Audience reception theory

Audience Reception Theory

History of audience reception theory.

Stuart Hall's "Encoding-Decoding" model of communication essentially states that meaning is encoded by the sender and decoded by the receiver and that these encoded meanings may be decoded to mean something else. That is to mean, the senders encode meaning in their messages according to their ideals and views and the messages are decoded by the receivers according to their own ideals and views, which may lead to miscommunication or to the receiver understanding something very different from what the sender intended. (Hall 1993, 91) Hall says that there are three different positions audiences (receivers) take in order to decode the meanings within cultural texts, particularly televisual discourses. They are the dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position and the oppositional position. (Hall 1993, 101) The dominant-hegemonic position is when the viewer, or audience member, is located within the dominant point of view. (Hall 1993, 101) Within this position, there is little misunderstanding and miscommunication, as both sender and receiver are working under the same rule set, assumptions and cultural biases. It is this position that will allow the transmission of ideas to be understood the best, despite certain frictions that may occur due to issues of class structure and power, specifically between the elites who are able to dictate the rule set and the non-elites who must adopt.

Encoding and Decoding Music videos

Dolce & Gabbana
With certain campaigns encouraging consumers to buy the brand's product, this is how various audiences would react:

Preferred Reading: if you buy it you'd feel sexy whether you're a man or woman

Negotiated Reading: the viewer may like the perfume but doesn't like the brand's messages of feeling sexy

Oppositional Reading: the viewer doesn't like the perfume or the brand because it demoralises/ sexualises women (feminist view)

The target audience will always have a preferred reading. They accept all messages and decode the text in the way that was intended. Usually the secondary audience will decode a negotiated reading  and parents/ audiences who hate the music genre will have an oppositional reading


                                              Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds

Preferred Reading: the target audience (huge number of fans) would think the music video really compliments the song

Negotiated Reading: the secondary audience may think the song is nice but don't understand the meaning of the video because it does not appeal to them.

Oppositional Reading:  parents would think the artist is dressed inappropriately with her low plunge top, so it causes us to focus on her sexuality rather than her talent, this will not be shown as a good role model for young children and this might put parents off.



                                                         Iggy Azalea - Bounce

Preferred Reading: the target audience (massive fans) would think the style of the music video

Negotiated Reading: the secondary audience may like the video but don't understand how it correlates with the song

Oppositional Reading: parents would think that women are degraded to sexual objects with the provocative choice of clothing, bad influences on their children