowest weekly rating of 9.1 million, which was posted in May 2017.

Industries

1) How does Life Hacks meet the BBC mission statement to Educate, Inform and Entertain? 

By debating topical social issues that influence their target audience and how to cope with them, Life hacks educates and informs and entertains by using their celebrity segments.

2) Read the first five pages of this Ofcom document laying out its regulation of the BBC. Pick out three key points in the summary section.

The BBC is the UK’s most widely-used media organisation, providing programming on television and radio and content online. The public has exceptionally high expectations of the BBC, shaped by its role as a publicly-funded broadcaster with a remit to inform, educate and entertain the public, and to support the creative economy across the UK.


The BBC’s provision of accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual content plays a key role in helping ensure that UK citizens are well informed and able to participate actively in the world around them. The BBC is the most-used source of news in the UK. Audiences recognise it as a trusted brand providing reliable, high-quality information. Overall, respondents to our consultation agreed with the importance of safeguarding the provision and prominence of news, current affairs and information across the BBC’s services. Some argued that the BBC should have a greater focus on international content beyond news coverage.

We have set four objectives for the BBC in relation to the diversity aspect of this public purpose. Among these is an objective for the BBC to reflect the diversity of the UK’s different communities appropriately in its output and services. This should include age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion and belief, sex, sexual orientation and socioeconomic background. It must also accurately represent and authentically portray the diverse communities of the whole of the UK. We recognise the widely-expressed view that the BBC should do more to improve how people are reflected on-screen and on-air

3) Now read what the license framework will seek to do (letters a-h). Which of these points relate to BBC Radio 1 and Life Hacks?

A) Strengthen news and current affairs rules.
B) Increase requirements around programmes for children
C) Secure a more distinctive BBC
D) Support social action campaigns on BBC radio.
E) Safeguard vulnerable genres such as arts, music and religious programmes.
F) Support a wide range of valued genres.
G) Support regional and national audiences, and creative economies across the UK.
H) Require the BBC to reflect the full diversity of the UK population.  

4) What do you think are the three most important aspects in the a-h list? Why?

• The BBC's main purpose is to inform, educate and entertain the public, in addition to supportying the creative economy of the UK as a whole.

5) Read point 1.9: What do Ofcom plan to review in terms of diversity and audience? 

They also announce an in-depth evaluation of the representation and portrayal of distinct audiences on the BBC. All viewers should feel that the BBC is offering them something, but their study demonstrates that several organizations feel it is not representing their interests or lives properly.

Read this Guardian interview with BBC 1 Controller Ben Cooper.

6) What is Ben Cooper trying to do with Radio 1?

On Friday, the BBC announced that Cooper would be getting a new boss, and a controversial one at that. From the end of this month James Purnell, the BBC’s director of strategy and education, will be taking responsibility for radio as part of a new, expanded division.

7) How does he argue that Radio 1 is doing better with younger audiences than the statistics suggest?

 For one, Rajar, the official body in charge of measuring radio audiences, only publishes figures on audience survey respondents aged 15 and over, which he feels is unfair. “You have a target age of 15 to 29, but nothing is measured for under-15s but everything is to death beyond the 29 target, which means, using averages, you are going to get skewed much older,” he says. “I think it is an old-fashioned metric for an old radio industry. You have the maths against you.”

8) Why does he suggest Radio 1 is distinctive from commercial radio?

Cooper talks innovation but Radio 1’s rivals, and a report submitted to the culture secretary that informed this year’s charter review white paper, accuse the station of not being distinctive enough. He bristles at the suggestion. “Are we distinctive from commercial radio? Yes we are,” he says. “We will play something like 4,000 different tracks a month, commercial radio plays about 400. We need to play hit music to get audiences in to expose them to new music. I think we need to look at the fact that we are no longer competing just purely with Rajars against Capital and Kiss.

9) Why is Radio 1 increasingly focusing on YouTube views and digital platforms?

Youtube allows the branch of the BBC Radio to the younger crowd to attempt to get more opinions from the radio. Podcasts are also a nice way to attract spectators as they are popular with younger audiences.

10) In your opinion, should the BBC’s remit include targeting young audiences via Radio 1 or should this content be left to commercial broadcasters? Explain your answer.

I think the BBC should finally go to commercial broadcasting at least because television and radio are dying. The younger generations, because they are not interested in it, are not watching as many programs or listening to radio. New technology is needed to prevent them from caring for radio or television.

War of the Worlds: Blog tasks

War of the Worlds: Blog tasks

Media Factsheet

Go to our Media Factsheet archive on the Media Shared drive and open Factsheet #176: CSP Radio - War of the Worlds. Our Media Factsheet archive is on the Media Shared drive: M:\Resources\A Level\Media Factsheets - you'll need to save the factsheet to USB or email it to yourself in order to complete this at home. Read the factsheet and answer the following questions:

1) What is the history and narrative behind War of the Worlds?

