Key Concepts

Audience• Definition + Ideas: This refers to who the target audience is/people intended to be the

recipients. How they respond and are affected by reading, watching, playing or listening to a media text.

• Media producers want to know: your income/status, age, gender, race, location etc. of their potential audience (demographics). Once they know this, they begin to shape the text to appeal to a group of similar viewing/listening habits etc.

• Types of Audiences: • Mass audience – group consuming commercial TV programmes. • Niche audience – people with unique interest • Passive audience – accepts and believes all messages in any media text (manipulated by media) • Active audience – using media text for their own purpose (satisfy needs and question content

before believing the media)

Letter code to show audiences income bracket:

Factors in analysing/predicting how the audience may react/engage with their text

Audience reactions to early versions of a media text is

closely watched. Hollywood studios show pre-released

versions of every movie they make to a test audience, and

will often make changes to the movie that are requested by the audience. This process is

called Test Screenings

Audience - MarketingOnce a media text is made, its producers ensure that it reaches the audience it is intended forAll media texts have a marketing campaign attached to them. This might include:• Posters• Print, Radio, TV and Internet Advertisement • Trailers• Promotional Interviews (e.g. stars appearing on chat shows, information told to

internet bloggers)• Tie-In Campaigns (e.g. a blockbuster movie using McDonald's meals)• Merchandising (t-shirts, baseball caps, key rings)

Audience Theories• Reception theory: The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but  the way individuals receive and interpret a text, depends

on how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age, ethnicity) affect their reading.• Encoding/Decoding Model: The text is encoded by the producer, and decoded by the reader = differently interpreted.• Preferred Reading: By using codes and conventions, and by drawing upon audience expectations relating to aspects such as genre and use of

stars, the producers can position the audience and thus create a certain amount of agreement on what the code means. (the producers compel the audience to see that same thing)

• Uses and Gratifications: People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media in different ways to get specific gratifications (satisfaction/fulfilment). E.g. Diversion - escape from everyday problems and routine.

• Personal Relationships: Using the media for emotional and other interaction, eg) substituting soap operas for family life• Personal Identity: finding yourself reflected in texts, learning behaviour and values from texts• Surveillance: Information which could be useful for living eg) weather reports, financial news, holiday bargains• Hypodermic Needle Model: first attempt to explain how mass audiences might react to mass media. It is a crude model (see picture!) and

suggests that audiences passively receive the information transmitted via a media text, without any attempt on their part to process or challenge the data.

• Basically, the Hypodermic Needle Model suggests that the information from a text passes into the mass consciousness of the audience unmediated (without being intervened), i.e. the experience, intelligence and opinion of an individual are not relevant to the reception of the text. This theory suggests that, as an audience, we are manipulated by the creators of media texts, and that our behaviour and thinking might be easily changed by media-makers. It assumes that the audience are passive (accepts + believes any media)  and heterogenous.

Audience Theories• Cultivation Theory: Treats the audience as passive (accepts/believes all media). It suggests that long-

term exposure to the same message e.g. an advertisement, it will have an effect on the audience's attitudes and values and they are more likely to believe social reality portrayed on television. This further shows that TV alters the opinions of people who watch several hours of it every day.

• Desensitisation: Suggests that long term exposure to violent media makes the audience less likely to be shocked by violence. Therefore, being less horrified by the violence can lead the audience, themselves, to behave more violently. However, TV realisms is far from actual reality

• Mainstreaming: The blurring, blending and bending process by which heavy TV viewers from different groups develop a common outlook on the world through constant exposure to the same images and labels on TV. Instead of innovative diverse cultural/political views, TV producers tend to fall back on tried-and-tested formulae. This mainstreaming effect cultivates a narrow minded view of the world to which TV viewers become accustomed and cannot see beyond.

• Release – Valve Method: An individual's negative energy (anger, frustration, jealousy, hatred) is unleashed upon media e.g. video games, rather than real-life people.

Institution• Definition + Ideas: This refers to the business responsible for creating and producing media texts. Who are the

companies behind media products, what rules must they follow? How do they make money? How have they adapted to new technology?

