Reception Theory

The Reception Theory was developed by Stuart Hall. this considered how text were encoded with meaning from the producers and then decoded by the audiences  Reception Theory: The way a person or individual receives and interprets text. 

Preferred reading

Preferred reading this is when the producer’s uses codes of conduct that draw upon and support the audience expectations. That lead the audiences to accept the dominant values within the text.

Negotiated reading 

 Negotiating reading is when an individual has the choice to accept the preferred reading or weather they chose not to accept it. 

Oppositional reading

Oppositional reading is when someone watches or reads a text, but the individual completely rejects the reading. 

Aberrant reading

Aberrant reading is where the audience interprets a completely different meaning then intended by the film make, people who just don't it.

why might the theory be used to analyse gangster film. 

Reception Theory can be used to analyse gangster films and find out how individual receives and interprets the text. It helps the individual view and interpret conventions used such as drugs and violences and weather they chose to accept the encoded massages that are put in there by the directors. 

   Apply the theory to city of god and scarface, what messages do each of the films convey about: Money and power, crime, violence and women. 

Scarface and City of god

Money:  In gangster films money is used as one of the conventions but money is used to show easy money. e.g: selling drugs. The more money you have the more power you seem to have that was how it worked in scarface and City of god, Tony Montana used to be nothing but as he got more money, his power raised. Lil Ze and Benny had nothing but as they planned to take over all the drug business afterwards,their power rose.

Power: Power is the main objective in a gangster film and that could be because power represents respect.

Crime: Conveyed in a calm/ glamorous way of selling or doing drugs 

Violence:  Violence is used  as a convention in order to get the audience to understand the genre of the film. But violence in scarface and city of god is power, the power comes from the guns they carry to cause violences, suffering and death.

women: are used as a sex objects or as a love interest for the main characters, because the women in the film don't have any power and there for cant speak for themselves.

 what are the different ways the audience might respond to these messages 

the way the audience respond to these message depends on which of the four categories they fit into.  Everyone interprets the text in different way, that is what a reception theory is. some people might interpret it the way it is meant, others might ignore it and come up with a completely different answer from it and others might find a hidden interprets that isn't there.  Not everyone interprets everything in the way they should. some people might feel like they can relate because of what they went through in life and interpret it as the story of their life.