2000/05/01 by Kim Christian Schrøder · 79 citations
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Advertising #Audience reception #Audience response #Computer science #Empirical research #Epistemology #Hegemony #Ideology #Law #Media Studies and Communication #Media studies #Negotiation #Political science #Politics #Rhetoric and Communication Studies #Set (abstract data type) #Social Media and Politics #Social science #Sociology #Target audience
paper · doi:10.1177/136754940000300205
published in European Journal of Cultural Studies 3(2), 233-258 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2000/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/09
This article discusses the empirical and theoretical challenges facing reception researchers in their encounter with qualitative audience data. It does so by criticizing the one-dimensional theoretical framework set up by Stuart Hall in his famous encoding/decoding article. This framework has resulted in an exclusive focus in reception studies on ideology, as study after study has asked whether audience readings accept, negotiate or oppose the hegemonic thrust supposedly inscribed in the media text. Over the years empirical audience research has demonstrated that actual readings are more complex than that, but these studies have not taken the step of developing a multidimensional model of audience discourse. The article attempts to set up an empirically based general model of media reception with six dimensions: Motivation, Comprehension, Discrimination, Position, Evaluation and Implementation. This model may help open our eyes to the complexity of actualized readings while still enabling a politically committed audience research concerned with the role of the media in processes of social reproduction and, not least, social change.