Critical Self Reflection (LSD Podcast)
How do your products represent social groups or issues?
Many aspects of our podcast appropriated elements of hippie culture such as our tie dye thumbnail, the name LSD, and the intro which was to resemble a drug induced slurry episode. I thought presenting hippie culture would be fitting as they are associated with the music renaissance of the 60’s and increasing drug use, one of which was our eponymous LSD.
The hippie movement being a youth counterculture with a musical presence was used to target our predominantly late teen audience which may relate to the movement due to the rebellious nature of the hippie culture, people also associate Hippies with being laidback which fits with our podcasts relaxed and humorous pace contrasting other music podcasts that appear more “Official” such as Dissect. The choice to have me speak in a cheery mood in our intro which simulated an LSD-induced episode is another example of conforming to expectations of a drug filled and laidback hippie culture. If we did the intro with a scripted and monotone voice or if the thumbnail was a grey background instead of the tie dye for example people would not think that the podcast is intended for a more fun loving and youthful audience.
As per Stuart Hall’s Representation Theory that states that media creates meaning rather than reflect it, in this case we attempt to create a meaning with the stereotype of the laidback hippie culture where seeing the tie dye thumbnail and the “druggy” intro was an attempt to make listeners think the podcast they listen to will conform to the characteristics of hippie culture being non serious & catering to the youth.
How do the elements of your production work together to create a sense of “branding”?
As per Steve Neale’s genre theory we have conformed to expectations of a pop culture podcasts while adding our own mix to make our product differentiated, a defining feature of our brand was our slow but steady paced podcasts presented in a conversation featuring discussions that was easy to follow even without maximum attention and did not require too much thinking to enjoy, this slow pace fits well to our name LSD which harkens to the stereotype of a laidback hippie, the non usage of musical jargon and the slow pace is designed to target an audience of people wanting background noise or easy listening along with newcomers to the music niche.
How the 1st and 2nd episode are presented are different to each other where we wanted a more horrorcore tone to the first thus we made it sound similar to many mystery podcasts such as The Magnus Archives from which we picked the feature of playing suspenseful music sound-beds, in addition having Angelo and Jason not reveal the subject directly or in full details allows the Hermeneutic Code to pique the audience’s attention, me mentioning the devil also added to the horrorcore brand as the devil as a cultural code is connotated with negative things. The 2nd episode was set to have a livelier tone which was achieved with having the topic in all details directly revealed leaving no space for Hermeneutic Codes and a lack of non diegetic music to create suspense.
How do your products engage with the audience?
The LSD Podcast would be posted on Spotify which is a result of technological convergence of the the internet and broadcast media allowing our podcast to be featured on a user’s playlist for their followers to see and discover for themselves, users who see that they have our podcasts in each other’s playlist can satisfy the Social Relationship factor of the Users and Gratification Theory. Podcast being a form of new media is more interactive allowing for consumers to be more involved in production where they answer polls on our instagram page or submit comments to suggest ideas and distribution as social media have share features allowing our fans to share our instagram page or link to our spotify to their recipients, additionally the fact that we sell merchandise on our social media allows our fans to practise enunciative productivity.
My team in the podcasts act as Information Leaders where our free flow conversations format allows us to promote and elaborate on our own opinions which could influence the world view of our audience as per the Two Step Flow Theory or even strengthen their current view if they share the same opinion as per the Cultivation Theory by George Gerbner.
How did your research inform your products and the way they use or challenge conventions?
Our survey which received 42 responses showed that our mainly 17 year old male and female audience wanted a podcast which resembles a free flowing conversation which served as background noise, many wanted us to discuss “The 27 Club” showing our audience is desensitised to paranormal content.
The 3 main podcast we took inspiration from was Broken Record and Dissect from the music-nerd niche where the idea to include lots of non diegetic sound to convey a meaning such as suspense was utilised, the free flowing conversation of the podcast “Sunny in Philadelphia” was to us an exemplar of what our survey respondents asked for.
We conformed with genre conventions where our intros are heavily musical and are lengthy which is an hommage to “Dissect” additionally we included lots of non diegetic sound especially soundbeds as present in Dissect & Broken Record, but we subverted the genre convention with the free flowing humorous conversation where in contract with Dissect and Broken Record which was mostly scripted and serious thus giving the impression things are one sided unlike our conversation format which make people feel more immersed.
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