• Institutions are "Those enduring regulatory and organising structures of any society, which constrain and control individuals and individuality... the term more precisely refers to the underlying principles and values according to which many social and cultural practices are organised and co-ordinated."

• A formal organisation (with its own set of rules and behaviours) that creates and distributes media texts.• Different media institutions have different aims and visions and they often have different audiences

or compete with each other for the same audience.• The study of institutions also includes looking at how a company makes its moneyUnderstanding institution is about understanding:• Who produces media texts• What their set of codes and values is• And their relationship to us as individuals

InstitutionPeople who have a role in the production of media texts: • Companies/organisations• Producers• Distributors• Marketing• Editors• Directors• Script/screenwritersEtc.

Multinational multimedia companies:

• Film studios• TV studios• Record labels• Magazines• Newspapers• Books• Internet platformsEtc.

Institution Diagram

We can refer to "The Press" or "TV" and have a general awareness of the

values and codes of a) what is

produced and b) the producers.

Media Language• Definition + Ideas: How a media text creates meaning for the audience. In English;

words, sentences, punctuation etc. are used to communicate. In media, we have specific language such as camera angles, editing, layout,  mise-en-scene, props, setting, sound, lighting etc. that help inform an audience what is happening  

• Conventions are the generally accepted ways of doing something. E.g. it is a convention of the horror genre that little/dark lighting is used to create mystery and suspense; an integral part of any horror movie.

• Story: a sequence of events, known correctly as the plot• Narrative: the way events are put together to be presented to the audience. When

analysing a narrative we analyse the construction of the story (the way it has been put together) not the story itself. You need to consider what the story is about in its most basic terms e.g. the theme love/winning etc.

Media LanguageSemiotics (Analysis): how meaning is constructed through languages and codes. It is the study of signs and to analyse and consider what these signs mean (denotation and connotation). You must show how these signs communicate a message e.g. sounds, body language, words, font, tone of voice, colours, costumes, props, locations, camera work etc.Code: a system of signs which can be decoded to create meaning. In media texts, we look at a range of different signs that can be loosely grouped into the following:• Technical Codes: all to do with the way a text is technically constructed – camera angles, framing,

typography.• Verbal Codes: everything to do with language – either written or spoken.• Symbolic Codes: codes that can be decoded on a mainly connotation level – all the things which

draw upon our experience and understanding of other media texts, our cultural frame of reference.Binary Opposition: the contrast between two concepts e.g. good/evil, day/night, old/young, male/female etc

Representation• Definition + Ideas: How people, places, ideas etc. are represented. Does the

media represent them in a positive/negative way? You can also consider if they are being stereotyped. Representation is the way in which the media represents the world around us in the form of signs and codes for the audience to read. What purpose does this piece of media serve?

• Theories: Marxism – media is controlled by higher ruling class. E.g. BBC is controlled by the stateFeminism – women are stereotyped, smaller role than menStereotypes -  men and women, cultures, race etc stereotyped

Analysing Representations:• Who or what is being represented? Who is the preferred

audience for this representation?• What are they doing? Is their activity presented as typical, or

atypical? Are they conforming to genre expectations or other conventions?

• Why are they present? What purpose do they serve? What are they communicating by their presence? What's the preferred reading?

• Where are they? How are they framed? Are they represented as natural or artificial? What surrounds them? What is in the foreground and what is in the background?

Television Game Shows• The key concepts apply to the topic of TV game shows as we can see which types of audiences

prefer specific types of game shows and how to shape them to appeal to a specific set of the audience (age, ethnicity, gender).

• We can also see what types of game shows different channels air and what rules they must follow e.g. watershed. Institutions that produce popular game shows are: BBC, ITV, Channel 4 etc

• Media language can convey the atmosphere of the game show e.g. if it relaxed or serious. It can also set the scene and the mood.We can also see the similarities and the differences of conventions between different genres of game shows e.g. host/presenter, audience, set design, prizes, rounds, contestants, teams, buzzers, tables, theme music, assistant and scheduling. 

• We can use representation to see if different types of shows stereotype, or if they convey positive/negative views. We question why they are doing certain things and their purpose.