Audience response, reception theory and media effects

Overview

Oppositional reading of an advertisement, george Gerbner's cultivation theory and mean world syndrome.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What three readings does Stuart Hall identify in his encoding and decoding model?

   Model answer

   Hall identifies a dominant or preferred reading, a negotiated reading and an oppositional reading.

2. 2

   Explain what a preferred reading is.

   Model answer

   A preferred reading is the interpretation the producer intended and encoded into the product, and which the audience then accepts.

3. 3

   Explain what a negotiated reading is.

   Model answer

   A negotiated reading is one in which the audience broadly accepts the product's message but adjusts it to fit their own experience or circumstances.

4. 4

   Give an example of an oppositional reading of an advertisement.

   Model answer

   A viewer who understands a luxury car advertisement perfectly well but reads it as an offensive display of wealth during a time of hardship has made an oppositional reading.

5. 5

   Why does Hall's model say that meaning is not fixed by the producer?

   Model answer

   Encoding and decoding are separate moments carried out by different people with different resources, so the meaning taken out need not be the meaning put in.

6. 6

   What is George Gerbner's cultivation theory?

   Model answer

   Cultivation theory argues that long-term repeated exposure to consistent media messages gradually shapes an audience's beliefs about what the real world is like.

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