Week Two: Topic Selection by Daniella Sousa

The podcast I chose to emulate is Under the Influence with Terry O’Reily on CBC Radio One. This series focuses on different advertisements and advertising techniques and their overall cultural effects. I chose this podcast show because I really do believe that we are “under the influence” of the media as they brainwash us into believing their products will make our lives better.

I found that Terry O’Reily’s presentation style is very unique and creative. He always starts his podcast with a story that he constantly refers to throughout his piece. For example, he talks about the world’s greatest race horse, Secretariat, and uses his story throughout his show “Looking Out for Number One” to say how advertising is like a horse race –to see which brand will be the best. I also like how O’Reily asks the audience a question, has a five second music break to think about the question, and then answers the question. When O’Reily answers the questions he plays a clip of an advertisement campaign from the winning brand (i.e. Special K cereal). I also found it very creative how O’Reily starts his list of number one brands the same way we start our day –from cereal and coffee in the morning to beer in the evening. I also enjoy his sound effects like pouring coffee and opening up a bottle of beer, that really allows you visualize to the moment. O’Reily uses a slow, steady pace that allows the audience to think about the answers to his questions. I think all of O’Reily’s techniques are very effective and I wish to emulate these techniques in my podcast.

What I wish to discuss in my podcast is how the influence of advertisements negatively affect society.  When businesses advertise their products they do not care about who or what they exploit –they solely care about how much money they will make. I want to research the influence these companies have on the environment, animals and people (depression, insecurities, bullying…etc.) to point out our ignorance and how much the media blinds us to the problems they are creating. I want to emulate how marketing only focuses on progress for the future but doesn't care to look at the damage they are doing in the present.  

I used SPARK (Student Papers and Academic Research Kits) to help me chose a topic. In the brainstorming worksheet, the page says not to be afraid of quirky ideas, which is what helped me discover my topic. I brainstormed the word “marketing” and came up with words like American dream, progress, riches, exploitation, deception, animal cruelty and damage, that really helped me discover what I wanted to talk about. After the idea of marketing’s negative influence came into my head I used the nutshelling worksheet to target exactly what I wanted to talk about. For other students in my position, I highly encourage them to use SPARK  because before I used it I was endlessly thinking about what I could possibly talk about without getting any ideas. I found that SPARK was extremely helpful in expanding ideas I didn't even know I had 

Now that I chose a topic that interests me, I am very excited to see the new things I can discover through research and all the creative ideas I can incorporate in my podcast.