Reception Theory

Reception theory is a study of how producers when producing films etc encode texts and how the audience decode the texts. It is based on the idea that there is no single meaning for any media text and focuses on what people see and then the meanings they produce from what they see.

Preffered meaning is what producers want you to understand and get, this is the message they are giving out. However anybody can have different interpretations depending on age, gender, social status and social context.

Sometimes the audience may correctly decode the message, however they may also reject the message or fail to understand the message.

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings of the text.

1. Dominant / Preferred
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositional






1. Dominant/Preferred
- This is when the audience decodes the message just like the producer wants them to and agrees with it. For example listening to a speech and agreeing with it.

2. Negotiated
- This is when the audience either accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text. For example neither agreeing or disagreeing with the speech.

3. Oppositional 
- This is when the dominant meaning is recognized but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons. For example total rejection of the speech and active opposition; feminists reading a lads magazine.


Our Video
Based on our audience feedback we have a dominant/preferred reading. Our audience understood the message clearly and knew what the song was about and the message that the video was trying to get across.