Unit 5 - Secondary Research & Primary Research (Podcast)

Primary research

Dear Diary,

Today is the day that I have decided to do some primary research regarding the several ideas I had for the concept for my radio play. For my primary research, I had asked the whole class in a presentation style and read out all the initial ideas I had, so they could give their votes on what concept they liked the best.

My initial Ideas

Genre for all is Drama

- The life and story of someone with a mental illness and how it is overtaking their life

- Diary Entry of a teenagers life as they start to begin High school (a daunting and big experience to them)

- Or a teenager who is being bullied.

- A sad story about a woman who is a widow who has lost her loved one and how she deals with it to this day, as an older woman whilst speaking to her councillor.

- The life of a teenager as they reach puberty and how they're having a difficult time processing it.

Below is the feedback I received.

↓↓

3 people said they wanted this idea

- The life and story of someone with a mental illness and how it is overtaking their life

3 people said they wanted this idea - Diary Entry of a teenagers life as they start to begin High school (a daunting and big experience to them) - Or a teenager who is being bullied.

4 people said they wanted this idea

- A sad story about a woman who is a widow, who has lost her loved one and how she deals with it to this day, as an older woman - whilst speaking to her councillor.

It has now been decided that I will be now doing the idea of the woman who is a widow and the effects it has on her as an old woman. The next step is to do some secondary research, watch some other podcasts/ radio plays to get some inspiration, start forming my script and start to develop some characters for my radio play.

For this research I wanted a lot of feedback as possible so I had conducted two surveys one being a focus group in a room full of several people interviewing them and asking them questions about what they would like to see in my radio play, and the other being a survey which was created on survey monkey, asking people more questions just to find out the perfect age for my target audience.

Here is the audio that I had recorded for the focus group.

The feedback that I got from everyone was very helpful in finding out what people would want to hear in my radio play. From the feedback I learned that the majority of people would prefer to hear sound effects over music in the intro/outro of my radio play.

(With one person saying that it would be good to combine the both music and sound effects in the intro and outro)

- People in the group said that when Loretta - (the possible name for the widow character) is speaking to her councilor they would find it good that if she was located in a office type, private room where two tables are present.

- They said that when Loretta is talking about the good old days, the day she met her husband they would like to hear some foley's so that they can visualize the scene and the atmosphere.

- Another Question I had asked was how long should a podcast be in order for it to be entertaining to you?

Most people replied saying around 4-5 minutes is how long a podcast should be their in opinion. One person said 6 minutes which is longer than the time we was given (which is 5 minutes max). So its official that my radio play will be around 4-5 minutes.

From this research I now know what features to add to my radio play to make it enjoyable to listen to.

SURVEY MONKEY - FINDING MY TARGET AUDIENCE

When it came to creating my survey, I had already had a idea of what I wanted to find out, I had enough information on what features people wanted in my radio play all that was left was finding out the target audience and the age ranges of who would actually be interested in listening to my radio play.

On the survey I asked three basic questions

- How old are you?

- What gender are you?

- And if you was listening to an podcast what genre would you listen to?

I wanted to get straight to the point with this survey and just get a rough idea of the age groups that would be interested in listening to a drama.

Below is the data I collected in graphs

From the results I gathered, I found out that more people overall would want to listen to a drama radio play which is great news to me, as that is the genre that I was looking to make my radio play about (I was not trying to find out about that in particular, so finding it out that people wanted to see this genre was a bonus) What I also collected from this study is that the age group that said that they would want to watch a drama radio play, the most was the ages 16-17.

Knowing what my target audience is and what they want is very beneficial and I am so happy that I have found the ages groups that I am trying to appeal to. Its great to know that my target audience is around 16-17 as most people of those age groups are in my class, even the ones I interviewed for my focus group were around that particular age which is helpful, as I gained additional feedback from what I didn't know, would be my target audience.

Secondary research

For the secondary research I looked at many articles about people's experiences losing their significant other, I really wanted the radio play to be realistic and showcase the true emotions someone may have when they become a widow. For this radio play I have decided that I will be the voice of the main character (the widow) and it will be a three person narrative. Here is some of the articles that I had looked at, I also researched for some celebrities who are widows just to see if they said anything in the media about how it has effected them.

From this Quora post I had managed to see people write themselves and discuss how they dealt with loss. On this forum I saw a lot of responses from people who have lost their significant others, from many different ways, from cancer to other terminal illnesses, so there was many ways in which people felt when losing their loved ones.

A story someone wrote on the forum

This guy who wrote on the forum states how he experienced losing his significant other, two times to cancer. He said that he felt ''Anger, Depression and Guilt'' He felt a mixture of emotions which is common and understandable. Losing your significant other is very daunting and a monumental thing to happen in someone's life.

Another story someone wrote about losing their loved one on the forum

Another guy wrote on the forum stating how losing your loved one is

''not like getting divorced. Been there, Done that. It was Hard.

'' not like losing parents. Been there too. That was also hard.

''It is much worse''

Heres another story I had found on a woman who is telling her story in-dept and what its like to be a widow at 24. For apart of my research I also wanted to find different stories and just get a overall realization of the different emotions people may have, as not everyone handles grief the same way.

Brief Summary of the Story :

The story is about a girl named Cady who had lost her husband due to Cancer.

