Reception theory

 Part 1) Applying Reception theory to adverts

Look back at the adverts you have been analyzing in last week's lessons on Reading an Image and media codes (RBK 50 Cent and one of your choice). 

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

Preferred: The advert connotes the idea that you shouldn't be judged for what you have or what you're wearing. Value the present because you don't know what will happen in the future.

Negotiated: People might take value in their life however they may still judge people who wear Reebok

Oppositional: Reebok is a clothing brand made for the lower class because people might assume that 50 cent is a criminal due to the format of the advert. 

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

Preferred: Coca-cola is worse than Pepsi as they are presented as an antagonistic monster

Negotiated: Both adverts compare each other over who can get more sales from the adverts

Oppositional: Coca-cola is better than Pepsi as the Pepsi can wears a coca-cola cape  prop like its a hero

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).

Lanterns

Sender- Chris Mundy, Damon Lindelof and Tom King

Message- A 47-57 minute dark, grounded HBO superhero mystery series set within the Dc universe styled like a gritty "buddy-cop" crime drama.

Channel- HBO (streaming service) and the internet 

Receiver- People who like superheros, drama and mystery shows 

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

Encoding- Constructing a message using a shared code and language.

Decoding- When someone else analyses and understands the media message.

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

. He didn’t believe that the ‘message’ had a fixed meaning

.  He thought there was more nonsense to their relationship with

   the text as a cultural product and its producers.

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

The different ‘moments’ in the process could feed back into each other. They could work independently off one another in the construction of meaning and the uses audiences make of what they consume would vary.

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

The theory challenged the idea that audiences all understood media texts in a 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 criticized?

Hall’s model assumes that everyone is able to recognise the dominant reading. We don’t know for certain whether this is always the case.