Q1 - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

There are many ways in which our media product uses that either develops or challenges forms and conventions of real media products. Examples include the commonly used 'jingle' for various radio stations such as Capital FM and Sunrise Radio. Eye opening headlines to introduce certain news stories, background music and interactions with the audience.

One of the conventions of real media product that our newscast uses is a jingle. This is often used in a variety of radio stations in order for the audience to identify the radio station by the use of sound. For example, in the beginning and the end of our newscast, there is a jingle that states our radio newscast name; Infinity FM. This creates a sense of identity as the audience are able to identify what they are listening to.

Another convention we have used is social media interactivity in which the audience are able to interact with the use of social media networks such as Twitter; a widely used micro blogging social networking site used by millions of people. For instance, in our newscast when talking about the Brits award, we asked the audience to tweet us to find out how to win a ticket to the Brits awards. This enabled us to gain a wider audience as competitions on how to win tickets to famous media industrial events often go viral as they are seen as a form of entertainment, especially within a age group of teenagers.

One of the conventions we have developed is the background music. This is because many radio stations often stick to a particular type of background music for news stories to keep a steady pace and atmosphere. However, we have chosen to have different kinds of music for each news story. For example, in Naieema's new story we used light hearted Christmas music in the background as it relates to the story. For Fahmida's story, there was silence as her story is about hard news and was therefore not appropriate to add background music as it conflicts with the emotions the audience may feel when listening to the story.

One other convention we have challenged is the use of advertisements. For our news cast, we have decided not to add any adverts based on the results from our target audience. This is because the majority of the audience stated that they dislike adverts and see it as a 'waste of time.' Therefore, no adverts are used in order for a target audience to feel engaged to listen.

We have used common forms of communication such as an outside broadcast, vox pop and an interview. For example, an outside broadcast was used for Naieema's story as it was about a local event taking place and was able to hear views and opinions from people who were there reflecting on how they thought about the event. A vox pop was used to hear the various opinions of people on what they thought about bikes being on DLR trains. This allowed the audience to gain an understanding of the various opinions. Also, an interview was conducted for Fahmida's news story which enabled the audience to gain knowledge from an expert about the topic.