AUDIENCE THEORY #1 - Stuart Hall's Reception Theory

Stuart Hall developed three readings when talking about how meaning is encoded in a media text by the producers and decoded by an audience.

1. Preferred Reading
2. Negotiated Reading
3. Oppositional Reading

EXAMPLES:

In a scene from Repo Man, a character says the word: "Gringo"

I don't speak Spanish, but I do know that gringo is a Spanish slang (insult) term for Caucasians (due to a Mexican character using it in an audio series I listened to as a child). 

So while I can't follow the preferred reading like someone who can speak Spanish fluently, and might detect signifiers of regional identity, I still understand some of what is being said here. Someone who does not know this term or any Spanish at all will have an oppositional reading towards this line, where as I have a form of negotiated reading.

These two YouTubers show the two alternatives, different readings on the content, in this case verisimilitude of the text, on the other moral issues



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