The reception theory

The reception theory is a theory that insinuates people receive and have different emotions towards a media text depending on their background, their culture and their life experiences.

This approach focuses on the scope of negotiation and opposition on the audiences part. This means a media text is not simply passively accepted by the audiences. The meaning of the text depends on what relationship forms between the audience and the text.

There are three main responses that are part of the reception theory:

Dominant: The reader fully shares the texts code and accepts and reproduces the preferred reading. They accept the thoughts and feelings presented by the director.

Negotiated reading: The audience shares the texts code and broadly accepts the media text. However sometimes resist and modifies it in a way that reflects their own situation, experiences and interests.

 Oppositional: When an audiences social situation places them in direct opposition with the ideas presented and reject the media texts completely.