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RECEPTION THEORY

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Theories of Communication ­ MCM 511
VU
LESSON 40
RECEPTION THEORY
At the same time that audience-centered theory was attracting the attention of U.S. empirical social
researcher, British cultural studies researchers were developing a different but compatible perspective
on audience activity.
Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary cultural studies headed by Stuart Hall is most
prominent in this regard. Hall argued that the researchers should direct their attention toward:
·  Analysis of that social and political context in which content is produced (encoding)
·  The consumption of media content
The essence of the reception approach is to locate the attribution and construction of meaning (derived
from media) with the receiver. Media messages are always open and polysemic (having multiple
meanings) and are interpreted according the context and culture of receivers.
Stuart Hall emphasized the stages of transformation through which any media message passes on the
way from its origins to its reception and interpretation. It drew from the basic principles of structuralism
and semiology which presumed that any meaningful message is constructed from sign which can have
denotative and connotative meanings, depending on the choices made by an encoder.
He accepted some of the elements of semiology on these two grounds:
First, communicators choose to encode messages.
For ideological and institutional communicators choose to encode messages for ideological and
institutional purposes and manipulate language and media for those ends (media messages are given a
preferred reading, or what might now be called spin.
Secondly, receivers (decoders) are not obliged to accept messages as sent but can and do resist
ideological influence by applying variant or oppositional readings, according to their own experience
and outlook
In laying out his views about decoding, Hall proposed an approach to audience research that has come
to be known as reception studies or reception analysis.
A central feature of this approach is its focus on how various types of audience members make sense of
the specific forms of content.
Hall drew on Semiotic theory to argue that any media content can be regarded as a text that is made up
of signs , these signs are structured; that is , they are related to one another in specific ways to make
sense of a text- to read a text- you have to be able to interpret the signs and their structure. Example
when you read a sentence you must not only decode the individual words but you also need to interpret
the over-all structure of the sentence to make sense of the sentence as a whole.
Hall argued that most texts can be read in several ways but there is generally a preferred or dominant
reading that the producers of a message intend when they create a message, as a critical theorist, Hall
assumed that most popular media content will have a preferred reading that reinforces the status
quo.
But in addition to this dominant reading, it is possible for audience members to make alternate
interpretations.
They might disagree with or misinterpret some aspects of a message and come up with an alternative or
negotiated meaning that differs from the preferred reading in important ways, and...
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Theories of Communication ­ MCM 511
VU
In some cases audiences might develop interpretations that are in direct opposition to a dominant
reading. In that case, they are said to engage in oppositional decoding.
So media reception research emphasized the study of audiences as sets of people with unique, though
often shared, experiences as in charge of their own lives.
The main features of the culturalist tradition of audience research can be summarized as follows:-
The media text has to be read through the perceptions of its audience, which constructs meanings and
pleasures from the media texts offered.
The very process of media use as a set of practices and the way in which it unfolds are the central object
of interest.
Audiences for particular genres often comprise "interpretative communities" which share much the
same experience, forms of discourse and frameworks for making sense of media.
Audiences are never passive, nor are their members all equal, since some will be more experienced, or
more active fans than others.
Methods have to be qualitative and deep, often ethnographic, taking account of content, act of reception
and context together.
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Table of Contents:
  1. COMMUNICATION:Nature of communication, Transactional approach, Communication is symbolic:
  2. THEORY, PARADIGM AND MODEL (I):Positivistic Perspective, Critical Perspective
  3. THEORY, PARADIGM AND MODEL (II):Empirical problems, Conceptual problems
  4. FROM COMMUNICATION TO MASS COMMUNICATION MODELS:Channel
  5. NORMATIVE THEORIES:Authoritarian Theory, Libertarian Theory, Limitations
  6. HUTCHINS COMMISSION ON FREEDOM, CHICAGO SCHOOL & BASIC PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THEORY
  7. CIVIC JOURNALISM, DEVELOPMENT MEDIA THEORY & DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPANT THEORY
  8. LIMITATIONS OF THE PRESS THEORY:Concentration and monopoly, Commercialism
  9. MCQUAIL’S FOUR KINDS OF THEORIES:Social scientific theory, Critical theory
  10. PROPAGANDA THEORIES:Origin of Propaganda, Engineering of Consent, Behaviorism
  11. PARADIGM SHIFT & TWO STEP FLOW OF INFORMATION
  12. MIDDLE RANGE THEORIES:Background, Functional Analysis Approach, Elite Pluralism
  13. KLAPPER’S PHENOMENSITIC THEORY:Klapper’s Generalizations, Criticism
  14. DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION THEORY:Innovators, Early adopters
  15. CHALLENGING THE DOMINANT PARADIGM:Catharsis Social learning Social cognitive theory
  16. SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEROY:Symbolizing Capacity, MODELLING
  17. MODELING FROM MASS MEDIA:Recent research, Summary, PRIMING EFFECTS
  18. PRIMING EFFECT:Conceptual Roots, Perceived meaning, Percieved justifiability
  19. CULTIVATION OF PERCEPTIONS OF SOCIAL REALITY:History
  20. SYSTEMS THEORIES OF COMMUNICATION PROCESSES:System
  21. EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL & CULTURAL THEORIES OF MASS COMMUNICATION
  22. REVISION:Positivistic perspective, Interpretive Perspective, Inductive approach
  23. CRITICAL THEORIES & ROLE OF MASS COMMUNICATION IN A SOCIETY -THE MEDIATION OF SOCIAL RELATIONS
  24. ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN SOCIAL ORDER & MARXIST THEORY:Positive View
  25. KEY PRINCIPLES USED IN MARXISM:Materialism, Class Struggle, Superstructure
  26. CONSUMER SOCIETY:Role of mass media in alienation, Summary of Marxism
  27. COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE:Neo Marxism, Characteristics of Culture
  28. HEGEMONY:What exactly is the meaning of "hegemony"?
  29. CULTURE INDUSTRY:Gramscianism on Communications Matters
  30. POLITICAL ECONOMIC THEORY I:Internationalization, Vertical Integration
  31. POLITICAL ECONOMIC THEORY II:Diversification, Instrumental
  32. POLITICAL ECONOMIC THEORY III:Criticism, Power of Advertising
  33. AGENDA SETTING THEORY:A change in thinking, First empirical test
  34. FRAMING & SPIRAL OF SILENCE:Spiral of Silence, Assessing public opinion
  35. SPIRAL OF SILENCE:Fear of isolation, Assessing public opinion, Micro-level
  36. MARSHALL MCLUHAN: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE AND MASSAGE
  37. KNOWLEDGE GAP THEORY:Criticism on Marshal McLuhan
  38. MEDIA SYSTEM DEPENDENCY THEORY:Media System Dependency Theory
  39. USES AND GRATIFICATIONS THEORY:Methods
  40. RECEPTION THEORY
  41. FRAMING AND FRAME ANALYSIS:Information Processing Theory, Summing up
  42. TRENDS IN MASS COMMUNICATION I:Communication Science, Direct channels
  43. TRENDS IN MASS COMMUNICATION II:Communication Maxims, Emotions
  44. GLOBALIZATION AND MEDIA:Mediated Communication, Post Modernism
  45. REVISION:Microscopic Theories, Mediation of Social Relations