RECEPTION THEORY

 RECEPTION THEORY: STUART HALL

His theory suggests that media texts contain a variety of messages that are created by producers and then understood by audiences. It is an active audience theory, which means that meaning is found in the text and then interpreted by the audience, compared to passive audience theories such as the hypodermic needle, assuming meaning is conveyed directly from a media text. There are three types:

1. PREFERRED READING

Preferred reading is how creators want someone to respond, based on the meaning they had created. The way in which the original author intended the text to be recieved based on the meaning they had created.

2. NEGOTIATED READING

Negotiated/contested reading where some part of preferred reading is rejected or not recognized. The audience agrees with some parts but reject other.

3. OPPOSITIONAL READING

Oppositional reading consciously rejecting or mostly not recognizing preferred reading. The conscious or subconscious rejection of the authors preferred reading

An example of this would be Taylor Swift’s music video for Bad Blood. The preferred reading of the video would be for the audience to accept the representation of Swift’s star persona. That she is a strong independent female and an influential popular culture icon. An oppositional reading might be that the representations of females are overly sexualised, and appeal to the male gaze (Laura Mulvey).

A negotiated reading or otherwise known as a contested reading would be viewing her as the empowering figure she is presented as while still acknowledging the video creates unrealistic standards.

Encoding and Decoding:

The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended.

The hypodermic needle model:

The hypordermic needle model believes that the media can have a direct and immediate effect on the audience. This model sees the audience as a 'homogeneous mass' (all the same), as passive and believing what they see in the media without questioning the content, therefore it is a passive audience theory.