1. Meaning,
Representation &
Values
Year 12 Media Production & Analysis ATAR
Audience Reception
Syllabus Links
How the influence of
media can by
understood by applying
media theories.
How media work
reinforces or challenges
audience perceptions,
values ad attitudes.
2. “Language and media do not
reflect the real, but simply
constructs something similar on
our behalf. ”
- Stuart Hall
CulturalTheorist (Developer of ReceptionTheory)
4. Media texts
The text itself has no existence, no life, and therefore
no quality until it is deciphered by and individual and
triggers the meaning potential carried by this
individual.
Whatever criteria one wishes to set up for quality,
therefore, must be applied not to the text itself, but
to the readings actualised by the text in audience
members - readings which are multiple and
heterogeneous, be they ‘preferred’, ‘aberrant’, or
both.
Meaning production by audiences is not random, and
audience members are not ‘sovereign’ to produce
meanings they choose.
Preferred Reading - how
the producer wants the
audience to view
the media text. Audience
members will take this
position if the messages
are clear and if the
audience member is the
same age and culture; if it
has an easy to follow
narrative and if it deals
with themes that are
relevant to the audience.
Reception Theory Explained:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xh9FjcQTWE&t=393s
5. Meaning
Matching
vs
Meaning
Construction
Meaning matching is the relatively
automatic task in which your mind allows you
to connect elements to their meaning - for
instance, recognising the particular sound you
phone makes when you receive a text
message.
6. Meaning construction is not an
automatic process but instead requires us to think about
moving beyond the standard denoted meaning and to
create meaning for ourselves by using skills of deduction
and synthesis.
We engage in a meaning construction process when we
either have no denoted meaning meaning for a
particular message in our memory banks or when the
denoted meaning does not satisfy us and we want to
arrive at a different meaning. Much of our processing of
media messages utilises meaning construction.There is a
large body of research that clearly shows that each of us
bring a considerable number of factors with us to any
media message exposure and that these constitute a
frame that we use to interpret a message.
Meaning
Matching
vs
Meaning
Construction
7. We can
consider 3
different
forms of
audience
reading of
media texts
Preferred meaning - audiences accept what
is being presented without question
Negotiated meaning - audiences negotiate
with the text’s intended meaning and accept
only some of what is being presented to
them.
Alternate/oppositional readings -
audiences read completely against the
preferred readings.
9. AUDIENCE PROJECTION
The central idea of audience projection is that in texts audiences
see aspects of themselves, which they are not consciously
aware of, mirrored back.
Another way of putting this is that we project ourselves onto the world and other
people. Consequently, if you are trying to understand how audiences read texts, you
can use the idea of projection and argue that any one person’s reading of a text is a
reflection of themselves: that is, they project their own ideas and feelings on the
text.
This point suggests that it doesn’t matter that many audience members don’t know
the specific intentions of the media producers, because the meaning audiences draw
from texts are not necessarily derived from or even related to understandings of the
intentions of the texts’ producers.
10. …any one
person’s
reading of a
text is a
reflection of
themselves:
that is, they
project their
own ideas and
feelings on the
text.
Previous year’s Exam Questions that could be
answered by discussing this notion:
Analyse how media theories are used to
understand audience interpretations. (2019)
Discuss how media work is shaped by its
audience and production context. (2018)
Analyse how the context of an audience can
affect the interpretation of a media work.
(2017)
11. Representatio
n & Meaning
constructed in
Film
As conscious students of Media, we must remember that
Film does not reflect or even record reality; like all other
mediums of representation is ‘re-presents’ it’s pictures of
reality by way of codes, conventions, myths and ideologies
of it’s culture, as well as by way of specific signifying
practices of the medium.
The film maker uses representational conventions and
repertoires available within the culture in order to make
something fresh but familiar, new but generic, individual
but representative.
This is important for us to remember when we are considering the
representation and construction of people, events and places, in
this case in the film Blood Diamond.
