In the game show Take Me Out, women are often objectified as 20 women must choose whether a man will select them based solely on their physical appearance. While some game shows aim to appeal to audiences through stereotypes, media producers must consider factors like age, gender, income and interests to effectively reach their target demographic. Representation in media can influence audience perceptions.

1. Gender representation-
In some game shows woman are often presented
as objects. A well known Game show which
supports this view is Take Me Out. In this show
there is one man who has to choose between
about 20 women. The women get to know
everything about the man whereas the man
doesn’t know anything about them and so
chooses between them by their looks. Some
people might not like this concept.
Values and ideologies are transmitted through the representations in media texts.
Representation = understanding the choices that are made when
it comes to portraying something/ someone.
• When representing a person, media texts often focus on their
age, gender, race, status, occupation, nationality.
• “stereotypes” can be made when constructing characters to
enhance certain features of their personality /appearance.
Media producers know that visual representation is a very powerful
tool when it comes to persuading your audience what to think about
a topic.
Host:
The host is a very important choice to make for a game
show because it is what the audience will most likely
identify it with. In common scenarios the host is normally
well known already. This could encourage more people to
watch the show as they might like the presenter.

2. A general way of labelling audiences is to use a letter code to show
their income group:
If the media producers know the age, gender, race, location and
income bracket they can begin to present the game show to appeal to
a group with known reading/ viewing/ listening habits.
These are the factors which helps the producers
in knowing the audiences reactions:
The producers need to make sure that it reaches the suitable audience by radio, tv, ads, trailers, posters, promotional
interviews, merchandising.
• Audience theory describes different ways of thinking about the audience.
• Audience research tries to produce evidence about the relationships between media and audiences.

3. • Uses and gratifications
• Instead of researching what the media do to the audience, this approach studies what the audience does with the
media. This approach also takes account of people’s personalities and personal needs.
• The audience is seen as active, and reasonably intelligent. Life experience in general is regarded as more influential
than experience of media. The pleasures that the media offer audiences are not regarded as negative!
Too much optimism about the
‘power’ and ‘choices’ of an active audience can distract us from the power certain texts have, or the influence that
media institutions and ownership may have on texts and understandings.

4. Verbal Language- How the language is
delivered and its context used are important
factors un the way meaning is generated for
the audience.
Visual Language- What is on the screen
has been chosen specifically to generate a
series of effects and meanings (semiotics).
Specific camera angles and movement are
chosen to tell the story and meaning of that
scene.
Non-verbal Language- This is in terms of
body gestures and actions. The meaning
received by the audience is seen through how
the actor uses their body.
Codes and conventions:
• Codes are systems of signs, which create meaning. Codes can be divided
into two categories -Technical and symbolic.
• Technical codes are all the ways in which equipment is used to tell the
story in a media text, eg. The camera work in a film.
• Symbolic codes show what is beneath the surface of what we see. For
example, a character's actions show you how the character is feeling.
• Some codes fit both categories – music for example, is both technical and
symbolic.
• Conventions are the commonly accepted ways of doing something. There
are general conventions in any medium, such as the use of interviewee
quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific.
• Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre – it is not
enough to discuss a technical code used such as camera work, without
saying how it is conventionally used in a genre. For example, the technical
code of lighting is used in some way in all film genres. It is a convention of
the horror genre that side and back lighting is used to create mystery and
suspense – an integral part of any horror movie.

5. • An institution is an organisation or company, public or privately owned hat produces and/or distributes media
products.
• The institutions who produce game shows are: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, etc.
• Powerful institutions can influence the attitudes, interests, beliefs and desires of people on a world scale.
• They relate to the production of meaning and as they highlight the relationship between media and society.
• Differing views on the practices and products of media institutions throw up contradictions.