This document defines and discusses several key media concepts. It explains that audience refers to people who watch or listen to public or private events. Media targets specific audiences, like cartoons targeting children. The hypodermic needle theory suggests media has an immediate effect on everyone without critical thought. A media institution is a company that owns various media companies. Institutional theory examines how social structures and norms develop over time. Media language analyzes hidden meanings in visuals and words. Representation refers to how media portrays social groups, which some see as unfair. These concepts are all important for game show producers to understand their audience and use symbols and representations effectively.

1. KEY CONCEPT RESEARCH
Milly Andrews - Carlo

2. AUDIENCE DEFINITION
An audience are people who watch
or listen to either a public event
such as a play or a concert, or
people who watch something that
isn’t public such as television.

3. AUDIENCE: KEY IDEAS
Audience is a very big part in media, because without
an audience there is no target. Media is mostly used
to entertain people so without anyone watching there
is no entertainment involved.
In media, there is target audiences, for example a
cartoon programme would have a target audience of
young children whereas a late night drama would be
for adults.
Everyone in media uses audience theory to know
what they will include in the show, play etc and what
they wont include because they can know who they
are targeting.

4. THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE THEORY
The hypodermic needle theory is the theory
that everything the media says and does has
an immediate effect on everyone, it is very
powerful and direct, it’s the theory that
everyone takes in what the media tells us
without actually thinking about what it means.
Also it says that because the media is so
powerful it can easily change our views on
things because we listen to the media so
much.

5. INSTITUTION DEFINITION
Media institution is a company that
owns various other companies in mass
media, i.e radio, television and internet.
This is also known as a media
conglomerate and a media group.

6. INSTITUTIONAL THEORY:
The institutional theory is the theory that
structures such as schemes, rules,
norms and routines become authority
guidelines for social behaviour. Different
parts of this theory explain how these
structures are created, adapted and
stopped over time.

7. MEDIA LANGUAGE DEFINITION
Media language is used to analyse what
certain things mean in media and if they
have any hidden meanings behind what
they actually are. For example the
colour red can be used to represent love
and happiness and the colour black can
be used to represent evil and bad.

8. MEDIA LANGUAGE: KEY IDEAS
Media language is useful because if yo are making a
film front cover and it is about love or dating you can
include certain things that have a deeper meaning for
example to have the background as a red colour this
shows love, to include a rose this represents passion,
so using media language helps to present certain
themes.
There are three categories of media language:
Technical: camera angles
Symbolic: objects, clothing and setting
Written: slogan, words included

9. REPRESENTATION DEFINITION
Media representations are the ways in
which the media portrays particular
groups. The groups include gender,
ethnicity, age, and disability. They are all
represented in some way, and are all
different.

10. REPRESENTATION: KEY IDEAS
Sometimes the way people are represented in media
is seen as unfair and not right, for example blonde
women are shown as very dumb and stupid whereas
brunette women are shown as intelligent and funny,
people think that this isn’t fair because the way you
look shouldn’t represent how you are.
Another way people find some representations unfair
is that a lot of men in television etc are presented in a
bad way which isn't right because gender shouldn’t
show you are a bad person.

11. RELATION TO GAME SHOWS
All of the key concepts are important in game
shows because without them the producers
etc cannot determine who the show is
targeted for, they can’t know what the norms
are if the show has come from a spin-off, they
don’t know what certain colours or objects to
use to create a theme, and they won’t know
what to include to make the show appeal to
certain people.