Asifundisane:an educational show on RMR

Capstone Reflection

 

My capstone work involved me producing and presenting at Rhodes Music Radio Station (RMR), which was a show aimed at preparing high school learners for life inside higher education.  The show idea was based on the current situation which we see in our schools, especially public schools that learners there are not made aware of issues that arises when they arrive at higher institutions. Some face difficult careers decisions, lack of financial awareness, no knowledge or little knowledge of bursaries that are available and how to correctly apply for the national student financial aid scheme (NSFAS). So, the show deals with a lot of that and also the latest development in South African education system like the online schools.

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However, before I start to talk about my experience producing and presenting the show, let me start by explaining why I choose to do my work as a radio show. At the beginning of the year, I mentioned what my beliefs are as a journalist: I believe in a world whereby information is available to everyone, whereby people know of the issues that affect them and could affect them in the future. It is a world in which information is not affected by geographic area or data. The public can debate issues that are of both national and of local relevancy. The youth as key members of society. Therefore, radio was the platform that was best suited for my idea and what I wanted to achieve. Firstly, radio accessible to everyone and its free of charge, you don’t need data in most instances unless you are listening to it online. To counter the geographical area part, I have converted all the shows I have done which are 7 of them into a series of podcasts episodes.

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My Experience in doing the show and strategies used

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In doing the show I was being helped by another JMS 4 Multimedia students Slindile Msomi, she was the co producer and was very instrumental in the show ideas and progress. So, when I first pitched the idea for the show, I never expected me to host the show, mainly I don’t trust that I have a radio voice, I’m not loud person and as a result I really struggled especially with the first two episodes. Even though I did many voice trainings at the radio station I was really struggling. I even at some point considered to ask someone to do the show on my behalf because I was quite nervous. The main thing I was struggling the most with was how to introduce the show, so to help with that I recorded and listened to a lot of radio presenters and podcaster doing their shows. Has a result I think my introductions improved. Figuring out the right levels was a challenge for me. So, when I do receive the recordings, I would hear that the levels were very low and one of the main reasons for that was that I was nervous. However, the station manager did help me in that regard. Another problem which I faced was having less content for the show that what I was expecting and the reason for that its because there were only 2 of us working and gathering content. Therefore, to bridge the gap about that I figured to approach some students from the SRC MEDIA group of 2021 since I am content editor for radio this year. So that helped a lot as I got 6 students there and all of them were doing journalism so that made things easier.

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Another difficulty which I faced was that no guest were allowed to be in the studio because there are no air ventilators. So, that made things difficult because some of the matriculants I wanted to give them experience in radio show, which would mean that the focus of the capstone would not only focus on collecting stories from them but also mentor them about journalism and radio. Has a result of that it was difficult to get content from them, because they feared being recorded so I think inviting them to the studio would have made them to believe in their voices. So, I had no other choice but to mostly in some instances interview and collect content from university students. However, most of them were first year so the topic I was talking about was known by them and still relevant. 

What have I learned from the experience?

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Use of Language

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The language which I have used for all my shows is IsiXhosa and I do know that may limit the number of people which I want to get my message across since the universal language is English. I do notice that but I wanted to speak in a language that I'm mostly comfortable with and that will delivery the message clearly. Apart from that in Makanda Xhosa is the most spoken language so that also played a part. 

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The use of Stings.

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when you listen to the podcast episodes, you might notice that the stings that I have chosen to use are from RMR and the reason for that was that the show does belong to RMR even though it was my show. 

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Strategies for content circulation and engagement

In promoting the show episodes I used an audio gram and posted random clip from the episodes, just like the ones i will post below, and posted those on my twitter account and Facebook page. https://twitter.com/SakheNdlovu/status/1459123632265904135?s=20

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This is the recording took from the first episode episode and its a Telephone interview with Ms Thami Matiwane from the financial aid offices. 

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https://twitter.com/SakheNdlovu/status/1458363256028991491?s=20

This approach did work to some extent has I got many views of the podcast, because what I noticed is that if you just live a link there many people do not click but if there a a short video or recording that does work and also using different hashtags on twitter to circulate your content. Also engagement with my audience was done through interactions with them and some WhatsApp messages and posts. So engagement with audience were through WhatsApp post and word of mouth. Since the show has been turned into a podcast they its posted on the school iono FM podcasting channel and is also available on Spotify, apple podcasts, and player FM podcast channels, so the podcast is available on multiple podcast channel. 

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What have I learnt from the Show

 

From hosting the show, I learnt the importance of time Management, that means arriving early at the studio and since my show was at 11am that meant I had to arrive at 10am or 30 minutes before the show. Secondly the use of social media and also understanding that you have limited minutes to grab your listeners attention so therefore its important that you know what you will talk about and not sound like you are reading a script. You must be conversational in your engagement. To try to be familiar with your voice and how you sound so that you know where to improve on, to know your strength and weaknesses. Another thing is to know is that there show depend upon you and success and failure of it depends on your, so that means you must take charge and see what you can improve on. And lastly use a magazine format in order to always keep a consistent approach.

 

The most important lesson which I have discovered while doing the show and interviewing people is that there are many development in South African education system both good and bad.  However, information of this matter is usually very difficult to find  especially pupils coming and who are currently in public schools. My last episode explain what may be the reason for that. Even for me as I have done and edited the shows into a podcast I know many people who may need that kind of information may not be reached and that is one of the very disappointing discoveries that I have come upon, and that may be one of the reason why there are many protest in tertiary institution because we don't pay much attention to education issues. Its even Rare to find a student who can say that they understand the NSFAS contract that they we have all signed. However, if show like these could exist in the future then maybe thing could change and we can all make a difference in South Africa education by raising more awareness and getting people to pay attention to the current state of education in South Africa. Has I see it we there a lot of changes we should expect from our higher education whether that may be good or bad and if we don't pay attention we are going to experience a lot of ups and down. 

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This is the recording of our first meeting with the grade 12 at the Joza Youth Hub that gave the direction for what we should talk about more: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CYN78MhQhDHSf0akbc6t6FjPVNeyXUOZ/view?usp=sharing

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