reception theory

Reception Theory- Stuart Hall 1980

The reception theory states that media texts are encoded by producers.
They are then decoded by the audience. but different viewers will decode the text in different ways.

The reception theory suggests 

• when a producer creates a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to get across to the audience.
• in some cases the audience will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say.
• in some instances the audience will fail or rejects to correctly understand the message.

Stuart Hall identified the three types of audience decoding

-Dominant or preferred

-Negotiated 

-Op-positional

1.Dominant

-how the producer wants the audience to view the text.

an example of this is watching a political speech and agreeing with it.

2.Negotiated
-is a compromise between the dominant and op-positional readings, where the audience accepts parts of the producers views, but also have their own views on parts.

an example of this is neither disagreeing or agreeing with the political speech.

3.Op-positional
-when the audience rejects the preferred reading, and creates their own opinion for the reading.

An example of this is total rejection of the political speech.

The factors that affect our view are-
-life experience
-mood at the time of viewing
-age
-culture
-beliefs
-gender

Homework

The audience may take a dominant view to a text because the message is clear to them. This means they will enjoy the text more because they are able to understand what his happening and keep up with the film. Another reason may be because the video may relate to the ages of the audience. This means they can relate to what his happening more because they be going or are going through what is happening. Another reason may also be because the audience like the particular genre of the film or video.

The audience may take a oppositional view because the themes of the film this may be because the audience disagree with the messages in the video. Another reason may be because the audience do not like the genre of the video. Also the audience may be a different age to the characters in the video therefore cannot connect with the video and enjoy it as much.

The audience may take a negotiated view because they may like the genre, be the same age of the characters, however the story and messages of the video are to complex for them to understand and follow, which will lead to the audience having this view.