Active audience theories

Stuart Hall Reception Theory - Encoding and Decoding
Stuart Hall believes that many media texts and made and encoded with a hidden message. This text is encoded(added) by the producer based on the society they are living in at the present time. Then the audiences would then decode(understand) the hidden message. An issue from decoding the message is that not all individuals correctly understand the message being conveyed.

Stuart identified three different ways the message can be decoded. These are:

1. Dominant reading - where the audience decode the message the producer wanted them to and       agrees with it.
2. Negotiated reading - Where the audience partly agrees and disagrees with the message conveyed
3. Oppositional reading - Where the correct message is decoded but the audience disagrees due to political, cultural and ideological reasons


Uses and Gratifications Theory:
This theory was created by Blumer and Katz and they believe that the audience uses the text instead of the text using the audience. Therefore, the power lies with the audience and not with the producers and what message they want use to gain from the text. The audience simply use the text for their own gratification and pleasure. The audience may use the text to gratify needs for:
- Information
- Escapism
- Making comparisons
- Sexual stimulation

My group plan on using these audience theories in our own horror film as we can encode a message as to why the clown my be attacking which the audience can then decode for themselves. This would lead the audience to being passive as they are engaged with the film to work out the reasonings and explanations of events throughout.