“Barbie, Spring Break” – A Reflective Report Throughout this semester the analytical exploration of discourse, genre and multimodality has enabled us to engage with various academic works, which ultimately enhanced the overall understanding of this course. With this knowledge, we were given the task of creating our own radio projects, exemplifying through a specific radio genre, a particular discourse. This project was very fulfilling, specifically after the conclusion of our group’s experimental radio piece, “Barbie: Spring Break.” Within this essay, I will aim to reflect and judge the process, as well as the overall finished production of this podcast. It becomes evident that through the analysis of how our piece engages with different discourses, ultimately constructs the way we understand our world in a socially driven frame (Leeuwen, 2005, p. 94). Through this the audience will hopefully gain a greater understanding of the importance of radio in our world. Further, the piece makes use of different genres, as well as appropriating our chosen platform to a specific audience. This script dealt with one main discourse, Barbie, and how she ultimately is a contradiction of what girls want, compared to what they should be. However, our podcast aims to satirize this meaning through humor, as well as experimenting with talk back radio to enhance the overall significance of this podcast.

Discourse:
“Barbie: Spring Break” dealt with the discourse of Barbie, the doll, epitomizing contradictory images for young girls. Throughout this semester, we came to the understanding that all theoretical texts reflect on discourse and subsequently affect these discourses in the end. As outlined by Olsson, a given discourse is inextricably linked to its socio-historical context and cannot be understood if removed from this context (Olsson 2010, p. 65). This podcast favors the discourse of Barbie as a bad influence on young girls through the emphasis of her negative and yet prominent and very relevant influence. Due to the juxtaposing meaning of this discourse, we are forcing the audience to not only consider both sides of Barbie, both as a good and negative personality, but also allowing them to make their own judgement.

Genre:
Discourses, as representational meanings, are enacted through genres, as the actional meanings (Olsson 2003, p. 28) which is epitomized in “Barbie, Spring Break”, which uses the commercial radio genre in an experimental way to explore how we, as a collective society, can often become sheltered to the negative and destructive images that we are confronted with on an everyday basis. Throughout this course, it became evidently clear that genre was a very significant aspect of radio. As Leeuwen outlines, genres are characterized by their functions, in terms of what they do, more or less as resources for communicative actions (Leeuwen 2005, p.74). Therefore, its important to distinguish between commercial and an experimental radio podcast. Our piece, beginning as a ‘typical’ radio podcast, through the inclusion of a trailer and followed by an interview can be considered “commercial”. However, the break in this comes when Barbie and Ken get into an argument, not a common action in commercial radio, therefore forcing our podcast into the experimental genre.
This podcast’s form as an experimental radio piece is suited to its content and audience as it exposes, through the use of sound and voice, the audience to unique ideas and attitudes. “Barbie, Spring Break” can also be accessed online, making it easily user-friendly to a wider audience. The enlightening, provocative radio genre is driven by the communal access to the podcast. The multimodal layers, which were generated through sound specific editing programs, allowed our audience to become involved with the piece on a complex level and have a heightened experience through sound.
Although this radio script aims to follow the conventions and techniques of Commercial Radio, usually dealing with topics relating to popular culture, such as celebrity gossip and modern music, rather than the more politically based radio broadcasting found on AM radio. This is evident within our podcast through the introduction, a trailer for ‘Barbie’ and ‘Kens’ new movie, “Barbie, Spring Break” which is then proceeded by an interview with the real-life actors. This process follows the typical protocol of commercial radio, however, as the piece develops we decided to break the rules of commercial radio to further epitomize the negative image that Barbie portrays to young women, through both a physical and verbal fight, ending with Ken’s offensive line “Do you even wear underwear?” a direct correlation to the Mattel Inc. choosing to release the doll without any sort of undergarments.

Audience:
Experimental radio carries an array of audiences, similar to that of early unconventional films (Whitehead & Kahn 1994, p. 19), as they need to actively deconstruct the implications. Experimental radio allows itself to be viewed by a large, and very broad number of people, as it is accessible online. The audience is able to interact with this podcast in their own time, after actively choosing to watch after reading a small description. The audience can also interact by means of their own rules, choosing to stop, pause and replay the piece when they want. It is an area developed for people searching for unique ideas or to have their current attitudes contended or secured through distinctive or imaginative use of voice and sound. According Podcasting News, 2005, it is heavily argued that Podcasting is increasing into a broader and newer market as advertising is also increasing, in turn stating figures that experimental podcasts make up one of the smallest genres in the market. Despite this, throughout this decade the increasing significance and importance of phones (especially Android and IPhones) are making Podcasts much more accessible to everyday life.
Similarly to websites such as Wikipedia, Youtube and Facebook, experimental radio is considered as a new approach to the production of radio, as the content is managed by the users themselves, and therefore has a direct correlation to the specific context in which an audience wants to listen, similar with the values and attitudes toward a specific discourse, once again reiterating Olsson’s view that a discourse cannot be divorced from its context (Olsson 2010, p. 65). This is appealing to an online audience as it provides more control of specific information and the freedom of speech, subsequently making experimental podcasting an extremely influential medium.

Experience:
The multimodal features combine within “Barbie, Spring Break” to create a multifaceted meaning, layering different dialogue, sound and music to enhance the audience’s overall experience. Our experimental podcast is multimodal according to Leeuwen (2005, p. 74) as the podcast is characterized by several different modes of activity, such as the collaboration of dialogue, sound and music to enhance the audience’s overall experience. Using audacity, a more complex mode of communication is created through layering of sound and voice. The audience is placed within this space through the varying uses of dialogue, tone of voice, and the addition of sound effects.
This multimodality is exemplified during the trailer strategically placed at the beginning of this podcast allowing the audience the travel into the world that is ‘Barbie’ and subsequently sets the scene for the proceeding interview. These recordings were captured in the vocal booths, consequently emitting an consistent reverb sound, in post-production we were partially able to equalize the lower reverb, however this was not able to be reduced completely, which I believe would be a factor needed for changing. As a student of Exploring Media Arts, I would have personally chosen to use a PM660D in a sound controlled room to have a more isolated and precise sound. Although, to enhance the dialogue by the actors, we made tactical use of sound effects, such as the motorbike engine rev and girls cheering, to enrich the overall force of the podcast. Further, through our study of texts, it became increasingly apparent that the voice has a major, and significant aspect on the way meaning can be understood and appreciated (Anderson & Schlunke 2008, p. 268). Therefore, as voice actors within this piece, we concentrated on the tone, pitch and volume at which dialogue was delivered, such as Barbie’s sentences having an added array of “like” and “totally” to allow the audience to understand, as well as envision who this character is.

Overall, this experience was extremely fulfilling, and it was especially rewarding knowing that our group worked together cohesively and collaboratively, with us all taking equal roles. Our ability to produce a podcast, which I personally feel fulfills the assessment criteria, as well as being thought provoking as a radio piece, providing this course with a well-deserved conclusion.

References:

Anderson, N & Schlunke, K. 2008, Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Vic, pp. 268-276

Crisell, A. 1994, Understanding Radio, London, New York Routledge, pp. 42 – 63

Olsson, M. 2010, “Michael Foucault: Discourse, Power/Knowledge, and the Battle for Truth”, University of Technology, Sydney

Olsson, M. 2003, Discourse as an element of social practices: genres, discourses and styles, New York, Routledge, p. 26-30

Van Leeuwen, T. 2005, Introducing Social Semiotics, New York, Routledge

Whitehead, G & Kahn, D, 1994, ‘Wireless imagination: sound, radio and the avant-garde’, Cambridge MIT Press