This document discusses different types of audience responses to media according to reception theory: 1) Preferred reading is when the audience fully understands and agrees with the message of a media product. An example is understanding the intended female audience of a Cosmopolitan magazine cover. 2) Negotiated reading is when the audience accepts the preferred reading but interprets it through their own interests and experiences. A fan of Miley Cyrus may buy the magazine because of her cover appearance. 3) Oppositional reading is the opposite interpretation depending on one's values. Someone may dislike an airbrushed magazine cover that promotes unrealistic beauty standards.

1. Audience Responses
Preferred Reading
This is when an audience understands and agrees with the message given in a
media product. For example when the audience reads a piece of text from a
magazine they will fully understand the message what the text is saying to the
reader. This is from the Reception Theory by Stuart Hall. For
example using one magazine cover to demonstrate Preferred
ReadingCosmopolitan- this magazine puts across the message to the
audience that this magazine is aimed at women and is about
Sex, fashion, makeup and love. It shows this by having girly
colours and words on the cover. Like ‘Spice it up’, ‘Eye
makeup’ and ‘First Date Rules.’
I have the same interests in what this magazine projects
onto its audience. I want to read about first date rules and
Miley Cyrus. This makes me want to read the magazine even
more because I am a fan of Miley Cyrus. I am understanding that this a
magazine for girls so this will make me want to read it because I can see that
the magazine cover is pink and has a idol on the front which a lot of girls look up
to.
Negotiated Reading
The audience accept the preferred reading but this preferred reading is
modified buy interests experience and they interpret in their own way.
This is from the Reception Theory by Stuart Hall. Again using
one magazine cover, the example of negotiated reading is:
Cosmopolitan- I’m a big fan of Miley Cyrus so her on the cover would make me buy
the magazine. I interpret the magazine cover myself because I am a fan of Miley
Cyrus this makes me want to read the magazine more. Someone who reads this
magazine may not be a fan of Miley Cyrus but they may still want to know about
other stuff in the magazine like the fashion and the gossip and makeup. Just
because they do not like who is on the cover they still want to read the other content
in the magazine. Even though no one looks that perfect in real life because the cover
star as been edited and airbrushed to look perfect I still think she looks good and I
know that Miley Cyrus has been edited. . I like who is on the cover and I think
that it is important to have a women with such talent on front of a very
popular magazine because she works hard for her fame compared to
these role models off realty shows who do not work hard and girls still
look up to them. These are the girls that should not be on the covers of
these magazines.
Oppositional Reading
Oppositional is the opposite reading depending on your own values and
backgrounds. This is the opposite message the product gives. This is also
from the Reception Theory by Stuart Hall. An example of this is…
Cosmopolitan- I don’t think women should be showed on the cover
looking so perfect when in reality no one is perfect because I like who is

2. on the cover this makes me want to buy the magazine. I don’t like about
this that women can be airbrushed and edited and girls look at these role
models and think that we must look like that. This is all edited and no one
has perfect airbrushed skin and perfect hair. The whole cover page is
covered in trying to look good and captions like ‘go down a dress size’ and
captions about weight and trends this is making girls think that they need
to be slim and they have to wear makeup. Girls will see these captions
about weight and think that they need to lose weight if they want to look
like the people on the cover off the magazine.
Participatory Culture
This is when the audience is invited to interact with the media and be
involved with it. They can ‘have their say’ and feel a more personal aspect
about the media they are interacting with. This has become popular with
the use of social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Participatory
media can include blogs, tagging, hashtags, music-photo-video sharing,
podcasts and video blogs. These audiences are very active as they
interact with the media and the ideas; it is a direct way to have your say
on things. For example – Xfactor on ITV. This show is very popular and it
invites people to vote for their favourite acts and has an app where you
can join along and comment on what you think of the acts. An after show
is available for people to watch where they can ring in the show and tweet
and their tweets get read out to the public and opinion’s shared to the
public.
Radio one has a show on called Dan and Phil, which I listen to on my
laptop. This show allows you to use a hashtags on twitter to get involved
with discussions and you can text into the show and request songs and
say hi to the celebrity guest they have this allows me to interact in a
more personal way with what I am listening to.
Cultural Competence
Media texts require audiences to have a certain level of cultural
understanding. This means they must have an understanding of language
used in media to be able to interpret the symbols and signs used. We can
understand meanings in symbols and signs used but this might not
always be the case for people in different cultures from ours.
The representation of the colour Green is different and varies in lots of
countries. In the UK the colour green in represented as Lucky, spring,
new life, Greed and jealousy. Whereas in China the colour green is
represented as Fertility, Hope, Exorcism and disgrace.
A cow in our culture is something that we eat and it’s just a common farm
animal where as in a Hindu culture they see cows as a religious animal
where they don’t eat it and they adore them.
Clothes/films/ songs can have different cultural understanding. Different
cultures have different understandings about how clothes and what

3. clothes are worn for example in the travelling cultures young traveller
girls wear very outrageous provocative clothing which shows them in
sexual way and shows a lot of flesh and this is normal in this culture. It’s
just the normal travelling girl attire. Whereas in normal British culture
these types of clothes are seen as non respectful clothing and only flusey
kinds of girls wear this type of clothing As you can see the same type of
clothing are the same but are seen in different types of ways to two very
different cultures. In an Indian culture some films they cannot watch
because they contain scenes that are against their religion for example
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, some of the scenes in this film contained
violence and rape which in India is inappropriate to watch so they wanted
to cut the scenes out but the director refused not to. This is also the same
for music and songs because some songs can contain lyrics, which
cultures can find offensive for example a song in America culture got
banned because the lyrics reflected a tragedy that happened in American
and they offended people who were affected by it for example Boomtown
Rats, I hate Mondays. This is because a girl went to school and shot all
the teachers because she didn’t like Mondays. This was a tragedy in
America and the Boomtown Rats sang about it.
Fan Culture
Fan culture describes and audience taking an active role in the creation of
an existing media product. This includes fan fictions of alternative endings
to their favourite films, TV shows and books or what they would like to
happen to their favourite characters. Fan fiction is now very popular
because of the means of social networking where people can share their
fan fiction and their ideas of this fan culture of theirs.
People who vlog on YouTube have a massive fan culture such as Zoella
and Marcus Butler and Dan and Phil. fandom’s of these British You Tubers
create stories including these vloggers and create collages, drawings and
mashups of them.
I am a big Fan of the TV show skins and I follow a Fan culture on them
through Instagram and Twitter. Where I have followed a lot of the pages
that are about this TV show and I retweet quotes, pictures and videos
that are about this TV show.