The story starts of on how they met in their junior year of college, attending Oral Roberts University in Tulsa Oklahoma. At college Jordan was known as the kind guy and a guy that had a warm prescene to him. Cady knew of him but wasn't introduced to him. When asked by her friend to attend her high school homecoming she stated that she would only go if she attended it with Jordan Lewis, thinking that he would say no, but he said yes and they went homecoming together, but in the summer everything changed and they both had other commitments. Jordan had to go to Tanzania and Cady had to go to New York for a internship. Over the next month whilst Cady was still in New York they talked a lot and decided to remain friends, but that didn't last long because they still had feelings for each other and sadly one day, Cady got an unexpected phone call from Jordan who stated that he had been having serious and severe nose bleeds. He went to the doctors only to reveal that he had a large tumor situated in his brain. He began intensive treatment to get rid of the tumor and luckily beated cancer.

In June 2013 they got married and lived a lovely and happy life but sadly Jordan got cancer again and died.

Not only does the story show how she has been effected as 24 year old widow, it also shows how she managed to move on.

A year and a half later she has moved on and feels like she needs to build her dream because Jordan was her dream come true.

Reading this story helped me gain more knowledge about how being a widow can effect someone, especially someone who is not the stereotypical image of a widow which is an older woman. It also showed me how people can move on from situations like hers and try to find happiness.

For the next part of my research I had listened to some podcasts that related to the concept of my idea which was about being a widow and how it effects you.

My idea :

(About a woman who is a widow and how its effected her now as an older woman)

The podcasts I listened to below created by a woman called Joann.

Background on the woman behind the podcast

Her name is Joann and she created this podcast to help other widows through their experiences whilst sharing how she overcame her experiences.

She also is a life coach and a weight loss coach helping those to loose weight and giving them ways on how you could lose weight the right way and the healthy way.

I chose Joann's podcast to listen to, merely because she is an older woman who is a widow and the concept of my podcast is about a woman who is a widow and how it has effected her as an older woman. When listening to Joann's podcast it allowed me to form an idea of what my character may be like. It also allowed me to find out the stages someone may go through when they become a widow. It gives me an insight of the difficulties they face and how an older woman may handle with loosing their significant other, compared to a younger woman.

EP1 :WIDOWED - MY STORY

Telling the listeners about her story

The 1st podcast that I had listened to was about her story of how she became a widow and I didn't listen to the podcast fully, as there was some areas of her speaking which was not on the same topic that I wanted to hear about.

She said that it was difficult to watch his death and describes the exact moments where he had been taken to hospital.

She was shocked and stated how she felt that it was ''horrid'' and an experience that didn't seem ''real to her'' but she was really calm and felt like she needed to go home. When she was asked to be moved into a smaller room, she then knew that her husband was gone and the nurse said to her we need to stop doing CPR and she simply agreed. The nurse then said to call the funeral office and they will do the rest.

When she was home she was in dis-belief, as she couldn't believe its been less than a hour than the time she had dialed 911 and the time that they were talking in the kitchen. She decided to call his sons belonging to his other marriage to break the news. She constantly questioned what was wrong with her, why wasn't she crying about the whole scenario. She had no tears what so ever. She even questioned if she loved him like she did before, she simply couldn't understand her emotions.

EP 2 : PEOPLE ARE STRANGE TO WIDOWS

Talking about how she was treated when she was a widow and the problems she faced as one, this information was helpful in structuring my character and the experiences she could face in my podcast.

In this podcast she talked about many ways in which she was treated as a widow and what she felt after his death. After his death one of the things she felt was financial fear as her job (company) was bought by another company. She was 60 years old (at the time) and scared of not finding a job because of her age. One of her work friends told her she could retire and she would not have trouble getting money.

She explained how her financial fear was terrible and she feels like financial fear is real and understandable, and that other widows should not feel guilty for immediately thinking about money after your significant lover dies, because its real life and its real emotions. In this podcast she also talks about her experience, as she goes to Discover the place to check what has happened to her credit card. She states how her credit card had been cancelled due to the death of her husband. A woman who worked at Discover asked her if she wanted to get her own account rather than a joint account and handled things in a a rude and unprofessional manner. She was so shaken by her experience that she was scared to contact someone else just because she didn't want the same situation to happen like it did when she went to Discover.

She felt so weirded out, as some people would stay clear of her because she is a reminder of the morality but some people were different and treated her nicely given her gifts such, as deserts and saying if she needed someone she was always welcomed to speak to them (her neighbors)

EP 3 : EXPERIENCING THOSE WIDOW MOMENTS.

Describing the tasks she had done alone as a widow and how she is dealing with them

She explains in this podcast the problem she faces as someone who is alone, who is not with anyone anymore. She was emotional at this stage as she attempted to snow blow her driveway but faced difficulties doing so. She explained how she was very emotional at this stage and even said at one point she started crying when she couldn't figure out how to work the snowblower. She states how these types of equipments are for men, not for a woman to use.

At one point in the podcast she said how the postman came up to her and said how are you, and she tried so hard not to break down and cry. She was unable to do things without her husband. Experiencing her first widow moment as she likes to call it, but things started to turn, as someone who lived across the street from her, snowblowed her driveway for free and she was so grateful for that.

When it came to the features of her podcast I really liked the music she used at the start of it. The music was very soothing, calming and even sounded mysterious it really helped enhance the podcast and ended it on a good note.

If music is allowed in my podcast I would love to have a instrumental similar to this playing in my first scene and when the scene is finished.

All of the research I have done, I have found quite beneficial and useful. Listening to the podcasts and reading these articles, helped give me more knowledge about widows and what they have to go through, all the negatives. When it comes to structuring my character I feel as if I won't have any difficulties, as the research I done was quite clear and very relatable to the concept of my radio play.