I now wanted to look into the basics about how I want my videos to come across to my audience so I thought I would do some reception theory.
The reception theory was developed by Stuart Hall he speaks about how audiences reads messages that producers encode into their media. Different people decode these messages in different ways and sometimes the messages aren’t always read in the way the producer originally intended. This is because audience react to certain things in different ways so depending on the content that is put out the reader will either ignore the information or take it in.
Stuart Hall states that the audience members adopt one of these three positions when they decode the messages the producers have encoded the three positions are dominant or preferred reading, oppositional and negatiated reading.
Dominant or preferred reading is how the producer wants the audience to view the media text. Audience members will take this position if the messages are clear and if the audience member is the same age and culture.
Oppositional Reading is when the audience rejects the preferred reading and creates there own meaning for the text. This happens when the media release controversial themes that the audience member disagrees with. This can all depend on whether the audience has different beliefs, different age or culture.
Negotiated Reading is a mix of dominant and oppositional reading, where the audience accepts parts of the producers views but also has there own personal views. This can happen when there is a combination of some of the messages above for example when the audience member likes the media, is of the same age as you and understands the message, but the narrative is complex and this inhabits full understanding.
Many different factors can affect whether the audience is a dominant, oppositional or negatiated reader these factors can be becaise of the age of a person, the beliefs, culture, gender, life experiences or mood at the time of viewing.
From researching the reception theory I have now learnt how I want my audience to decode the messages I want to put into the videos I produce so I want my readers to be preffered readers and I am going to try and do this by matching what my audience have said in the Primary Research on promotional videos, because if I match it to their expectations and needs of what they want to see then they will see the messages clearly which is what a preferred reader is.
Revisionworld.com. (2019). Reception Theory – Media Studies – Revision World. [online] Available at: https://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/media-studies-level-revision/reception-theory [Accessed 3 Mar. 2019].
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