Reception Theory

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

The preferred reading for this advert is one of confident and self-growth, saying Reebok products will help you "take advantage of today" and become better, by using 50 Cent as the face of the campaign. 

However, the oppositional reading for this advert may be that it glorifies gang violence by referencing 50 Cent's criminal past. Some people might see this as associating the brand Reebok with crime and gun violence.

The negotiated reading for this advert could be while it certainly references 50 Cent's past related to gun violence, it does not necessarily glorify it and rather it is used to demonstrate to the audience that anybody, from any ethnicity or socio-economic background, can rise up against any challenges they face and create a new life for themselves. There could be debate as to whether using 50 Cent's background from the hood as an edgy backdrop for this ad campaign is a good decision, but most audiences would understand the collaboration with 50 Cent as a normal celebrity ad campaign.

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

The preferred reading for this advert would probably be that Resident Evil is both a terrifying survival horror game that uses the fear created by suspense as its main story telling device, but also a well made game that would leave you with an experience worth paying for.

The oppositional reading for this advert could be that since it doesn't offer much information about the actual contents of the game aside from three photos of gameplay, Resident Evil wouldn't have any good story elements and would only make you feel scared. 

The negotiated reading for this advert could be that while many people wouldn't personally enjoy the idea of violence and the moral ambiguity of any actions they would have to take in-game to protect themselves, they can put those beliefs aside to have the experience of playing Resident Evil.

Part 2) Reception theory factsheet #218

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).

Media text I have enjoyed: 

Sender: The YouTuber and presenter Abigail Thorn and the team behind the Philosophy Tube channel

Message: The 39 minute audio-visual essay which explains the basic principles of stoicism, its history and criticisms of it

Channel: The YouTube channel itself, YouTube as a content-sharing service and the Internet

Receiver: The person watching the YouTube video 

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

Encoding is constructing a message using a shared code and language. 

Decoding is using that shared cultural understanding to understand the message. 

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

He did not believe that the message had a fixed meaning to be passively accepted by the receiver, but that meaning was instead dynamically produced depending on who received the message. He thought there was more nuance to their relationship with a text. 

4) What was Hall's circuit of communication model?

Production: Could include the technical skills and production methods, market research surrounding the intended audience, assumptions about who will be consuming the text.

Circulation: The way audiences encounter texts and perceive them, including media technologies, services and the ways producers reach audiences. A text that reaches its intended audience has been circulated successfully.

Distribution/Consumption: The point at which the audience ‘receive’ the text and interpret it, perhaps in varied ways, and ‘use’ the ideas they come across. Crucially, the makers of the text must construct its discourse in a way that makes sense to the audience based on previous experience, such as narrative and genre codes or reference to real world events – but what the audience do with these cannot be reliably predicted.

Reproduction: The way ideologies perpetuated through the audience’s acceptance of or engagement with them; the way the media and culture might shape their communication of ideas

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

Reception Theory tells us that there is a preferred/hegemonic reading (the one intended), a negotiated reading (where the preferred reading is only partially accepted) and an oppositional reading (where the intended reading is entirely rejected). 

Reception Theory also states that complex signs are polysemic, so encoding and decoding are linked to reception theory by emphasising the thought that all interpretations are flexible. 

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, which sometimes could not be the case.