Research and Planning
Research & Planning- On this tab I will be documenting my research into existing TV News programs and applying my learning to my own product production.
BBC Midlands Today Analysis.
TV News Analysis-
BBC Midlands Today Analysis.
ABC Analysis.
CNN Analysis.
Through the analysis of these existing TV News programs I have gained knowledge about the codes and conventions of television news and considered possibilities of how I would like to style and make my title sequence and News program. I have analysed BBC Midlands Today, ABC, Newsround and CNN. The one that stood out the most for me was CNN due to their bold bright colours and the layout of their studio. The other one which stood out was Newsround as their target audience is much younger than the ordinary News production. Their use of bright unusual colours and cartoon animations attracts a younger audience with ease. I aspire to make my news production, title sequence and radio advert to be based off this idea- I will need to conduct audience research to see if their is a need in this age demographic?. The other productions are a lot more serious and professional as they tend to focus on more hard stories and serious issues.
All the programs I analysed contained primary colours within their logos- red and blue were the most popular colours
These colours are associated with Power and attention but also stability and trust creating a trustworthy brand which is important as they are the voice of the world/country to their audience.
The running order of each program is also set out in a similar way; they are have a title sequence at the start to introduce the program then they start reporting their hardest story 1st to grab the audiences attention and give news updates of the most important information right at the beginning then work their way to the softest story to finish on- a 'happy ending'.
All programs contain name supers and the majority of the time and their logo's are always on the screen, to remind viewers of brand and channel.
The mise-en-scene of the studio resembles their house colours and the reporters are in formal attire.
This research will influenced my ideas in the production of my Main and Ancillary Tasks.
Codes and Conventions Presentation.
In order to share resources and to practice our on camera skills we presented 1 of our research presentations to the class.
Peer Response.
My audience felt my presentation was clear and I had a good grasp of terminology but need to be more confident in front of the camera 'Piece to Camera' which will help when we come to the main task as I my have to be in front of the camera.
ITV News Central Lunchtime-
Rhetoric of Presentation Analysis
Codes and Conventions.
This local Television is around 4 minutes long. the order of the show is from the most important/ hard hitting news storiy to the least important, the last story is often a softer news story and is allowed a little longer time so the viewers can gain an attachment to the story. The music is very hard at the beginning to get the viewers attention. The opening scene/Title sequence lasts approximately 3 seconds and in the background we can see images of the local area (Midlands) this is clever because it gives visual refrences ti the viewer as well as text/titles (if their the viewer is not from the local area the images identify who the news is directed towards and it may not be focused on them). Then it zooms in to the brand (ITV) and shows the viewer what they are about to watch. ITV lunchtime news is not very formal but as soon as you see the 'News Central' you know it is a little more serious. The font is a serious and trustworthy font and the words are all in Caps. They use the wording 'central' as people would usually gather all information about their local area as it is the central source, also the fact that it is focused on the central area of England.
Their chosen house colour is blue as it is not harsh on the eye but it is also a very professional colour and trustworthy. As we enter the studio their is a panning shot zooming to the presenter who is sitting at a desk positioned centrally. Their is a laptop in front of her and she is holding paper. Their is a shot of Birmingham Town Centre showing where the news is focused on. The laptop and paper shows that it is official. The presenter is female, black African with a British accent, she is wearing very formal clothing but yet wearing a bright necklace. The first thing she says is, 'good afternoon' as this informs us what time of day it is but also welcomes us in. She has a slight smile on her face which is also welcoming. Their is a name super that appears alongside with the logo all in the house colour and house style.
The first story is a very hard story. The images used are blurred out as the women does not want to be identified. Over the images which they have used, their is a voice over explaining the story. Their is also a text box showing that this is a reconstruction, we then see bank statements and bank cards. The voice over says, 'they tricked you' Giving a very personal side to the story draws the audiences in and warning the audience that this could happen to them and therefore making it personal to the viewer. Their is slight ambient sound within the interview which makes it more real showing that they are out in the field interviewing the victim. We do not see the interviewer, we only see the interviewee.
This then quickly transitions back to the studio where the presenter then moves on to the next story which is of equal importance with the first story. This story, ITV does not have enough of the story therefore second in order. The presenter says that the case is an on going story showing that they don't have enough information about the story.
The third story is important but softer as it is about a dog not a person. It then cuts to YouTube footage of the dog in a respectful memory.
Then after all the 'bad news', we then see a good news story. The story now shows how Birmingham will grow as a city, there is then a still of what Birmingham will look like after all the work is finished.
