Reception Theory (part 2)

Stuart Hall identified three types of audience decoding the media text:

1. Dominant
2. Negotiated
3. Oppositioned

DOMINANT

• Where the audience decodes the message as the producer wants them to do and broadly agrees with it.
• E.g Watching a political speech and agreeing with it.

NEGOTIATED

• Where the audience accepts, rejects or refines elements of the text in light of previously held views.
• E.g Neither agreeing or disagreeing with the political speech or being disinterested. 

OPPOSITINAL

• Where the dominant meaning recognised but rejected for cultural, political or ideological reasons.
• E.g Total rejection of the political speech and active opposition.