Audience theory
Reception theory
The reception theory states that the audience are an active audience who are engaged in understanding the preferred message of a media text. The theory states that there are three different types of audiences: preferred, negotiated and oppositional, and the way the audiences interpret the message encoded by the producer depends on the life experiences, mood at the time of viewing, age, culture, beliefs and gender of the audience.
1. The theory starts with the producer of the media text encoding the text with a message to convey to a mass audience. The message that I (as the producer) have encoded into my media text is that the media (and men) see women as being very unstable, however the end of my video shows that women can play up to this image and often act more outrageous then they actually are to attract attention from the media.
2. The message is then decoded by the audience. The preferred audience will interpret the message of the producer exactly how they wanted it to be interpreted. The negotiated audience will both agree and disagree with the message of the music video, for example they could agree that women can manipulate their own image to influence the opinions of the media, however they could disagree with the reason that they manipulate their own image for the medias opinion. The oppositional audience will completely disagree with the preferred reading of the producer, they could believe that artists do not choose to manipulate their own image, however it is the media that manipulates them.
An example of an oppositional audience misinterpreting a message would be in the case of Lady Gaga's meat dress:
Gaga intended the audience to interpret the message of her dress as supporting peoples right to fight for what they believe in, in particularly for her, her distaste for the US military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy. However her audience became oppositional and interpreted her message as fighting against animal cruelty.
1. The theory starts with the producer of the media text encoding the text with a message to convey to a mass audience. The message that I (as the producer) have encoded into my media text is that the media (and men) see women as being very unstable, however the end of my video shows that women can play up to this image and often act more outrageous then they actually are to attract attention from the media.
2. The message is then decoded by the audience. The preferred audience will interpret the message of the producer exactly how they wanted it to be interpreted. The negotiated audience will both agree and disagree with the message of the music video, for example they could agree that women can manipulate their own image to influence the opinions of the media, however they could disagree with the reason that they manipulate their own image for the medias opinion. The oppositional audience will completely disagree with the preferred reading of the producer, they could believe that artists do not choose to manipulate their own image, however it is the media that manipulates them.
An example of an oppositional audience misinterpreting a message would be in the case of Lady Gaga's meat dress:
Gaga intended the audience to interpret the message of her dress as supporting peoples right to fight for what they believe in, in particularly for her, her distaste for the US military's don't-ask-don't-tell policy. However her audience became oppositional and interpreted her message as fighting against animal cruelty.
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