Report l03
Report l03
forced ideas upon them; an example of it is that the audience might read a textbook in
school about a maths question that hints at subtle themes, like Nazism so they dont
know it is happening to them because you wouldnt expect to find this within a maths
question.
Reception Study
The reception theory was discovered in the late 1960s by Robert Jauss and then
developed by Stuart Hall.
The idea of the reception study theory is that there is a hidden meaning or code in the
media that is given out my advertisers and content producers and is uncovered and
understood by the audience that read about it. Sometimes the audience understand the
message the producer aimed to convey but other times it can be misunderstood or they
can reject it, failing to interpret it.
An example of the reception study is a case where a gang of teenagers; Allan Bentley,
Mark Mc-Keefrey, and Graham Neary committed the murder of Michael Moss that was
said to have been a re-creation of the scene in Reservoir Dogs . This demonstrates the
reception study because it shows a piece of media (Reservoir Dogs) being misinterpreted
by the youth who believe that because they have seen it in a film, they can do what they
have seen to someone. This wasnt the intention of the film but it shows that some fail to
interpret it as a fictional film, getting it confused with reality.
Hall is a theorist that came up with the idea that there are three ways the audience can
react to the media; dominant, oppositional or negotiated. Dominant is where understand
the message and they completely agree with it, negotiated is where they accept parts of
it and disagree with other parts, purifying it to believe sections of it they want and
oppositional is where they understand it but completely oppose the message.
The reception theory is an example of an active response because the audience really
consider and question the message to make their own mind up about what they are
being told.
Pros
The reception theory is good because it helps to study how different groups respond the
messages given to them in the media. It also analyses how different groups react to
media differently so producers know how to target different demographic groups, it
inspires creativity in media production. This theory also gives the consumers more
power, rather just being injected with ideas and leads to believe them, it gives people a
voice.
Stuart Hall agrees since he believes that the reception theory is a form of textual analysis
where the audience will either respond with "negotiation" or "opposition. So a book or
film will either be interpreted based on that persons beliefs or rejected.
Cons
Some people argue that being tested and researched might affect peoples views and
how they respond to it which they think makes it unreliable and some think that
controlling variables can be difficult so it is hard to be exact in their research.
Charles Pierce believes that there isnt a difference between someones consciousness
self and how conscious something is outside themselves, like a text, advertisement or
film, therefore he thinks the reception theory is untrue as there isnt a difference
between a persons subjective reading or media and their interpretation of media.