Listen up! Lecture 5

So this week was a little bit different. This week's lecture was an audio one, which meant that instead of listening to my iPod on the way home from uni (2 hour trip yay!) I could listen to my lecture instead!

Firstly it was Richard being interviewed, followed by a man name Steve.



Now first of all I want to tell you that it is awfully hard to pay attention to the audio when you have so many things happening around you, aka on the train with so many.. interesting.. people coming on board. I found out that it’s actually really hard to stay attentive. It's not that what they are saying wasn’t interesting, it’s just they say something and it sparks a thought and then my mind wonders off about those thoughts. I have to almost wake up from this daze and realise I’ve just missed what they’ve been saying. I guess it’s good because they are sparking thought among their listeners but also its hard because it is easy to relax and get distracted. Its hard to pay attention for 28 minutes, because normally when your listening to other things you don’t have to pay this much attention to, you listen in and out as you do things.

But it does make you take in what they are saying because you are only using one of your senses, you have to pay attention to every word they are saying.

Okay so both interviewee's had some interesting things to say, this is what I took down as the main key points:

Richard:

1. You need to make sure you allow the listeners to feel included with what you are saying to them
2. Radio is a very different median to television, you cannot convert one to the other, without it being chaotic
3. Radio is a lot more intimate, essentially you are two individuals communicating, one is doing the talking to you, whilst the other participant (you) is listening and thinking about what they are saying. 
4. Television and radio have many differences, such as Tv you watch from a distance, tv comes at you, where as radio is a voice playing in your head, a voice talking to you. 
5. You are often multitasking whilst listening to the radio, you are going about other business whilst listening to it. The voice doesn’t come at you, as I said it's almost a voice inside your head
6. With interviews you can get caught up in the moment, and you often forget about the listener and keeping them in the conversation, it is always important to keep your listeners included, otherwise they might lose interest
7. Careful not to make it a closed conversation
8. Radio shows are all different time periods, often 7 minutes however some go for an hour or so, so you need to make sure that the story will sustain for an hour, people have to be generally interested in the story, otherwise they will not listen for the hour.
9. A lot of preparation is needed for a radio interview, the interviewee has been prepared, but by the time the interviewees are interviewed they are comfortable, they are prepped and they know what is going to be asked etc..
10. Even though radio is traditional, it is thriving in this new environment, its not dying like the other traditional medians, Radio blends into the new platforms, its adapting to suite the changes.

Steve:

1.        Worldliness is good
2. ·      Read the paper, be up-to-date with the world
3. ·      Keep reading all sorts of materials
4. ·      Keep asking questions
5. ·      Have an open mind
6.      Expose yourself to the thoughts and the ideas of the people you don’t agree with, different             currents of thought, expand your world view
7. ·      Works with the individual’s imagination
8.          Your voice, your annunciation does matter, be yourself but remember you are trying to communicate, so you have to break down the barriers between you and your audience
9. ·      Radio is the theatre of the mind
10. ·      Vocabulary is important
11. ·      Just because you see something one way doesn’t mean the audience does
12. ·      You change from thinking about yourself, to thinking about what the audience wants/needs
13. ·      Not about me, more about you
14. ·      If you are fake on radio, people can tell
15. ·      You have to change your voice to empathize
16. ·      If you wouldn’t do it in life, don’t do it on the radio
17. ·      Look for the emotional response to things; you can really connect to the audience through a       emotional sense.
18. ·      Human beings are emotional creatures driven by experiences
19. ·      Night time radio talk less, listen more- I think this is more advice for life in general ;)
20. ·      If you don’t understand, get them to explain it, and listen to it. It is amazing how people respond to that kind of respect
21. ·      News radio- find out stuff really quickly
22. ·      Time-poor - connecting to another human being
23. ·      Don’t give up, if you really want it, go after it

Overall I found both of these interviews were very educational!  I think it is all about experience. You just have to put yourself out there and experience everything you can. It is only this way, that you will be able to learn what it means to be a journalist.