War of the Worlds was a science fiction novel written by H.G Wells and was later taken by Orson Welles as a radio play in 1938

2) When was it first broadcast and what is the popular myth regarding the reaction from the audience?

It was first broadcasted in 1918

3) How did the New York Times report the reaction the next day?

The New York Times reported the reaction as a widespread panic and caused public fear.

4) How did author Brad Schwartz describe the the broadcast and its reaction?

'Decades ahead of its time' and the reaction as 'history's first viral-media phenomenon'

5) Why did Orson Welles use hybrid genres and pastiche and what effect might it have had on the audience?

By mixing a realistic sounding broadcast with a fictional alien invasion in grovers mill, Orson Welles used hybrid genres, New jersey to adapt the novel to a radio show featuring flashes as news was disclosed to build a realistic feeling for the story being told. 

6) How did world events in 1938 affect the way audiences interpreted the show?

There was a threat for Germany.

7) Which company broadcast War of the Worlds in 1938?

CBS

8) Why might the newspaper industry have deliberately exaggerated the response to the broadcast?

• Radio was new and was seen as a threat to print news so newspapers tried to get rid of radio news.

9) Does War of the Worlds provide evidence to support the Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle theory?

‘Hypodermic Needle Theory’. This states that audiences consume and respond to media texts in an unquestioning way, believing what they read, see or hear. 

10) How might Gerbner's cultivation theory be applied to the broadcast?

Gerbner's cultivation theory Could provide a more precise explanation of the viewers behavior in reaction to radio broadcasting as it highlights the long-term impacts of media texts on audiences.  

11) Applying Hall's Reception Theory, what could be the preferred and oppositional readings of the original broadcast?

Halls Reception theory is Considering how the War of the Worlds crowd interpreted the text (as either reality or fiction) is helpful. He claims that there may be distinct methods for viewers to read a media text. The audience's dominant or preferred reading is the one meant by the text's creator.

12) Do media products still retain the ability to fool audiences as it is suggested War of the Worlds did in 1938? Has the digital media landscape changed this?

New media has also enabled an increased capacity to fool audiences as ' false news ' has emerged and media has been able to boost ' clickbait ' style headlines to trick audiences fundamentally unless they read more on the subject.


Analysis and opinion

1) Why do you think the 1938 broadcast of War of the Worlds has become such a significant moment in media history?

It became an important component of media history because even then radios were still fairly new because it was only in 1922 that they placed in households and in the 1930s that they began to popularize.

2) War of the Worlds feels like a 1938 version of 'fake news'. But which is the greater example of fake news - Orson Welles's use of radio conventions to create realism or the newspapers exaggerating the audience reaction to discredit radio?

You could claim that this worldwide scare was began by Welles. It was Halloween, he wanted to have some fun with his business, so he created a realistic tale that made individuals afraid.

3) Do you agree with the Frankfurt School's Hypodermic Needle theory? If not, was there a point in history audiences were more susceptible to believing anything they saw or heard in the media?

The digital media era has become more likely to share something based on a title or picture rather than a complete story, both in making it more important and in social media in particular.

4) Has the digital media age made the Hypodermic Needle model more or less relevant? Why?

I mainly agree with Gerbner's cultivation theory as I think that ongoing media exposure to someone has a gradual but substantial impact on the opinions and beliefs of the audience, most frequently seen with ' mean world syndrome, ' with ongoing adverse world representation leading individuals to think that the world is a worse place than it actually is.

5) Do you agree with George Gerbner's Cultivation theory - that suggests exposure to the media has a gradual but significant effect on audience's views and beliefs? Give examples to support your argument.

I mainly agree with Gerbner's cultivation theory as I think that ongoing media exposure to someone has a gradual but substantial impact on the opinions and beliefs of the audience, most frequently seen with ' mean world syndrome, ' with ongoing adverse world representation leading individuals to think that the world is a worse place than it actually is.

6) Is Gerbner's Cultivation theory more or less valid today than it would have been in 1938? Why?

Gerbner's cultivation theory is much more applicable today than it would have been in 1938, as the increase of the digital era over the previous twenty-five years has seen the general public become a media-saturated society with much greater media exposure, enabling theory of agriculture to take impact than what older generations would have experienced, with so much absence of media.

Introduction to Radio

Introduction to radio: blog tasks

Create a new blogpost called 'Introduction to Radio' on your Media 2 Coursework blog and complete the following tasks:

BBC Sounds

Read this Guardian feature on the launch of BBC Sounds and answer the following questions:

1) Why does the article suggest that ‘on the face of it, BBC Radio is in rude health’?

