Big Brother is analyzed in terms of its media language, ideology, and genre. The show features everyday language from its housemates and aims to provide insight into their lives while allowing viewers to root for favorites. However, the housemates know they are being filmed, which may influence their behavior. The show is largely successful in achieving the reality television genre of portraying real people in authentic situations. Representation in the show features mostly middle-class individuals, providing both positive and negative portrayals since people within a class are not uniform. The target demographic is viewed as those aged 16-30 who can most easily relate to the housemates.

1. Big Brother
M.I.G.R.A.I.N.E Analysis

2. Media Language – The show Big Brother has in a general application very little in
terms of media language, as the show is based on a group of people living together
in the ‘Big Brother House’. As such the show is a mixture of everyday and colloquial
language, with uses of slang and profanity throughout.
Ideology – The show’s purpose and ideology is to provide an insight into the lives of
everyday people of the population while allowing us to mock and simultaneously
root for our favourite member. The shows tries to provide viewers with a realistic
representation and for the most part it is successful, however, the house mates know
that they are being filmed and as a result may act differently, completely defeating
the purpose.
Genre – Big Brother is successful in achieving the sub-genres criteria of providing
real footage of real people in real situations, therefore being conforming to the genres
ideology and conforming to the ways in which the genre is predominantly filmed.
Representation – The aspect of representation in BB is somewhat confirmative and
rebellious in the way that people of certain classes are represented, for example the
main crop of people chosen within the show are middle class. This contains the
positive and negative representation because everyone within the class is different
therefore the actions of one person within the house cannot be generalised to
everyone of that class.

3. Audience – The audience for Big Brother is anyone that wants to watch the show,
however it could be argued that the target demographic is people of around 16-30, as
these ages will allow the largest amount of empathy between audience and the people
in the show.
Institution – The institution that has helped to create this show is Channel 4. This
institution has a good reputation for being less biased than some of the other channels
such as the bbc and as a result makes their programs more reliable in terms of
representation and opinions being expressed.
Narrative – The narrative is a mix of live speech from the housemates and a narrator
that sets the scene before cutting to the housemates. The omniscient narrator gives us a
location, time and date before showing us the housemates that are engaged in this
situation.
Economic/Social context – The economic and social context of Big Brother is varied in
the way that many social classes are represented within the show, however, the majority
of housemates will be middle class.