Lecture 5

26/3

Today’s lecture was a sound lecture! And I am pleased to inform that I did listen to it. ABC Studio guest speak discussed how telling stories for radio is very different to television and online communication methods. Firstly, he commented that radio is more personal then TV. Although listeners usually multi task with radio (driving, eating) you do feel included in conversation. Unlike TV, radio interviews can go on for nearly an hour, where as on television, 7 minutes maximum is all viewers can tolerate. I found this interesting, as I have never thought of this concept. I guess on television we are always looking for something new to happen or some excitement, and after 7 minutes we visually get sick of looking at the same screen. I also found it interesting with how reporters can make a guest speaker feel welcome and comfortable just by their voices. It was recommended that the presenter pictured the speaker and had sympathy to bring down the barriers between you and the listener in order to keep the story sustained for the hour. The speaker also discussed how important it is for presenters to have the ability to create pictures with words, as well as constantly have in mind what the listener would want instead of their individual opinion. Components of a good radio story were discussed and include simply being human, and having human experiences as well as data and statistics. This is as humans respond emotionally and sub-consciously. An interesting concept I hadn’t thought was that as technology abilities increase, radio is able to keep and too increase their audience, unlike the television and hard-copy newspaper. This is as people who generally listen to the radio are time poor, and listen on the go with no need to sit down or waste time. Although this at first seemed like a boring sound lecture, it turned out to be quite interesting and very relevant to Journalism and Communication!