It has half the national market, with dozens of stations reaching more than 34 million people a week. Radio 2 alone reaches 15 million listeners a week and for all the criticism of the Today programme (“editorially I think it’s in brilliant shape,” says Purnell), one in nine Britons still tune in to hear John Humphrys and his co-presenters harangue politicians every week.

2) What percentage of under-35s use the BBC iPlayer catch-up radio app?

Younger audiences are listening to more audio then ever before.

3) What is BBC Sounds?

It will bring radio livestreams, catchup services, music mixes and podcasts together under one roof.

4) How do audiences listen to radio content in the digital age?

Listen to it on their smartphones or tablets.

5) What does Jason Phipps suggest is important for radio and podcast content aimed at younger audiences?

The man tasked with making this work is Jason Phipps, a former Guardian employee who joined as the corporation’s first commissioning editor for podcasts earlier this year. He says there is a need to reconsider the entire tone of how the BBC tells stories, shifting away from rigid formality if it wants to attract the precious under-35 audience: “It has to be a warmer, more story-led journey. You need to report the very personal experience of it.

6) Why does the BBC need to stay relevant?

the BBC was banned from creating online-only podcasts for competition reasons, meaning it is now making up for lost time, Shennan says. To this end a “few million pounds” a year will be given to commission podcasts purely for an online audience.

Now read this review of the BBC Sounds app.

7) What content does the BBC Sounds app offer?

Music, news, drama, documentaries, true crime, comedy – if you want it in your ears, you start with the orange button. The app lets you click through to any live BBC radio station, but it also offers you other forms of listening, from podcasts to playlists.

8) How does it link to BBC Radio?

he app lets you click through to any live BBC radio station, but it also offers you other forms of listening, from podcasts to playlists. You want music to cheer you up? Here’s a big beats hip-hop playlist “to keep you moving”. 

9) What are the criticisms of the BBC Sounds app?

Sounds is easy to use, though I found the programme information a little tricky to access, and the search – as ever with the BBC – isn’t sensitive enough. 

10) Two new podcasts were launched alongside the BBC Sounds app. What are they and why might they appeal to younger audiences?

Beyond Today, presented by Tina Daheley, is an attempt to mimic the New York Times’s successful The Daily programme, and the two shows I’ve heard aren’t bad. The first, about whether the UK has enough money, had too many audio tricks; the second, about an Iraqi Instagram star killed for being too provocative, was very good (though the word “flaunt” should be banned, especially when used to refer to women). It would be nice for the programme to refer to actual breaking news, as in The Daily’s “here’s what else you need to know” end section, but it’s not a bad start. A few days after the Beeb, the Guardian launched its own daily, behind-the-scenes-of- journalism podcast, Today in Focus, which I’ll review next week.

And End of Days, exclusive to the Sounds app, is a gripping tale. I hadn’t realised that many of the Waco cult victims were from the UK, mostly recruited from the Seventh-Day Adventist church. End of Days talks to their families and friends. There are moments when you want more specifics (the first episode is vague as to what David Koresh actually talked about), but it’s a very interesting show.

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean

Michael Jackson - Billie Jean blog tasks

Work through the following tasks to create a comprehensive case study for Michael Jackson's Billie Jean music video.

Media Magazine reading: Billie Jean, birth of an icon

Go to our Media Magazine archive and read the case study on Billie Jean - birth of an icon (MM62 - page 20). Answer the following questions:

1) What was the budget for Billie Jean? How did this compare with later Michael Jackson videos?

The budget for Billie Jean was $300,000; in comparison to ‘Thriller’ it was $2million.

2) Why was the video rejected by MTV?

MTV they refused to air the video, arguing that it didn’t suit their ‘middle America’ audience.


3) Applying Goodwin's theory of music video, how does Billie Jean reflect the genre characteristics of pop music video?

Andrew Goodwin outlines the conventions of promo videos in his 1992 book Dancing in the Distraction Factory: Music Television and Popular Culture. He provides a useful framework to begin analysing the video.
Genre Characteristics. The video contains many conventions of the pop genre: lip-syncing, performance interwoven with narrative, dance routines, high-fashion costume. 

4) How do the visuals reflect the lyrics in Billie Jean?

The song is apparently based on Jackson’s experience of fan-girls claiming he or his brothers were the parents of their babies, mixed in with a missing persons story that Jackson had purportedly read in the news at the time. Key lyrics are amplified through the visuals: the song is about a girl, Billie Jean. Although we never see her as a character in the video, we are presented instead with other images suggestive of females in general with whom he never comes into contact – the billboard/ screen with a woman’s face displayed on it, the figure on one side of the double bed at the end. There are more literal links: when Jackson sings the stand out line, ‘Then showed a photo of a baby crying, his eyes were like mine,’ the screen freezes and a frame appears around the artist’s eyes. Elsewhere he does a spin as he sings ‘in the round.’

