Posts tagged “radio”

When your participant repels and scares you

Embedded above is a fantastic and disturbing episode of Love + Radio. Nick van der Kolk and Noah Morrison visit Jay Thunderbolt, who upon beginning the interview, aggressively reiterates his demand for payment (not possible for public radio, which Jay knew). Noah ends up going on a liquor run instead, as Jay offers him a pistol or Kevlar vest. Jay never stops insulting the interviewers, and stories of violence abound; indeed at one point he points a gun at Nick’s head. Meanwhile, they are interviewing Jay about the strip club he runs out of his house.

Yikes. This sounds like some of the War Stories, doesn’t it?

I don’t know what is going through Nick’s head as he’s doing this interview, but as I listen I find myself strongly repelled by Jay. And while the interview here is edited, so we don’t know all that happened, but Nick never reveals discomfort or lets Jay’s obvious provocations get to him. His patience and tolerance create room for Jay’s story to come out, and while Jay is not an appealing individual, you begin to understand and accept him as he is. Well, I did. Your experience may vary.

Nick finally responds to Jay’s taunting at the end, when he asks Jay “Do you think you understand the way I feel about you?” and Jay admits that he doesn’t. It’s a powerful moment in an intense interview.

People Like Us

People Like Us was a mockumentary that ran on BBC radio in the late 90s before becoming a TV show. The radio shows are hilarious and a great illustration of what can and does go wrong in fieldwork. Each episode is essentially a total War Story.

The shows follow a hapless reporter, Roy Mallard, investigating the lives and work of ordinary people: a bank manager, an artist, a stay-at-home mom, an actor and so on. Things go awry: despite being married (Really? You?) he finds himself awkwardly attracted to an interviewee, only to realize that another interviewee is her bitter ex-boyfriend. He’s a passenger in a recklessly driven car. He’s witness to firings, incompetency, violence, relationship hassles. He trips, drops things, is sneezed upon, breaks a washing machine, and more.

At the same time, his attempts to interview people and get to the heart of what their lives are about are thwarted. If not by circumstances, then by the inarticulateness of his interviewees, or by their sheer misinterpretation of his questions (e.g., Q: You’ve been here for a long time. What kind of things have changed? A: My hair.)

People Like Us manages to be completely absurd yet with an eye-rolling kind of truth that any user researcher (and journalist, I imagine) will identify with.

The radio series has been posted to YouTube and I’m embedding all the episodes as a playlist below. Check ’em out and let me know what you think.

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • [from steve_portigal] The Art of Design Research (and Why It Matters) [design mind] – [Lovely piece by Jon Freach on what design research brings to design and innovation.] And sometimes design teams don't have the patience to see the value in dragging out a study in an effort to make it scientifically or statistically significant. We're just not wired that way; we prefer to make and experiment and then analyze later. So what is research good for? 1. Learning about people's behavior; 2. Understanding and analyzing culture; 3. Defining context; 4. Setting focus…Design research is not "a science" and is not necessarily "scientific." It gives designers and clients a much more nuanced understanding of the people for whom they design while providing knowledge that addresses some of the most fundamental questions we face throughout the process. What is the correct product or service to design? What characteristics should it have, and is it working as intended? "The research" won't necessarily provide cold hard answers. But it will generate some good and feasible ideas.
  • [from steve_portigal] CBS Radio Tells Its D.J.’s to Name Titles and Artists [NYTimes.com] – [Tying together the fortunes of radio and record sales?] Last week the head of a major radio company felt compelled to instruct its programmers to identify more of the songs played on the air, by title and artist name…at some indeterminate point in history ­ the mid-1980s ­ song identification began to vanish from the air as programmers struggled to squeeze out anything considered “clutter.” “You were always conscious about the amount of talk you would put on,” he said. “But the truth is that people tune in and tune out, and it was probably underestimated at the time how much people really wanted that information.” For record companies, having a song’s title and artist’s name mentioned on the air ­ especially if new and unfamiliar ­ is crucial marketing…“At one point in our culture there were well-schooled retailers who could help people figure out what that song was, because they wanted to buy it,” said Greg Thompson, VP at EMI Music. “In this day and age that doesn’t exist.”