The final story is a little longer than the others as it is a personal story and a very soft story. The start of the boys life is that he had a very bad upbringing and was involved in violence against the police then he turned his life around. It is also a nice bit of publicity for M&S as the person worked for them and was wearing their uniform in the interviews.
As the presenter comes back into the shot, their is a different shot signifying that the show is coming to an end. They use the rule of thirds and in the background on the TV it shows the upcoming weather. Then transitions to the weather title scene using the same style but different images.
We then have an advert.
Then there is a close up of raindrops in the background. there is also a name super showing the brand and who the presenter is, but also convergent links. The house colour is carried through in the background and the presenter is wearing a contrasting coloured dress but yet still formal.
The first thing we see is the days weather in big bold font. Then the background is transitioned to a map of the UK, but Scotland is cut off as they are not focusing on the whole of the UK but just the midlands. It also shows the day in the bottom right corner. The weather reporter looks away towards the map then looks directly back into the camera as if shes looking at you 'piece to camera'. She is very smiley engaging with the audience. There is animated clip of the weather behind her. Then the map zooms into the midlands showing the weather for each city/town in the region. On the name super it shows the time that the images behind are meant to appear. The reporter uses hand movements to direct viewers eye movement.
It then goes back to the advert/sponsor then back to the logo for the ITV News Weather. Cutting back to the studio shows that their are no surprise stories that appeared or they didn't run over time as the weather is normally where they add or take away time depending on whether they are running to schedule. They can now sign off and say goodbye, the presenter then looks as though she is busy shuffling the paper.
They use the same piece of music throughout the whole clip except for the advert. They do not change font through out the clip, they keep it all the same through each story, they also use the same colour as a house colour through the clip for continuity. There is no fancy or crazy effects, this keeps the importance and more serious atmosphere and they do not want to give the impression that they want to entertain you.
Audience Theories
The definition of 'News Worthy' means an event which deserves or is seen as important enough for coverage on an actual production. This could be on any media platform e.g.
The definition of 'News Worthy' means an event which deserves or is seen as important enough for coverage on an actual production. This could be on any media platform e.g.
- PRINT - Newspaper, magazines
- BROADCASTS - Radio, television
- E-MEDIA - Websites, online newspaper
Media Theory and its links to TV News
The local TV news uses Maslows hierarchy theory to choose their content.
Maslow Hierarchy
The Maslow hierarchy is a five tier pyramid which demonstrates Maslows studies into the requirements and needs of a human life. Within the local news they often focus stories around these tiers especially the safety and love/belonging aspects of this theory, but news stories may include all aspects. Therefore, in my questionnaire I will show various headlines which relate to each tier and question my target audience. The type of headline which most of my audience likes or which gets more attention will be used in my production.
Blumler and Katz's Uses and Gratification Theory shows why and how people actively seek out specific media to satisfy specific needs, this can be applied to television news as well.
In my questionnaire I will include questions about the audiences opinions and interests.
Media theorist Stuart Hall says all media texts and polysemic where each individual viewer will read the situation differently due to their cultural background and life experiences. Their are 3 main categories for this called reading types.
Stuart Hall's Reception Theory-
Preferred reading- these viewers conform to the dominant ideology of society and agree to the views of the show.
Negotiation reading- these viewers accepts the views but may not go along with them and their may be a personal negotiation.
Oppositional reading- these viewers just reject all views and do not agree with anyone who follows the views.
Monday 2nd November
What makes news stories worthy?
For a news story to be worthy it must be a topic which a mass amount of people are interested in such as; Health, Education, Economy, Business, Transport and Climate. Some stories are more relevant to local residents rather than the rest of the nation therefore, it will more likely be shown on the local news rather than the national news.
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Questionnaire Analysis.
27th september
One way to consider news broadcasts is to evaluate the news values that are applied when deciding which of the days stories to include and what priority to give each story.
News values have been defined by Galtung and Ruge and these values break down the criteria by which a story would be judged when putting a news broadcast together. these values include...
Impact
Audience Identification
Pragmatics of Media Coverage
Impact
Threshold- the bigger the effect, the more people it effects the better chance it has to make the news.
Frequency- Events; murders, plane crashes etc.. stories that occur suddenly are more likely to make the news than those that are expected and occur often as they are more dramatic. Long term trends are unlikely to receive much coverage.
Negativity- Bad news is more exciting than good news. Death, tragedy, violence, bankruptcy, natural disasters etc.. are always rated highly compared to royal weddings or celebrations.
Unexpectedness- If an event is out of the ordinary and unique would make it to the news more over events that occur often. As Charles A. Dana said "If a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."
