Reception Theory

Stuart halls ‘Reception Theory’

Here Stuart Hall believes we are part of an active audience which actively engage in the interpretation of media texts. He believes in media one message sent out but more than one understanding is made from the text. Depending on who we are depends on how the media text can be consumed and what meaning we create from the text.

Stuart Hall studies ‘semiotics’ and the way we decode a text and how the producer has encoded it.

They are encoded by the producer and are full of ideologies, values and messages that the producer wanted the audience to perceive them on. However us as an audience will decode the text depending on what audience it is not all audiences will decode and react to the media in the same way, in some cases it may be different to the producers idea.

Preferred reading is meant when a text is encoded with a meaning that the audience should interpret from the media they are given. When the audience are consuming a text they will Recognise codes and conventions and draw upon their audience expectations. These are factors such as genre and use of mise en scene etc. The producers can almost kid the audience and consequently produce a certain amount of agreement on what the text means.

There are several different types of audiences, these are:

·         Dominator preferred who agree with the message and decode it how the producer has wanted them too.

·          Negotiated this audience may agree with parts however hold their own opinions on other parts within the text.

·          Oppositional they Don’t agree with the message the producer is trying to put across.

An audience will interpret the media in tersm of certain factors these are:

· Life experience

· Mood at the time of viewing

· Age

· Culture

· Beliefs

· Gender