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • [from steve_portigal] Getting in (and Out of) Line [ NYTimes.com] – [What are the economic behaviors – and motivators – of waiting in line, and how is the pursuit of the money shifting those standards?] A line conceives of people as citizens, presumed equal, each with an identical 24 hours a day to spread among the lines around them. A market conceives of people as consumers, presumed unequal, with those who can pay in front of the others. It allocates efficiently, but it eliminates a feature of line culture: the idea that, in line at least, we are no better than anybody else. In a way, the market’s spread is a return to another kind of scrum, one in which financial, and not physical, might means right. Perhaps one day lines will be remembered as antique, a quaint system in which things were granted simply for having shown up early, an interlude of relative equality between the scrums that reigned before and after. [Thanks, Anne!]
  • [from steve_portigal] Diary of a ‘portable people meter’ person [SF Chronicle] – [What it's like to be a human subject for gathering radio station data] "I was a good panelist," she said. "I wore the meter all the time and followed the instructions. I didn't find it that intrusive. But I wouldn't take it to some occasions, like out to dinner, and they want you to wear it all day, from the time you wake up until you go to bed, and to wear it on your person. You can't just leave it in your purse. And they pick up on it. They'll call you the next day or night and say, 'Hey, you weren't wearing it for 15 minutes yesterday.' "

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • How's that for a long-lasting brand/product? After 72 years, TV's `Guiding Light' switching off – It began as a 15-minute serial on NBC Radio in January 1937 and debuted on CBS television in 1952, focusing on the Bauer family of Springfield.
  • April 2009 – Iraqis Snap Up Hummers as Icons of Power – “Iraqis love them because they’re really a symbol of power,” said Mr. Hilli, a chubby 37-year-old who could not stop chuckling. Nonetheless, he spoke with authority, since he was his own first customer. Hummers in Baghdad are symbols of much more besides: increasing security, returning normality and a yearning for the trappings of sovereignty. Mr. Hilli allowed that there was something else, too, a little more indefinable, which in Arabic is “hasad thukuri,” [penis envy]
  • April 2003 – Americans induce patriotism through Hummer purchase – "When I turn on the TV, I see wall-to-wall Humvees, and I'm proud," said Sam Bernstein, a 51-year-old antiquities dealer who lives in Marin County, Calif., and drives a Hummer H2, an S.U.V. sibling of the military Humvee. "They're not out there in Audi A4's," he said of the troops. "I'm proud of my country, and I'm proud to be driving a product that is making a significant contribution."

BBC Radio show on ethnography in business

Shop Talk is a BBC radio show featuring a discussion of ethnographic research in business. Thanks to Michael Andrews and Louise Ferguson for this.

It was a bit challenging for me to listen to; Genevieve Bell was the only person who (in a very radio-unfriendly fashion) tried to move the sound-bites into a discussion, usually to be squelched by the host. There was just too much to cover in 28 minutes – too many people giving their spiel about what this is, why it’s necessary, who is qualified (or not) to engage in it, and in a couple of cases some examples of what was learned and what the implications were. Definitions of terms such as “ethnography” and “anthropology” were not common amongst the panelists and created what I would imagine was some confusion among non-industry (ie, the user research industry) listeners. Me, I was just annoyed by that discussion.

Anyway, there are some nice bits in there, and it’s pretty good to hear some different voices on the topic, and for me, to hear my profession discussed from a UK business perspective, that was quite refreshing.

Q107 misleads listeners; apologizes

I wrote previously about how Q107 had presented a broadcast of live Rolling Stones as if it was a simulcast of a club show in Toronto, and how many of us protested and they responded. Well, they got some press out of the whole thing, too.