Unambiguity- Events are easy to grasp are better than those the audience has to interpret where there may be implications depends of the first understanding.
Audience Identification.
Personalisation- People are interested in people. news stories that are centered on a particular person and are presented in a humans interest are likely to make front page, especially if it involves a well-known person. Some claim news values have became distorted and celebrities are over-rated.
Meaningfulness- This relates to cultural proximity. The audience is interested in to situations that are similar or exactly the same as their own.
Reference to Elite Nations- Stories concerning global powers receive more attention. This is also related to cultural proximity. Nations that are culturally closest to our own.
Reference to Elite Persons- More attention goes to those who are rich, powerful, famous and infamous.
Pragmatics of Media Coverage.
Consonance- Stories which match the media's expectations. The story refers to the readiness of the media. if they know a story more they are able to get a grasp of the angle how they wish to report from before they get there.
Continuity- Stories which are already in the news gain momentum - the running story. Previous reportage have made the story more accessible to the public.
Composition- Stories which compete with each other for space in the media. Journalists need to find a balance of types of coverage so there is no excess of a certain type of news story. This is a matter of the editors' judgment, more than anything else.
Clip Analysis.
Threshold- the whole story about Britain leaving Europe involves all of the nation and all of Europe meaning there is a very high chance of it being on the news.
Frequency- The British Prime Minister does not step down every day and Britain does not leave the EU everyday meaning it does not happen often and so is highly newsworthy.
Negativity- This is split dead, half way down the middle, it is good news for those who voted to leave but then bad news for those who voted to stay in.
Unexpectedness- It was quite a shock to most people the fact that Britain voted to leave the EU meaning it is out of the ordinary.
Unambiguity- This story is very easy to grasp as they all clearly stated that Britain is leaving the EU. There is no immediate implications as the story is straight forward but their will be much continuation in this story over the following year.
Personalisation- It shows the views of another person which the audience is interested in. It also showed the opinion of a well known person, the Prime Minister.
Meaningfulness- It shows the views and opinions of the general public and what it means to the individual
As a group we decided on the name of our programme as Local Lunch as this will meet our chosen target audience of 11-17 year olds. It is going to be an lunch time broadcast and we realised that our audience will most likely be in school so our selling point will be that it will be live on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Youtube etc.. aswell as broadcasted on television.
For the logo we wanted it to look professional and trust worthy as the audience would rely on what we say as we are the voice for the whole local area when broadcasting
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Sketches.
Preferred reading- these viewers conform to the dominant ideology of society and agree to the views of the show.
Negotiation reading- these viewers accepts the views but may not go along with them and their may be a personal negotiation.
Oppositional reading- these viewers just reject all views and do not agree with anyone who follows the views.
Monday 2nd November
What makes news stories worthy?
For a news story to be worthy it must be a topic which a mass amount of people are interested in such as; Health, Education, Economy, Business, Transport and Climate. Some stories are more relevant to local residents rather than the rest of the nation therefore, it will more likely be shown on the local news rather than the national news.
Alvin Toffler
He invented the idea of a prosumer which means an active consumer of media. The prosumer helps to improve the source of media by giving feedback and alerting them.
All media platforms are polysemic and can be read in various ways, all based on the background of the consumer.
Audience Demographics
Ofcom Television News Viewing Statistics & Questionnaire & Audience Theory
Vox Pops
As a group we asked a cross section of people about what the wanted and expected from television news. We did these as vox pops in order to quickly gauge the interests of a wide demographic and to get some experiences of using some of the media equipment we will need in our final production. For these we used a tripod and Canon dslr 1200.Create your survey with SurveyMonkey
The feedback we have received from our Vox pops helps us the gauge the needs of our audience and will help in our decision making process.
Final Questionnaire & Findings
This research allowed us to gain knowledge about the gender of our audience and looking at the results influenced our decision on making reports about both genders Male and Female. We can see that it is a reasonably even split between Female and Male with a few in the 'Other or 'Prefer not to say sections, therefore we will aim to appeal to both Male and Females in our selection of news stories and styles of presenting.
This analysis enabled us to get to know the age of our target audience and the majority was 18-24. With this in mind we wanted to make a tv news programme which subverted the generic news therefore the age of our news will be 11-17 year olds.
Question 3 asked about the ethnicity and we found out that the majority is white british however we also know that Birmingham and the Midlands as a whole is reasonably diverse therefore we will focus on news and information that is important to the people of the midlands.
The next question enquired about the type of news which our audience enjoys more and most said national TV news, therefore we will try to include stories which have both local and national impact.
This analysis allowed us to look at the genre of news which people enjoy to watch and most seem to be interested in breaking news. We will apply this into our programme as it will achieve the interests of our audience.
