12.2 Audience interpretation and negotiation of media messages

Audiences don't just passively absorb media messages. They actively interpret and make meaning based on their own experiences and cultural contexts. This shapes how people engage with and understand media content.

Different theories explore how audiences interact with media. These include active audience theory, encoding/decoding model, and uses and gratifications theory. Researchers use various methods to study how people receive and interpret media messages.

Audience Interpretation Models

Theories of Audience Engagement

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• Active audience theory proposes that audiences actively interpret and make meaning from media messages rather than passively absorbing them
• Encoding/decoding model suggests that media producers encode messages with a preferred meaning, but audiences can decode them in different ways based on their own experiences and cultural contexts (Stuart Hall)
• Uses and gratifications theory examines how and why individuals use media to fulfill specific needs and desires, such as information seeking, entertainment, or social interaction
• Cultural studies approach emphasizes the role of cultural, social, and historical contexts in shaping audience interpretations and the potential for media to reproduce or challenge dominant ideologies

Approaches to Studying Audience Reception

• Reception analysis investigates how audiences make sense of media texts through qualitative methods like interviews, focus groups, or ethnographic observation
• Interpretive communities are groups of individuals who share similar interpretive strategies and cultural frameworks for understanding media, often based on factors like age, gender, or socioeconomic status
• Media literacy refers to the ability to critically analyze, evaluate, and create media messages, recognizing their constructed nature and potential biases or ideological undertones
• Audience agency acknowledges the capacity of audiences to actively negotiate, resist, or subvert the intended meanings of media texts and to use media for their own purposes and pleasures

Types of Audience Readings

Dominant and Alternative Interpretations

• Preferred reading refers to the interpretation of a media text that aligns with the dominant ideology or the intended meaning encoded by the producers
• Oppositional reading involves rejecting or subverting the preferred meaning and interpreting the text in a way that challenges or resists the dominant ideology
• Negotiated reading is a middle ground where audiences partially accept the preferred meaning but also modify or adapt it based on their own experiences, values, or cultural contexts
• Polysemy refers to the multiple, often contradictory meanings that a media text can generate, allowing for diverse audience interpretations and readings

Audience Analysis Methods

Investigating Audience Reception and Meaning-Making

• Reception analysis uses qualitative methods to explore how audiences interpret, discuss, and engage with media texts in their everyday lives (interviews, focus groups, participant observation)
• Interpretive communities are groups of individuals who share similar interpretive strategies and cultural frameworks for understanding media, often based on factors like age, gender, or socioeconomic status (fan communities, subcultures)
• Media literacy education aims to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to analyze, evaluate, and create media messages, empowering audiences to navigate the complex media landscape
• Audience agency recognizes the capacity of audiences to actively negotiate, resist, or subvert the intended meanings of media texts and to use media for their own purposes and pleasures (fan productions, alternative readings)

Factors Influencing Interpretation

Contextual and Intertextual Elements Shaping Meaning

• Meaning-making process is complex and multifaceted, involving the interaction between the text, the audience, and the broader social, cultural, and historical contexts in which they are situated
• Intertextuality refers to the interconnectedness of media texts, as audiences draw on their knowledge of other texts, genres, or cultural references to interpret and make sense of a particular text (allusions, parodies, adaptations)
• Factors such as personal experiences, cultural backgrounds, social identities, and media consumption habits can shape how individuals interpret and respond to media messages
• The technological and institutional contexts of media production and distribution also influence audience reception, as different platforms, algorithms, or industry practices may privilege certain meanings or interpretations over others (streaming services, social media feeds)