5) Why does the video feature fewer close-up shots than in most pop videos?

The video assists the star-construction of the artist, not so much through the close-ups that you might expect in other pop videos, but through the focus on the distinctive dance moves (often shown three-fold in the frame) which had not been seen onscreen before. It was shortly after this video was shot that Jackson did the first moonwalk, stunning the audience with his performance of, ‘Billie Jean’ at the legendary Motown 25 concert later in 1983.

6) What intertextual references can be found in the video?

There’s a visual style that begins here, in ‘Billie Jean’, and develops throughout the other promos for Thriller. By the time ‘Bad’ was released in 1987 the King of Pop’s iconic image was cemented in pop-culture history.

7) How does the video use the notion of looking as a recurring motif?

The notion of looking can be seen through the use of the private detective (also an intertextual reference to Noir film and detective fiction). Jackson is being watched and followed; a polaroid camera attempts to capture his image but he’s elusive, mystical. The audience sees his image multiplied using split-screen editing, he is frozen or isolated in a frame-within-a-frame. Towards the end he is spied through a window by an old woman in hair-rollers as he ascends a fire escape to stand, somewhat creepily, at the bedside of a sleeping figure, where he then becomes the voyeur.

8) What representations can be found in the video?

Like most pop music, the narrative element is mysterious; much is left open to interpretation but what
is interesting here is the way that Jackson is beginning to construct a narrative about himself
and establish his identity. What Steve Barron describes as a Midas-touch narrative could, in retrospect be interpreted as the beginnings of the Messiah-complex that Jackson was criticised for later his career. The ‘everything-he-touches- turns-to-gold’ idea in this video is fairly innocuous and it’s sweetly naïve when, in ‘Beat it’, Jackson pops himself between the ringleaders rival brawling gangs, does a little dance singing, ‘it
doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right,’ causing them to come together as a synchronised dance troupe.

Close-textual analysis of the music video

1) How is mise-en-scene used to create intertextuality - reference to other media products or genres? E.g. colour/black and white; light/lighting.

The beginning of the video started of with black and white which creates intertextuality linking with the film noir genre. We can also detect the beginnings of the ongoing theme of being ‘from the streets’. The setting in ‘Billie Jean’ is urban, it is night time, litter blows down dark alleys and fire-escapes. This is the first in a sequence of videos that explored gangs, crime, danger and the supernatural. Although Jackson’s childhood home in Gary, Indiana was more suburban than urban, there’s no denying he grew up in poverty.

2) How does the video use narrative theory of equilibrium?

His narrative of being from the wrong side of the tracks and being ‘not like other guys’ was an important part of his identity, probably throughout his entire career but especially in his twenties. If you have 18 minutes to spare, the extended narrative in Scorsese’s video for ‘Bad’, which depicts Jackson bidding farewell to his Ivy League school mates to head back to the mean streets of his youth, clearly highlights an ongoing identity crisis for this megastar.

3) How are characters used to create narrative through binary opposition?

Rich vs Poor : Michael Jackson

Good vs Bad : The detective

4) What is the significance of the freeze-frames and split-screen visual effects?

The freeze-frames and split-screen visual effects is extremely significant because it suggests that the detective is collecting evidence against Michael Jackson.

5) What meanings could the recurring motif of 'pictures-within-pictures' create for the audience?

The common theme of pictures-within pictures could be proposing that Michael Jackson dependably feels as though he is being viewed and that his protection is being attacked, this is likewise observed through his verses in the song.
6) Does the video reinforce or subvert theories of race and ethnicity - such as Gilroy's diaspora or Hall's black characterisations in American media?

It can be argued that the video somewhat subverts theories of race and ethnicity.

7) Does this video reflect Steve Neale's genre theory of 'repetition and difference'? Does it reflect other music videos or does it innovate?

I strongly believe that this music video reflects Steve Neale's genre theory of 'repetition and difference'

8) Analyse the video using postmodern theory (e.g. Baudrillard's hyper-reality; Strinati's five definitions of postmodernism). How does the 'picture-in-picture' recurring motif create a postmodern reading?

Postmodernists guarantee that we live in a media-soaked world – submerged in media items every minute of every day. To such an extent, that the qualification between this present reality and the media portrayal of this present reality has turned out to be obscured, Using Baudrillard's hyperreality hypothesis, we can express that the music video has been built to mirror the 1940, additionally there are various types of intertextuality inside Billie Jean for example Pastiche is used as the crime noir genre has a serious emphasis.