Reception theory

1) What are the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings for the RBK 50 Cent advert? 

Preferred reading-It suggests that people who have made bad choices in life are able to change their action. The use of the fingerprints do show that identity does stay with you physically. However the actions you do now can change who you are in the future.

Negotiated reading-The negotiated reading could be that Reebok presents 50 cents as a criminal or a gangster because of how he is dressed. However having a famous figure subverts this because 50 cents influences people into buying Reebok products.

Oppositional reading-People may be against this advert because it links to violence. As well as this people may interpreter that the violence and actions you commit display who you are in society. The use of the fingerprints practically display that your identity always stays with you.

2) What are the preferred, negotiated and oppositional readings for the advert of your own choice that you analysed for last week's work? 

Preferred reading-The burgers are big and very juicy. They are also appetising and are the perfect meal that people should eat. As well as this McDonalds is an established brand which would make people more likely to buy from them.

Negotiated reading-Burgers are being falsely advertised due to how they look in the advert compared to real life. However due to McDonalds being an established brand people are more likely to still buy the burgers because they are still delicious just not as big.

Oppositional reading-People can incompletely disagree with the looks of the burger. This is because of social media exposing adverts. This completely changes peoples views because it causes them to know that the burgers are false advertising and are just big unhealthy greasy things.

Part 2) Reception theory factsheet #218

Use our extremely useful A Level Media Factsheet archive to find Factsheet #218 Spotlight on Stuart Hall: Encoding, Decoding and Reception Theory. Read the factsheet and complete the following tasks and questions:

1) Complete Activity 1 on page 2 of the factsheet. Choose a media text you have enjoyed and apply the sender-message-channel-receiver model to the text. There is an example of how to do this in the factsheet (the freediving YouTube video).

2) What are the definitions of 'encoding' and 'decoding'? 

Encoding- the process by which media creators and producers translate their intended meanings and ideologies into a media message 

Decoding-the audience's process of interpreting and making meaning from a media message

3) Why did Stuart Hall criticise the sender-message-channel-receiver model?

for its oversimplification and passivity, arguing it failed to account for the complex, socially situated nature of communication

4) What was Hall's circuit of communication model? Implying Oversimplification and Passivity

5) What does the factsheet say about Hall's Reception theory?

One of Hall’s best-known ideas to emerge from his encoding/decoding model is his contribution to Reception Theory, which challenged the idea that audiences all understood media texts in a broadly similar way. It’s a way of exploring connections and relationships in the decoding process, the ‘non-linear’ processes between the construction of representations and audience interpretations of them.

6) Look at the final page. How does it suggest Reception theory could be criticised?

Some people have pointed out that Hall’s model assumes that everyone is able to recognise the dominant or hegemonic reading. We don’t know for certain whether this is always the case.