Stuart Hall's Reception Theory

Another audience theory is: Stuart Hall's 'Reception Theory'. 

The main concept of Hall's theory is that every media product needs an active audience that is actively engaged in the media product they are consuming (as oppose to the 'Hypodermic Needle Theory' mentioned earlier in 'Applying Theory' blog post, that suggests a passive audience). The theory suggests that individuals may receive and interpret these media texts in different ways, rather than the way the producer may want them to.
Hall suggests that messages in media texts are encoded by the producer (as the producer puts certain values and ideologies in their texts) and decoded by the consumer. However, not all audiences will decode these messages in the same way, and they will not always decode it in the way the producer intended. 

Reception Theory suggests that there are 3 ways an audience can decode a text:

• Dominant/Preferred (this type of audience completely agree and accept the message the producer encodes)
• Negotiated (agree with some, but disagree with some of the encoded messages- this audience will have their own views on certain areas)
• Oppositional (this type of audience completely disagree with the encoded messages and create their own, new meaning for the text)

Hall's theory also states that there are several sociological factors that may affect how an individual decodes the message in the media text:

• Life experience
• Mood at time of viewing
• Age
• Culture
• Beliefs
• Gender

Although I earlier agreed with the Hypodermic Needle Theory saying that a music video is a good way to send subtle messages to my audience, I will ensure  that when I make my music video the messages I want to convey to my audience may be received in the 'preferred' way, however, I will also accept that my audience are all individuals and will react to the video, and the decoded messages within this video, in different ways, and may or may not accept the messages I have encoded. And if they do not accept the messages portrayed then they might decide to create their own meanings and decode their own messages from this video. I will use my audience research, that will be carried out after my final video is complete, to establish whether or not my intended encoded messages were decoded with the preferred meaning by the audience, or whether I can apply this theory and say that audience's are active and can create their own messages from a media text. 

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