From this story

Bartrem maintained that Q107’s intent was never to deceive, but does concede that the station could have been a little more specific in its programming intentions.

“I guess the way we positioned it on the air was ‘Celebrating this night at the Phoenix, we’ve got Stones live on air at 9:30.’ People heard ‘live’ and ‘Phoenix’ and put the two together and thought ‘simulcasting,'” he said.

“In hindsight, one line would have saved all the problems: ‘While some are enjoying the show at the Phoenix, let’s go back three years and enjoy what was going on.'”

Since he was one of the lucky 1,100 people to attend the show, Bartrem said he can’t speak to what Scholes said on air, but he is taking care to absolve the station’s DJs “of any kind of responsibility in this thing” and accepts full blame for the furor.

As penance, he has volunteered to be morning host John Derringer’s “Tool of the Day” today and will publicly proclaim the whole thing “totally my fault.” He has sent a mea culpa e-mail to everyone who wrote the station.

and from this story

The station evidently never specifically told its listeners it was simulcasting the Stones show from the Phoenix, but one listener, Steve Popichak, who e-mailed the Sun said, “During their broadcast, their announcer came on between songs and made references to this performance happening right in front of him right there at the Phoenix.”

“Well, it was live Stones,” DJ John Scholes told the Sun Wednesday night.

Blair Bartrem, Q107’s program director, yesterday told the Sun that the station received 30 to 40 complaints from fans, via e-mail. He said he takes responsibility for the confusion and that, in hindsight, the e-mail should have been clearer.

“I think a few of our Q listeners felt that we were trying to deceive them, which clearly wasn’t our intent,” Bartrem said. “I mean, there’s a trust that we have with our audience, obviously, and we’re not trying to pull a fast one.”

Bloggers on Tuesday and Wednesday were abuzz with anticipation about the perceived simulcast. An Ottawa resident filed a complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council [over the playing of a bootleg? — SP]. He said other fans might do the same.

From discussions online, it appears that few believe that the deception was accidental or that the apology was genuine. I guess I was glad to get any acknowledgement of a mistake from a company.

But desite their claims to have responded to all who complained – I have not heard back from them, and obviously am not going to. I feel singled out!

Ottawa DJ booted for Stompin’ Tom Connors marathon

Full story

A disc jockey at a top Ottawa rock station has been booted off the air for playing Stompin’ Tom Connors — and nothing but Stompin’ Tom — to protest the singer’s exclusion from the Live 8 concert lineup.

But what remains unclear today is whether Jeff Brown, who says he has not been fired from his job at CHEZ 106.1, has his tongue tucked firmly in his cheek.

Mr. Brown, program director at the station, began playing Stompin’ Tom tunes Tuesday afternoon during his drive-home show, which airs from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.

After hearing the lineup of Canada’s version of Live 8, Mr. Brown said, he ‘went on a rant about how we have Celine Dion representing Canada via satellite from Las Vegas, and how true Canadian icons were being overlooked, namely Stompin’ Tom,’ Mr. Brown explained yesterday in an e-mail to a Citizen reporter.

‘At this point I vowed to play nothing but Stompin’ Tom on my show until (Live 8 organizers) Bob Geldof and Michael Cohl recognized the influence that this true icon has in this country and add him to the bill.’

While Stompin’ Tom has a devoted following in Canada, it is unlikely Bob Geldof has ever heard Bud The Spud or other Stompin’ Tom-penned tunes about everyday life in Canada’s small towns and cities.

On Tuesday’s show, Mr. Brown played Stompin’ Tom’s Big Joe Mufferaw continuously for about a half an hour.

Mr. Brown said reaction to his Stompin’ Tom binge was immediate.

‘The moment we started playing Stompin’ Tom, the phones went insane (like I have never seen in 15 years of radio) … 99 per cent of people were in support that we needed to get Stompin Tom on the Live 8 bill.

‘It just shows you how like no other artist this man transcends all boundaries and truly speaks for the country.”

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