Readings
Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered
by Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff
Being able to connect with someone who isn’t in the room can be a hard thing to do. You have to be relatable and create an open environment that everyone can enjoy as if you were with them. This is what Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff are able to in their book. Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered by Hardstark and Kilgariff is about more than just true crime stories. These two women started off by creating a small podcast about unsolved murders. This book interested me because even though they are talking about a serious topic like death, they are still able to create an environment that is entertaining to people, where they can be funny, and where they can be honest. This is exactly what it is like to talk about stories on the radio. The hosts have to stick to the facts of situations while keeping people happy and engaged.
Hardstark and Kilgariff are relatable to their audience because they are open throughout the stories about their own experiences. They are able to touch on topics such as mental health, eating disorders, and drug and alcohol abuse, without losing their readers interest. This is something that can be hard to do, especially on the radio, because if someone doesn’t want to be hearing about these topics they could simply change the station or stop reading. But these two women are all about taking these sort of topics that we see as taboo and turning them into something that we should talk about. Every story that they tell, they remain open with and they are not judgmental of themselves or others. When they talk about certain crimes or hard topics, they are able to turn the situation into a learning experience for them and how they can reflect on their past times.
The way that they talk about all of their past mistakes make it something inspirational for their readers. They are now two very successful hosts of a podcast called, “My Favorite Murderer”. Hearing their stories is meant to be inspiring to the audience, because they can take anything that life throws at them, and show how they got through it, and how that led them to be in the place that they are today. When you have to report the facts of a situation, it can be rather boring for you to talk about, and boring for the people who have to listen to it. But Hardstark and Kilgariff are able to make these things fun to listen to, no matter what the topic is. They create a welcoming and safe space, which is something that you don’t necessarily think about needing on the radio, in a podcast, or even in a book.
In the beginning of the book, the two women make sure to communicate with their readers. They directly address the person reading their book by talking about where they’re reading. Hardstark and Kilgariff question if the reader has stolen the book or if they’re standing in a bookstore just skimming through the intro to find out if they are interested in it or not. This is just one of the many ways that these women are able to connect with their readers even though they are not directly having a conversation with them. By providing a few circumstances that are highly likely, they are likely to connect with their readers in one of these examples. This is something they are also able to accomplish through their podcast. It may seem strange to talk about someone who isn’t even there, but being able to successfully connect with the listeners by relating to them, is exactly what keeps them interested.
100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People
by Susan Weinschenk
There are many ways to try to get someone to listen to you. Being able to connect to your audience, while remaining professional and entertaining is something that can be extremely difficult. Not only is giving a good presentation difficult, but making sure the content in your presentation is worth the time of your audience is also crucial. Being a successful presenter is something that a radio host has to be able to do everyday. The book, 100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenik talks about what she thinks are the key aspects of being a good presenter and having a good presentation.
Giving a presentation in person can be slightly easier than being on the radio, or a podcast. This is because when you are speaking to an audience that is right in front of you, there are more things to consider while presenting. Things like eye contact, body language, and other non-verbal communication skills are all things that you must consider when giving a presentation in person. Even though they can be hard to effectively achieve, non verbal skills are crucial to an in-person presentation.
Weinschenik discussed how facial expressions can be one way to get your point across more seriously. If you want an audience to sympathize with you, even if you are discussing something that can be difficult, you can show them you are sympathetic toward the topic through your facial expressions. This is also important because if you discuss a topic that is sensitive and you are smiling through it, people can get the wrong impression of you.
Some of the other important questions that Weinschenik brought up during this book were things like, how people are going to react to your presentation and how to make the content of your presentation stick. These two questions are crucial to something like a radio show because you want to keep people coming back for more. To keep people coming back you have to make a good impression on them, as well as have your presentation stick with them. She discussed in the book how showing passion and connecting with your audience is one of the best ways to be able to make the content of your presentation stick with your audience. Also, by knowing who your audience is, you can gear your ideas toward them. Understanding their depth of knowledge of certain topics, for example, can tell you how much information you need to share with them.
A good presentation should be able to inform, inspire, and motivate, according to Weinschenik. One way that she talks about doing this is through keeping the presentation short, or giving breaks in between large chunks of time. This is something the radio does, not even on purpose. Every 30 minutes on the morning show there is a break for ads and songs. These breaks are giving the listeners time to process everything they have just heard and prepare to hear new information. On the show, they often also give a brief insight into what they are going to be talking about after the break. This keeps people from wanting to change the channel and as Weinschenik would say, keeps them motivated to listen.
Being a good presenter is not simple, even for the most skilled speech writers. This is because the circumstances in which you are presenting can differ as well as the content you are presenting on. These two factors can change everything in a presentation. Knowing the things that people can't resist listening to can keep people engaged and coming back for more everyday. Giving a good presentation is necessary for the purpose of a presentation, but giving an engaging presentation makes it worth it for the audience.
Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and The Silicon Valley
by Stuart Cunningham and David Craig
Hollywood is changing in today’s society, and the hottest people and gossip is no longer always an actor or actress. With technology changing, the boundaries of social media being expanded everyday there becomes a newfound understanding of what a ‘celebrity’ is. The book Social Media Entertainment: The New Intersection of Hollywood and The Silicon Valley by Stuart Cunningham and David Craig discusses exactly how these boundaries are changing and how this impacts entertainment in the Silicon Valley. YouTube celebrities like Tyler Oakley, James Charles, and Gigi Gorgeous are being seen as celebrities now. Not only are the standards for who is celebrities turning into YouTube personalities, but it can even be people like Instagram influencers, Tiktok dancers, and many other people. These new platforms create opportunities for other public figures such as politicians or authors to use various social media outlets to further their own agendas.
Working in the broadcasting industry is all about being informed on what is going on in society today. With technology and social media advancing, it is crucial to be able to not only understand what these new apps are about, but also who is using these apps and how they are utilizing them. Cunningham and Craig said that a politician like Hilary Clinton has used social media to amplify her campaign. They said people might do this because social media allows for people to have instantaneous community engagement and it creates a new globalization dynamic. “We argue that online creators entrepreneurs, precisely because they are working in a commercialized environment, commit themselves to maximize their cultural and community reach, and thus must position themselves between the subcultural identity politics and broader publics” (Cunningham and Craig). Social Media is not only allowing for people like influencers to involve themselves in a broader audience but it is also allowing for people like politicians to do the same thing. This broad audience also means though that people need to know how to cater to their specific audiences. When they are unable to do this though, that allows for places like radio stations to have something entertaining to discuss on air.
Something that we do on the show is to find new entertainment stories everyday to be discussed on air. Some of the more interesting stories are ones when people have done something controversial. When someone fails to cater to their audience by excluding certain groups, it can cause drama. Having a large platform means that these celebrities must be able to please their entire audience at the same time. One day on the show we reported on something controversial that Miley Cyrus had said. Miley Cyrus is known for being a strong supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. But one day she said that she might just ‘turn gay’ becasue she has had no luck with the men in her life. When she said this it caused backlash from her LGBTQ fans because they said that their sexuality is not a choice. She then had to issue an ‘apology statement’ and clarify what she meant. On air we have to be aware of these events going on and what platform they said these things on. These new platforms are allowing for more opportunities to speak upon on air.
Another way that this changing social media is affecting things in the broadcasting industry is because stations are being forced to create their own platforms for their company. Alice 97.3 started as just the radio station and now they have Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. Companies are not being told that they have to create these accounts, but if they do not do it, they are missing out on opportunities to grow and expand their audiences. Social media is not only changing the ways that we have to report stories, but also who we are reporting on, and the platforms that we have to have at a radio station.