Audience Reception Encoding Decoding Model

What is audience reception?

•Audiences receive and respond to texts very differently. The different effects generate varied responses.

•It is a way to characterise and group together different audience (consumer) interpretations.

•Audience reception = the way we react

Encoding Decoding Theory• Stuart Hall, 1973

• Producers encode meaning/ideology into texts, which audiences decode

• Audiences are active in their interpretations and can accept/reject the producers message.

• ENCODE : meaning, ideology • DECODE : ???

Encoding Decoding Model

Producers ‘ENCODE’

Put meaning into a text

THE TEXT(Music Videos,

Adverts, TV, Film)

Audiences‘DECODE’

Take meaning out of the text

Encoding Decoding Theory• Texts can be decoded by body language to understand

emotion/relationships.

• They have multiple meanings and can be decoded in various ways. The messages can mean something different to different people.

Encoding Decoding Theory• Preferred Reading – audiences agree and accept what the

producers are encoding

• Negotiated Reading – audiences partially agree with the encoded messages

• Oppositional Reading – audiences reject/disagree or decode the text differently

Age, Gender, Cultural Experiences

David Morley

Audience Readings – Macdonald’s Advert

• Preferred Reading

• Intended to encourage feelings of hunger and desire. Audiences will recall these feelings when passing by the big chain and want to buy some food

• Negotiated Reading

• Audiences will enjoy eating the products, but those who are health-conscious may respond with annoyance, but understand eating products once a month isn’t damaging.

Audience Readings – The Teletubbies 1997

• Oppositional Reading

• “He is purple – the gay pride colour; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle – the gay-pride symbol.”

• “Tinky Winky also carries a magic pink bag”

• “Modeling the gay lifestyle is damaging to the moral lives of children”

Audience Reading Activity

Think about how the mis-en-scene may have an impact…

Encoding Decoding Music Videos

• Managers encode artists (i.e. The Spice Girls, The Pussycat Dolls, JLS) with specific ideology.

This is ultimately to increase financial gain.

• The target audience will always have a preferred reading. They accept all messages and decode the text in the way that was intended.

• Usually the secondary audience will decode a negotiated reading.

• Parents/audiences who hate the music genre will have an oppositional reading.

Encoding Decoding Music Videos

• Think about how the producers have encoded the music video and how it may be decoded.

• What would be a preferred reading of the text? Why?

• What would be a negotiated reading of the text? Why?

• What would be a oppositional reading of the text? Why?

• What is your reading of the text? Why?

Blog Task• What is audience theory?• What is Hall’s Encoding Decoding Model?

Provide examples of how one may decode pictures differently.• Discuss Morley’s audience reception theory and

use the advert examples we discussed• How is the Encoding Decoding Model relevant to

music videos? Discuss the three readings in relation to two music videos. Choose a genre/artist you like/a genre/artist you don’t like.