Reception Theory - Stuart Hall

We've been looking at how to define our audience, so naturally we have been looking at different ways that an audience can perceive a media text.

One of these is shown in Stuart Hall's 'Reception Theory'. It states that producers encode a message/meaning into their productions that the audience then decodes when viewing the text. Hall also believed that things such as gender, ethnicity, social status and other cultural influences affected an audience member's reception of the text.

There are three ways that an audience can receive a media text:

• Preferred - Agreeing with the text's message and it's ideas, this is usually what the producer is trying to say.
• Negotiated - Partially agreeing and disagreeing with the product.
• Oppositional - Disagreeing with the message that is in the text.

Example: Micheal Jackson - Earth Song:

The producer's preferred meaning: The producer's preferred meaning was probably that the world needed looking after as well as the people and animals in it. he wanted people to see that he cared about the world and was a good guy.

The negotiated reading: People would agree the the world needs to be looked after and that people in it need to care for each other. however they may disagree with the fact that it is depicted as too easy such as to just stamp your foot and it fixes the world. 

The oppositional reading: He was a hypocrite as he travelled in a private jet, as well as the allegations that he was a child molester, which both go against the preferred meaning. he also seems to be depicted as some sort of powerful being like God of some form of Jesus.