Key concepts in media

When looking at the media from a production aspect, i soon learnt media industries produce their goods and services to an audience, which is then questioned and often debated when compared to other patterns of industrial production. To summarise, one of the main aims of production is to advertise the particular product in some of the most popular industries which can range from film, fashion or music, in a creative and innovative way which will then appeal to an audience, promoting the product and therefore creating a profit.

We swfitly moved on to Consumption, which i could vaguely recall learning about in my previous A2 lessons. The concept of consumption generally means how media audiences consume media texts and services. An interesting and thought provoking idea that made me consider how much control the media can exercise on media consumers through the media production. The idea behind consumption is to engage the audience. A very obvious example of this is the vast amount of new media social networking sites that allow us to view videos, pictures, posts and updates, absorbing us into this virtual world of production, an escapism into what some may call a "better" world than our own.

Many of the media texts in todays society frequently portray and construct a range of identities through images and ideas in quite an obvious way to engage and create a reaction from an audience. Many of the ideas used convey various aspects and representations of locality, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality and "otherness". In most cases the media construct these images themselves. This is commonly seen in various television programmes, for example HollyOaks which provides a sterotypical range of characters with various personalities, looks and opinions which at least one character is relatable to for any individual member in an audience. This often unrealistic portrayal of chartacters can end up attracting a secondary audience such as parents who havent been specifically targeted, but due to the fact that teenagers are presented in this specific way it creates a twisted yet modern and eye opening presentation of todays youth that can often interest an older generation.

Regulation is a critical and highly important aspect when practises are established to shape or encourage media production and media representation to occur in particular ways. Practises such as OFCOM provide strict and carefully selected rules and regulations for specific TV programmes to apply and abide to, reguading content, subject and viewing times for age regulated audiences. The audience can choose to regulate themselves by simply not watching certain programmes, whether this is because the genre/content does not appeal to them or because it may be found inappropriate and not to their sense of humour. By doing this the audience now becomes an active audience as they have chosen not to watch what the media is presenting to us where as a passive audience would believe what they are being told and allow the media to infiltrate their own thoughts,opinions, beliefs and views.