Reception Theory

Reception Theory



Stuart Hall is a professor who analysed media texts stating that they are encoded and decoded. The producer of the media texts encodes different messages while the audience decodes them. Different audience members will decode the media texts in different ways than the producer intended.

Hall established three key concepts to understand how different people read media texts.
These are:

Dominant or preferred reading: This relates to how the producer wants the audience to read the text. If there are themes that are relevant to audience members in the media text, they are more likely to comprehend what the text is about.

Oppositional reading: When the audience constructs their own version of the text rather than following the producer’s intentions and narrative. This is likely to occur when the texts have controversial messages or if the text is ambiguous. It may also occur if the beliefs of  audience members contradict the media text.

Negotiated reading: When the audience follow the producer’s intentions as well as creating their own version of the media text.


Age, beliefs, culture, gender, life experiences and mood can all determine how someone is to view a media text.


No text has one single meaning.


"In essence, the meaning of the text is not inherent within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between the text and the reader."




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