Question 6 enquires about the demographics and the group that was most common was the mainstreams then closely behind is explorers therefore we will make our stories based on the interests and needs that they require.
Next, is the interest of other family members and who watches the news already. Most said yes that other family members do watch the news. Therefore we will try to give perspective from multiple groups of people and ages within our news stories to appeal to the whole family.
This question asks how often people watch the news and most said everyday, so we will be making our programme a daily event instead of a weekly event or even every fortnight.
The penultimate question enquires about the time of day the audience watches the news and most said morning and least said lunchtime. We wanted to make lunchtime more popular so we thought of ways that would make it more convenient for our audience to watch our programme.
The last question asks about the institute of news do they watch and it is the BBC therefore our programme will be heavily based around the BBC with the style, format etc..
27th september
Narrative Theory.
News Values.
One way to consider news broadcasts is to evaluate the news values that are applied when deciding which of the days stories to include and what priority to give each story.
News values have been defined by Galtung and Ruge and these values break down the criteria by which a story would be judged when putting a news broadcast together. these values include...
Impact
Audience Identification
Pragmatics of Media Coverage
Impact
Threshold- the bigger the effect, the more people it effects the better chance it has to make the news.
Frequency- Events; murders, plane crashes etc.. stories that occur suddenly are more likely to make the news than those that are expected and occur often as they are more dramatic. Long term trends are unlikely to receive much coverage.
Negativity- Bad news is more exciting than good news. Death, tragedy, violence, bankruptcy, natural disasters etc.. are always rated highly compared to royal weddings or celebrations.
Unexpectedness- If an event is out of the ordinary and unique would make it to the news more over events that occur often. As Charles A. Dana said "If a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is news."
Unambiguity- Events are easy to grasp are better than those the audience has to interpret where there may be implications depends of the first understanding.
Audience Identification.
Personalisation- People are interested in people. news stories that are centered on a particular person and are presented in a humans interest are likely to make front page, especially if it involves a well-known person. Some claim news values have became distorted and celebrities are over-rated.
Meaningfulness- This relates to cultural proximity. The audience is interested in to situations that are similar or exactly the same as their own.
Reference to Elite Nations- Stories concerning global powers receive more attention. This is also related to cultural proximity. Nations that are culturally closest to our own.
Reference to Elite Persons- More attention goes to those who are rich, powerful, famous and infamous.
Pragmatics of Media Coverage.
Consonance- Stories which match the media's expectations. The story refers to the readiness of the media. if they know a story more they are able to get a grasp of the angle how they wish to report from before they get there.
Continuity- Stories which are already in the news gain momentum - the running story. Previous reportage have made the story more accessible to the public.
Composition- Stories which compete with each other for space in the media. Journalists need to find a balance of types of coverage so there is no excess of a certain type of news story. This is a matter of the editors' judgment, more than anything else.
Clip Analysis.
Threshold- the whole story about Britain leaving Europe involves all of the nation and all of Europe meaning there is a very high chance of it being on the news.
Frequency- The British Prime Minister does not step down every day and Britain does not leave the EU everyday meaning it does not happen often and so is highly newsworthy.
Negativity- This is split dead, half way down the middle, it is good news for those who voted to leave but then bad news for those who voted to stay in.
Unexpectedness- It was quite a shock to most people the fact that Britain voted to leave the EU meaning it is out of the ordinary.
Unambiguity- This story is very easy to grasp as they all clearly stated that Britain is leaving the EU. There is no immediate implications as the story is straight forward but their will be much continuation in this story over the following year.
Personalisation- It shows the views of another person which the audience is interested in. It also showed the opinion of a well known person, the Prime Minister.
Meaningfulness- It shows the views and opinions of the general public and what it means to the individual
Logo:
For the logo we wanted it to look professional and trust worthy as the audience would rely on what we say as we are the voice for the whole local area when broadcasting
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Sketches.
Drafts using Photoshop.
Final Choice:
We used Photoshop to create and design our logos. We sketched a few ideas first of all then let the class choose which they liked the look of the most then advanced on that. The house colours we went for are Red, White, Blue and Black, which are shown from these two design which is heavily related to be trustworthy and professional colours. We had to make the background transparent so when we put it on to our programme it looks more professional and there is no white background.
Weather Report Analysis.
We have analysed a BBC News production but specifically the weather report. I have had an in depth look at this production analyzing Genre, Language and Mode of Address.
Through this task I will be taking a more relaxed and casual tone to the weather report and speech.
It will be formal dress code and PTC presentation.
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