Critical Self-Reflection [ True Crime Podcast ]

The podcast I have created with my 3 team members, Erin, Kimi and Hugo, is a true crime podcast called Unsolved. We made 2 episodes of 2 different cases; The Black Dahlia and Jack the Ripper. We convey meaning by using representations and genres. We made use of social media as a platform to reach our audiences. We constructed our podcast and its promotion by doing various researches in advance and setting a target audience which is people ages 15-19 years old.

- r e p r e s e n t a t i o n s -

White people are represented in our podcast. After analyzing the survey we conducted, it turns out that most of the students from our school prefer classic cases from the western hemisphere. We created a survey using Google Forms and through that, we are able to understand our target audiences' preferences. We chose the case of The Black Dahlia and Jack the Ripper because it fits the criteria we concluded from our survey which is western, old, true crime cases. Those cases are also recommendations we got from our survey. The representation in our true crime podcast conforms the idea of traditional thinking. The main character of our podcast, Vienna Raymonds follows the stereotype of a British woman. According to Stuart Hall's representation theory, representation in media allows the audience to shape their knowledge and understanding about the character. It makes it easy for them to imagine Vienna Raymonds and differentiate her from other characters. Since Vienna Raymonds is working in the United Nations department of the unsolved and unexplained, it would be fitting for her to have a British accent since British people are seen as smart and highly educated. These representations of white British people are the after effects of the Western colonialism, in which white people are seen as people with power. - g e n r e - As stated by Steve Neale a text must conform to the conventions enough to be recognizable, yet subvert them enough to be different and interesting. I did research on true crime podcasts and identified some elements that most true crime podcasts have. We added some true crime podcast features such as, red, black and white color scheme for our thumbnail and instagram posts. Our podcast thumbnail is highly inspired by other true crime cover arts and movie posters. I added elements that are often seen in crime cases such as, investigator’s red strings and blood splatter. It is to catch audiences’ attention and so that they know the genre even at a glance. I used the same color scheme and theme for our social media account to make them consistent. It also can help us to build our branding using the same visual elements and colors constantly. By having a specific branding, audiences can easily tell that a content is made by us. We followed a structure that is usually used in other crime podcasts to satisfy the audiences’ expectations. We did the storytelling by narrating the case and also putting dialogues of the real characters from the crime cases. We added background music and sound effects in our podcast to build tension and thrill like other crime related media and it gives the impression of a legitimate crime scene. Our voice actor for the Vienna Raymond character used a deep, professional but also a calm tone to build the mood of the audiences while other actors that are acting as the character in the crime scene use a more panicked and agitated voice tone so it’s easier for audiences to differentiate each character. The actors who were acting as the killer, like Jack the Ripper, used a scary and mysterious tone which conforms to the idea of a typical villain in the media. We created our podcast as how we predict our audiences would expect a true crime to sound like. - a u d i e n c e s - With the help of technological convergence we are able to digitally promote our podcast through social media. We created an Instagram account to reach new audiences and inform our existing audiences of new updates regarding our podcast. We also build interactions with our followers by using various instagram features. The comment section and direct message in Instagram allows followers to comment and give feedback on our contents. Through our instagram story we encourage our followers to give feedback so we can adjust our podcast to improve it. We provided a question and answer box and the slider feature as a platform for our followers to interact and give crime stories suggestions to us. We attached the links to our podcast in our bio and instagram story to make it easy for our followers to find our podcast on Spotify. We also made use of some features to create interactive content for our followers such as using the poll feature to let the audience vote on who they think is the real killer in the Black Dahlia case. We also promoted our merchandise through Instagram by posting instagram stories, creating a polling and attaching the link on our post and bio. The Instagram business account setting has allowed us to monitor our audiences’ response by providing us a graph of our follower’s activity and the number of new accounts we have reached per week. Not only that, we set up an online survey which lets our target audience take part in the making process of our podcast. - r e s e a r c h - I did research on other podcasts that are available on Spotify; I listened to podcasts in different genres such as pop culture, true crime and history. Each podcast I listened to has different formats. Interview, co-host conversation or storytelling format. After listening to a variety of podcasts, me and my teammates agreed to create a true crime podcast. After listening to a true crime podcast, "Solved Murders" we decided that a podcast with a mixed of narrator based and narrative based format might be a good choice. We chose to have 2 speakers, one as the narrator and one for the intro and outro after listening to the podcast 5 Minutes History as the contrast between the speakers makes the podcast easier to understand. We took inspiration from the podcast “The Magnus Archive” for the concept of a civil servant reading a police report. We were also inspired by the podcast “Slow Burn” for our advertisements, credits and preview of the next episode in their outro. We created a survey which we have shared to grade 10-12 students from our school to research about what our target market wants to hear in our podcast. With the help of the survey result, we constructed a plan for the podcast with the survey result as a reference. The result shows that our target audience prefers old, western, heavy true crime cases. More than half of them also prefer podcasts with narrator based format and episodic stories (one crime case per episode). - r e f l e c t i o n - Through the process of making our podcast we have made some big changes to it. We have also changed small details after consulting with our teacher. One of the changes we made is the podcast title. At first we had a hard time coming up with a title so we settled on the name “Unsolved: International” however after much consideration, we decided that the name doesn’t sound pleasant so we removed the ‘International’ and left it as ‘Unsolved’ only. I have used different softwares and hardwares while making this project. I improved design skills by experimenting with making designs of the podcast thumbnail using the software Adobe photoshop. I also used software on my iPad to sketch thumbnails and take notes of my plans during group discussions. I also learnt new skills such as social media management and branding skills through creating and managing our official social media account. I also think that my teamwork skills have improved through countless discussions with my teammates. Our team uses google docs to store our plans and ideas. I used hardwares such as my laptop and my iPad to create designs. I used my phone to post content on Instagram. I have made use of the website Blogspot to create blogs about our progress and research. It has helped me to organize my research and ideas. I also took note of terminologies and theories on blogspot so I can look back on it anytime I need to. Our teacher’s blog has served as a reference for me to create my other blogs and this self reflection.