Reception Analysis

ALSO:
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND DISCOURSE
ANALYSIS
 The Rationale for Reception Analysis

The term reception signifies viewers’ interpretations,

decoding, readings, meaning productions, and
perceptions or comprehension of communication
and media messages.
It aims to achieve greater insight into the effects of
communication by giving equal consideration to
both the text and the receivers.
 Media Audiences

Audiences are active; they can decode meanings

from three standpoints: dominant, negotiated,
oppositional.
They can subscribe totally to the media message, or
negotiate its meaning, or oppose/resist its message
(according to Stuart Hall in Cultural Studies Theory).
Audiences decode or interpret media messages
based on individual psychological factors as well as
social and cultural factors.
 Methods of Reception Analysis

It is logical that studies of reception use multi-

method approaches since the concerns of reception
analysis are the multiple dimensions and
interactions of medium, message, and audience.
Reception analysis is a research approach, not a
research method in itself. It consists of different
methods.
 Intensive Interviews

In reception analysis, the aim of the interview is to

grasp the audience member’s point of view regarding
the communication message, or the program
content.
The researcher can explore into the audience
member’s knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs affecting
message interpretations.
Interviews can be done individually (focus
interviews) or in groups (focus group interviews).
Focus group discussion is a form of interview which
involves between 6 to 12 members.
A facilitator asks questions and lets each member of
the group give his or her thoughts and ideas on the
question asked.
 Participant Observation

Together with intensive interviews, participant

observation allows the reception analyst to gain a
deeper understanding of her/his interviewees’
communication styles, and their patterns of media
consumption and dependencies.
Through observation, the researcher is able to
validate interview responses.
 Textual Analysis

In this lesson, we use the word text to mean

discourse, where textual analysis is the study of
meaning-making or the discovery of the meaning of
the text given the audience’s psychological and social
contexts.
A text is any cultural artefact which contains and
expresses discourses.
Textual analysis may take the form of semiotic
analysis, ideological analysis, rhetorical criticism,
narrative analysis, and discourse analysis.
 Discourse Analysis

Discourse is the language used in representing a

given social practice from a particular point of view.
It is the language used to express
In discussing discourse about types of people, one is
also discussing representations.
Discourse, ideology, and representation are
interrelated terms.
Discourses are laden with ideologies.
Ideologies are full of discourses.
 Representation

Refers broadly to the depiction of social groups and

institutions.
Depiction is about meanings behind the appearance.
Representation is also about symbolic production, a
re-presentation or a constructed version of it.
 Ideologies

Are systems of representation.

In projecting representations, television projects the
ideology.
The meanings of representations are about:
Who has power and who does not
How power is exercised
The values which dominate the ways that we think
about society and social relations
To recapitulate:
In discourse analysis, meanings are generated by the
special ways in which we use language about the
subject.
 Ideological Analysis/Criticism

According to Karl Marx, the class that controls a

society’s means of production and commands its
economy also rules ideologically.
The two central components of the current notion of
ideology:
1) A society’s ideology consists of many conflicting
sets of meanings – discourses – competing with
one another.
2) The position of an individual within ideology has
been re-examined.
*Hall contends that television texts are encoded with
many meanings, a polysemy.
- TV shows a dominant cultural order or the dominant
ideology in society (capitalism, male dominance,
success measured in terms of wealth and high status)
Viewers decode television texts from three
ideological positions: dominant, negotiated, and
oppositional.
Dominant – subscribe to the dominant ideology
Negotiated – subscribe but with qualifications
Oppositional – total resistance/opposition to the
message
 Feminist Criticism

An interest in the representation of women in the

mass media and the interpretation of those images
by viewers, both women and men.
Concentrates on the volatile province of gender
discourse – on the way that the male-female relation
is portrayed in language, literature, film, magazines,
television, and other media.