Reception Theory

Stuart Hall

• Active audiences with individual differences
• Questions why different people interpret media content in different ways
• Idea that the media producer will encode the text in a certain way to convey a message
• Considers that the audience is an essential element in the creative process
• Explains that the audience interprets a media text according to their individual life experience, cultural background, social statuses, etc.
• The meaning of a media text is created within the relationship between the text and the reader

Stuart Hall argues that the process of representation itself forms the world it aims to represent, and explores how the shared language of a culture - i.e. its signs and images - provide a "conceptual roadmap" that gives meaning to the world, rather than simply reflecting it.

According to Hall, audiences 'read' media texts in three different ways:

Preferred/Dominant Reading

Individuals accept the reading that the producer of the text intended for the audience to have

For example, someone who likes McDonald's will see an advert for McDonald's and think that it looked really good, and may choose to eat there as a result.



Oppositional Reading

Individuals do not share the view of the text, and therefore, oppose what the producer wanted them to think

For example, someone such as a vegan, or an athlete, may see a McDonald's advert and think that it looked disgusting, which is obviously not what the producers of the advert intended for the meaning to be.



Negotiated Reading

Individuals accept some of the preferred reading of the text, but may modify it so that it reflects their own opinions and experiences

For example, someone who likes McDonald's, but knows that it isn't very healthy, may think that it looked really good, but they will only go and eat there occasionally.

The Hypodermic Syringe Theory

• 1920's
• Explains how mass media influences audiences
• Idea that information is 'injected' into the brains of passive audiences
• Assumes that everyone is the same - no individual differences
• Media content forced on mass audience who are believed to decode messages uniformally

Criticisms

• Theory is outdated
• Theory does not consider the fact that the mass audience is made up of individuals from different cultural backgrounds, social statuses, occupations, etc.
• Therefore not all audiences can be engaged or appealed to
• Modern advances in technology mean that audiences can clarify pieces of information through a number of resources
• This means that the mass audience is now almost independent of the mass media

Two Step Flow Model

• 1940s
• Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson & Hazel Gaudet
• Development of the Hypodermic Syringe Theory
• Takes into consideration that communication is a complex process
• Idea that we are more likely to be influenced by other people than the mass media
• These people are known as 'opinion leaders'
• Theory suggests that opinion leaders pay close attention to the mass media, and pass on their interpretation of these media messages onto others

Criticisms

• Opinion leaders are very dependent upon the mass media
• Opinion leaders are likely to intepret media content in a baised way, according to their personal influences and background
• Therefore, by the time media content reachers the 'opinion seekers', it may have lost its value

Uses & Gratifications Theory

• 1974
• Blumler & Katz
• Developed from theory by Lasswell in 1948
• Idea that people have various needs and they decide how to satisfy these needs, using the media
• Active audience, rather than passive audience

Criticisms

• The relationships we form with media icons are only mental relationships
• The mass audience do not always use the media
• Does not take into consideration society as a whole, only focuses on individual needs