Reception theory

The dominant reading of this advertisement is that the use of 50 Cent represents resilience and a strong mind as 50 Cent is known as somebody who has never given up on his dreams and fought his whole life to get to where he is now. Following this idea, Reebok may have used 50 Cent to represent their brand values and their brand identity- showing this brand as being strong, successful and well known.

The oppositional reading of this advertisement is that the use of 50 Cent and the images of fingerprints is celebrating criminality- this is more of a right wing oppositional view. 50 Cent is linked to having a bad relationship with the law and the images of fingerprints are a representation of  criminals. This advertisement may be perpetuating the myth about black people being linked to being criminals. Often, the only time you see black people in the media they are being linked to something negative through myths and stereotypes that have been developed throughout time within society.

The negotiated reading of this advertisement is that the use of 50 Cent shows that there can be a good outcome from bad situations, experiences and lifestyles. 50 Cent started off life in a more negative way but with his drive and determination he has become successful and iconic.



The dominant reading of this nike advertisement is that their product will complete their customer. The use of marvel's well known character Iron Man in this case is to represent the shoe design as we are presented an image of an Iron Man themed shoe on the poster. His character represents strength and courage which is why this brand have used his character- this subconsciously makes the audience connote these ideas with their brand and products.

The oppositional reading of this advertisement is that this company is using gender stereotypes of the idea that only males wear trainers and are attracted to trainers. This idea is brought upon the fact that the copy on the text reads out "The sneaker makes the man" which only targets a male audience, directly addressing them. 

The negotiated reading is that Nike's main target audience are males so therefore they are aiming their advertisement mainly at this group of people




According to reception theory, 'the media attempts to transmit specific messages to audiences, but audiences are free to interpret these messages in a variety of ways - or even reject them'. 

How valid are reception theory's claims about audience responses? [25 marks]

Reception theory's claims about audience responses are valid as it expresses dominant, negotiated and counter-hegemonic readings. The dominant reading is the message that the creator intends to portray from a media text, causing the audience to interpret the 'natural' meaning of a text. The negotiated meaning of a media text is the middle ground between the creator's intentions and the audience's interpretation, allowing the audience to make their own interpretation using the intended messages portrayed from the creators text. The counter-hegemonic reading is an alternative reading that is actively against the producers intended messages and intentions which is the audience 'rejecting' the messages portrayed as they may disagree with them , creating their own interpretation. Most media text's will be interpreted in a variety of ways using reception theory as different people have different opinions and interpret texts differently, often transmitting specific messages that may be deciphered differently by different groups of people. Challenging the reception theory's claims is the fact that there are some things in society that only have a specific hegemonic reading, for example an audience would unanimously almost all agree with 'paedophilic articles'. As well as this, bias texts such as persuasive texts and advertisement may only have a hegemonic meaning causing a unanimous agreement showing that not all media texts are interpreted in a variety of ways.