Reception TheoryTom and Lilly

What is the reception theory?

• Reception theory is a version of reader response literary theory that emphasizes the

reader's reception of a literary text.

The Reception theory suggests:

• - When a producer constructs a text it is encoded with a meaning or message that the producer wishes to convey to the audience.

• In some instances audiences will correctly decode the message or meaning and understand what the producer was trying to say.

• In other cases the audiences will either reject or fail to correctly understand the message.

Stuart Hall

• Stuart Hall identified three types of audience readings (or decoding) of the text.

• DOMINANT OR PREFERRED• NEGOTIATED• OPPOSITIONAL

DOMINANT

• Where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it.

NEGOTIATED

• Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in the light of previously held views.

OPPOSITIONAL

• Where the dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.

1. The consumption of media texts has an EFFECT or INFLUENCE upon the audience.

2. Audiences are PASSIVE and powerless to prevent the influence.

3. The power lies with the MESSAGE of the text.