key theories 16- cultivation theory + 17 reception theory

16 - Cultivation theory - George Gerbner

(advertising, newspapers, magazines, online media)

• Being exposed to repeated patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way in which people perceive the world around them (i.e. cultivating particular views and opinions)
• This process of cultivation reinforces mainstream hegemonic values (dominant ideologies).
• As cultivation theory became more established, Gerbner and his colleagues refined it to better explain the influence of media by adding the ideas of mainstreaming and resonance in the 1970s. Mainstreaming happens when heavy television viewers who would otherwise hold very different views develop a homogeneous view of the world. In other words, the attitudes of these divergent viewers all share a common, mainstream perspective that they cultivated through frequent exposure to the same television messages.
• Resonance occurs when a media message is especially noteworthy to an individual because it somehow coincides with a viewers’ lived experience. This provides a double dose of the message conveyed on television.
• While Gerbner focused his research on fictional television, more recently, scholars have expanded cultivation research into additional media, including video games, and different forms of television, like reality TV.
• Despite the ongoing popularity of cultivation theory among researchers and the research evidence supporting the theory, cultivation has been criticized for several reasons. For instance, some media scholars take issue with cultivation because it treats media consumers as fundamentally passive.

Key work - Against the Mainstream: The Selected Works of George Gerbner

17 - Reception theory - Stuart Hall

(advertising, newspapers, radio, video games, television, magazines)

• To watch/read/play/listen to/consume a media product is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by audiences
• Reception theory as developed by Stuart Hall asserts that media texts are encoded and decoded. The producer encodes messages and values into their media which are then decoded by the audience. However, different audience members will decode the media in different ways and possibly not in the way the producer originally intended
• There are millions of possible responses that can be affected through factors such as upbringing, cultural capital, ethnicity, age, social class, and so on
• Hall narrowed this down to three ways in which messages and meanings may be decoded:
• The preferred reading - the dominant-hegemonic position, where the audience understands and accepts the ideology of the producer
•  The negotiated reading - where the ideological implications of producer’s message is agreed with in general, although the message is negotiated or picked apart by the audience, and they may disagree with certain aspects
• The oppositional reading - where the producer’s message is understood, but the audience disagrees with the ideological perspective  in every respect.
• this approach to textual analysis focuses on the scope for "negotiation" and "opposition" on the part of the audience. this means that a text is not simply passively accepted by the audience, but that the viewer interprets the meaning of the text based on their individual cultural background and life experiences. 
• in essence, the meaning of a text is not inherent within the text itself but is created with in the relationship between the text and the reader 

Many factors could affect whether the audience take the dominant, oppositional or negotiated reading.

• Age
• Beliefs
• Culture
• Gender
• Life experience
• Mood at the time of viewing

Key work - Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies