Late Night Woman's Hour - BBC Radio 4 podcast A level Media Studies Fact Sheet - WJEC
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A level Media Studies Fact Sheet Late Night Woman’s Hour - BBC Radio 4 podcast AS Component 1: Consider the specialised and institutionalised Investigating the Media nature of media production and the A level Component 1: Media Products, significance of economic factors to Industries and Audiences media industries and their products: • Explore issues relating to public service Focus areas: broadcasting and consider the extent to which Media Industries Late Night Woman’s Hour meets the BBC remit Audiences to inform, educate and entertain. Consider Media Contexts whether the broadcast is typical of products created for the BBC and explore the hallmarks of productions made for this institution. PRODUCT CONTEXT • Late Night Woman’s Hour is a spin-off from • Consider the significance of license fee funding the long-running BBC Radio 4 daily magazine and compare this to the financial considerations programme, Woman’s Hour. It began of commercial radio e.g. would this podcast broadcasting in 2015 on a limited basis but be too “niche” for commercial radio? The was so popular that it began a permanent run broadcast has only female contributors, is as a monthly, then in 2018, a weekly podcast. made up predominantly of unadorned dialogue (without music, sound effects etc.) and the topic • Late Night Woman’s Hour is recorded weekly, is explored using intellectual and specialised hosted by Emma Barnett (occasionally vocabulary. Learners might discuss why with founder Lauren Laverne) and features purely commercial institutions would be female guests from a range of backgrounds less likely to produce similar products. including science, health and entertainment. • How significant is the move from broadcast • Each episode focuses on a particular theme to podcast? What could this tell us about relevant to its female audience e.g. ‘Lost the changes in the media forms the BBC is Friends’ and ‘Extreme Breastfeeding’. The producing and the way they distribute them? original broadcast was at 11pm on Thursday nights, which meant explicit and honest Consider recent technological change and media discussions could be had. Since becoming a production, distribution and circulation and the podcast, the show has been less controversial. impact of digitally convergent media platforms: • The podcast offers a number of ways to explore recent changes to the radio industry PART 1: STARTING POINTS – Media Industries in relation to digital technology such as the Historical Contexts: profound changes that have been brought Woman’s Hour was first broadcast in the 1940s, about by switching from analogue FM radio so it’s worth considering the historical and to digital audio broadcasting (DAB), and social shifts that have occurred since the show’s the boom in downloading and streaming. inception. The original show reflects possible • A brief history of radio before the mid- tokenism (a show set aside for women might 1990s should allow learners to appreciate the imply all other radio content was oriented significance of podcasting and listening to towards men). Late Night Woman’s Hour features broadcasts on digitally convergent platforms frank and open discussions and demonstrates such as computers and smartphones. societal shifts and increased gender equality • In November 2018, the BBC launched its although some of the issues raised reflect the BBC Sounds streaming service, featuring fact that society is not yet completely equal. live broadcasting, audio-on-demand and podcasts. This a good example of technological convergence as Sounds is 1
A level Media Studies Fact Sheet available on PCs, laptops, tablets, phones. content to the Woman’s Hour brand, which • Late Night Woman’s Hour used to have an previously had a ‘safe’ reputation. 11pm broadcast time that was suitable for the • The podcast format - available without age adult discussions taking place. The switch to restrictions or post-watershed scheduling - weekly podcast gives the producers more time may have needed a less controversial host. to discuss a greater range of issues, but the • The topics are not strictly based around female topics and discussion are less explicit. Episodes experiences. Though topics like ‘extreme breast- can be any length, usually 10-30 minutes. feeding’ are female-centric, other discussions • Podcasts have soared in popularity in the past about grief, male/female friendships and few years, with many - such as Serial - becoming modern slavery offer a female perspective on cultural events in their own right. Minority issues that would also interest male listeners. groups who have traditionally been excluded Consider theoretical approaches: from mainstream radio have used podcasts Power and media industries - Curran and Seaton to find a voice, and producers have utilised the lack of regulation to discuss controversial • It could be argued that Late Night Woman’s issues, especially personal or sexual matters. Hour challenges the idea that media is controlled by a small number of companies • Female-produced podcasts such as The High driven by the logic of profit and power. Low and The Broad Experience not only explore issues affecting women in society, they • Whilst the BBC is inarguably a large, significant also attract high profile guests that rival those company, the nature of PSB (discussed above) of traditional radio. Comedy podcast Dope and the content of the broadcast seem to be Queens even had Michelle Obama as a guest! at odds with the “logic of profit and power”. Consider the funding of the BBC in comparison • BBC Radio, whilst being a traditional with commercial organisations. Candidates media institution, does not treat these might explore the extent to which the license independent podcasts as competition. Rather fee frees BBC producers from the pressure they build a symbiotic relationship with the to generate profit and the way in which this presenters, often inviting them to guest on impacts the content of their broadcasts. BBC Radio programmes (Radio 1, 4 and 6 particularly do this). This could be seen as • Late Night Woman’s Hour podcast format an example of cross-media convergence. might also be used to support Curran and Seaton’s idea that socially diverse patterns • A good example of this is regular LNWH of ownership help create conditions for guest Chidera Eggerue, who writes and varied and adventurous