This document discusses Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model of media reception theory. It explains that Hall extended the concept of an active audience by arguing that individuals receive and interpret media texts based on their own circumstances and perspectives. It notes that the encoding of a text by its producer may lead to very different decodings by audience members depending on factors like gender, class, age, and ethnicity. The document also contains learning objectives and questions related to analyzing the portrayal of Britishness in different films from Hollywood and the UK.

1. Which image best represents
Britishness today?

2. Stuart Hall Reception Theory
• Passive vs Active audience
• Reception Theory
• Extending the concept of an active
audience in the 1980s and 1990s a lot of
work was done on the way individuals
received and interpreted a text, and how
their individual circumstances
(gender, class, age, ethnicity) affected their
reading.
• This work was based on Stuart
Hall's encoding/decoding model of the
relationship between text and audience -
the text is encoded by the producer, and
decoded by the reader, and there may be
major differences between two different
readings of the same code.
• Preferred/dominant
• Negotiated
• Oppositional
e.g. gender affects the
reading: boys laugh at
violence in a film but girls find
it upsetting…

3. Why do you think these images
are so different?

4. • LO: To understand some of the differences
between Hollywood representations of
Britishness and national representations of
Britishness

5. 1. Can you name these films and their directors?
2. Why do you think these images are so different?

6. Take your film and make detailed notes on
How has the fact that it is a national/hollywood film
affected the portrayal of Britishness?
• Consider institutional aspects: production
company, director, distributor, producers, box
office success
• Consider genre – mainstream or niche?
• Star power – bankable stars?
• Cultural content – British narrative?

7. Write an informed response to
How does the institution affect the portrayal of
Britishness?
• Consider institutional aspects: production
company, director, distributor, producers, box
office success
• Consider genre – mainstream or niche?
• Star power – bankable stars?
• Cultural content – British narrative?

8. Peer assess
How does the institution affect the portrayal of
Britishness?
Media language
Structure
Answering the question
Theory
EVIDENCE (dates, names etc)
Comment on their work – strengths and
weaknesses

9. Both British, both female leads, both
2010…
• Homework: Research our 2 key texts -
• Why do you think the lead female was
chosen for this role?

10. Which question have we helped
answer today?
• Media and Collective Identity
•
• How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and
ethnic / social / collective groups of people in different ways?
•
• How does contemporary representation compare to previous time
periods?
•
• What are the social implications of different media representations
of groups of people?
•
• To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’?

11. TYPES
• Archetype
• Stereotype
• Generic type

12. Archetypes
• Hero
• Villain
• False Hero
• Dispatcher
• Princess
• Donor
• Helper
Propps seven spheres of Action

13. Which type?

14. Now look at your film
• How are the characters being represented in
your film? How would you categorize them,
which types?
• How is the type affected by the fact that it is a
hollywood/national film?