Reception StudyCritical approaches

Reception Theory

Stuart Hall argued that all media, including film, TV & videos has a message.

He believed that producers encoded a message within their videos and viewers decoded the message

but he believed that different viewers decoded the message in different ways and with very different outcomes.

He believed that people have a relationship with media

This relationship was affected by many factors.

That relationship is affected by lots of different factors

Family

Culture

Nationality

ideology

The producer encodes a message into their video (or media)…

…and the audience decode the message

The audience decode the message in one of three ways

• Dominant• Negotiated • Oppositional

Dominant

• The audience decodes & accepts the message that the media producer intends.

Negotiated

• The viewer might accept parts (or all) of the intended message but also change it based on their bias and past experience.

Oppositional

• The viewer recognises the message but rejects it because they don’t agree with it

• This might be because of their ideology, social or cultural upbringing etc…)

Task 1

Log onto Moodle and go to this weeks critical approaches. Watch the two films and write about how you reacted to the message. How does repetition theory affect your response, and why?