productions. presents The Slumflower blog and podcast. Controversial comments she made about • Candidates might consider the proliferation race and feminism were re-tweeted and of podcasts across a wide range of topics shared across social media, creating debate and genres in recent years. Do the relative and promoting the ‘edgy and candid’ brand low production costs of this medium and identity of both The Slumflower and LNWH. the inexpensive hosting/digital distribution costs offer producers (and often prosumers) Consider how media producers opportunities to take risks and develop maintain varieties of audiences: adventurous content that still manages to • The current presenter is Emma Barnett, a reach diverse international audiences? journalist and broadcaster, who also presents Regulation ‐ Livingston and Lunt the BBC Radio 5 Live late morning show. She also writes the ‘Tough Love’ ‘agony aunt’ • As a PSB, the BBC has quite strict guidelines advice column in the Sunday Times Magazine, about what content can be broadcast or where she explores extremes of peoples’ published. BBC1 for instance rarely features personal lives. Her style therefore is light- sex, nudity or swearing, and all the broadcast hearted yet unafraid to explore emotionally channels (TV and radio) follow the ‘watershed’. sensitive issues. This suits the LNWM format. • The original LNWH was broadcast at 11pm • Barnett took over from founding presenter on Radio 4, where shocking discussions and Lauren Laverne, who was renowned for swearing were acceptable. The podcast version bringing controversial, adult and explicit is somewhat ‘safer’ and less controversial, whilst having uncompromising and honest discussion. 2
A level Media Studies Fact Sheet • This seems to challenge Livingston and • Explore responses to Late Night Woman’s Lunt’s assumption that ‘new media’ is Hour on Twitter and other social media harder to regulate. The BBC has considered platforms. The Spectator described the the access of potential audiences and initial response to the show as a “twitter regulated within the institution. storm” and candidates might discuss the ways • The sacking of Radio 2 DJ Danny Baker in in which the broadcast has been designed May 2019 after an inappropriate tweet shows to invite audience members to enter the how strictly the BBC regulates their content. discussion through social media platforms. • The topics in the podcast tend to be more focused PART 2: STARTING POINTS – Audiences on personal experiences, some serious (e.g. ‘taking your child to work’) some more light- Social and cultural contexts: hearted (e.g. ‘objects you just can’t throw away’) A gendered discussion of the podcast is likely to compared to the broadcast version. This may be benefit from some context regarding the changing intended to create discussion on social media. roles of women in the UK over the past 70 years. • Candidates could conduct some audience Woman’s Hour was originally broadcast in the research into male and female responses 1940s and candidates might consider how different to the podcast - what do male audiences life in the UK is for women now (possibly focusing find interesting (or not)? Does it make a on shifts from the 1950s housewife towards the difference if the guests are all women? independence of young women in the 1960s and comparing this with present day). What about the changes to a male’s role in society and their Consider how media organisations reflect representation in the media? Candidates may use the different needs of mass and specialised this information to consider the way that audience audiences, including through targeting: responses to, and interpretations of, media products • A return to the remit of PSB here could invite reflect social and cultural circumstances. discussion about the BBC and attempts to There has been a raised awareness about inequality produce content for all audience demographics. between males and females in the media, and Candidates might ask whether the broadcast the BBC has made efforts to address gender has been designed to explicitly appeal to a imbalance. With a roster of female presenters specialised (educated, female) audience as across it’s radio channels, some people have part of the remit of the organisation itself. questioned the relevance of a show just dedicated An extension of this discussion might explore to women, and then having a ‘late night’ spin-off. whether there are any other media products The impact of the #MeToo campaign and other that appeal to this specific target audience social media campaigns highlighting sexism, and on the radio (BBC or otherwise). the popularity of women’s podcasts, show there is a • In 2014 the BBC famously introduced a ban diverse and engaged audience for ‘women’s media’. on all-male TV and radio panels to offset this dominance. Candidates might use this as a Consider how audiences interpret the media, discussion point to consider preferred readings including how and why audiences may of Late Night Woman’s Hour and why it might interpret the same media in different ways: be particularly welcome to some audiences. • Candidates might consider a male response to the content of the show. They might consider how many other media texts are Consider theoretical approaches: composed of only female members (even Reception theory ‐ Stuart Hall Loose Women, for instance, has male guests) • Discuss possible different readings of the and how this might be unsettling or alienating broadcast. What is the intended meaning? for male listeners. They might compare this What might be a negotiated meaning to a female audience and question whether (e.g. from a male audience member)? or not this same gender composition might What might be an oppositional response be appealing to some female audiences. (e.g. from a sexist male listener)? 3
Feminist theory ‐ Van Zoonen Feminist theory ‐ bell hooks • To what extent does LNWH achieve Van • Radio 4’s audience is often pigeonholed as Zoonen’s suggestion that gender stereotypes being white and conservative middle class. in the media can only change if more women Bell Hooks has written about how women produce and appear in the media? of lower class or different ethnicity are even more oppressed by patriarchy. To what extent does LNWH challenge this by featuring guests and issues that reflect the diversity in the female audience? Think about regular guests Chidera Eggerue and Ambreen Razia. 4
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