Audience Perception Theory: Reception Analysis And Processing

Reception analysis or audience reception theory emphasized on audience reception or interpretation in making meaning from a text. Stuart Hall was responsible and introduced this theory in 1973, later, it was published in 1980. In the early, this theory is a product of social-political context, whereas, the media text encode by the television program, and decode by the audience. The research done by Hall intentionally examine the BBC television current affairs programme called Nationwide. The reason Hall conducted this study due to (1) the programme reinforce the status quo and (2) to attract the audience from the middle and lower class. Subsequently, David Morley (1983) highly inspired by Hall and implemented “Focus Group Discussion” throughout the analysis. Morley formed 29 groups consisted of respondents from different backgrounds. Each respondents provided with an episode from Nationwide and must responded to the clip whether they would construct dominant, oppositional or negotiated readings – the three categories of readings proposed by Hall (Latiffah Pawanteh, 2011: 12).

Hall’s thought embraces the issues of hegemony and cultural studies, whereas, considered post-Gramscian perspective. The concept of ideology, hegemony, and culture are discussed with relation to the trend of Korean popular culture in Indonesia. The gist of reception analysis grounded by the meaning generated through the interaction with the audience (viewer/reader) and the texts. In other words, the meanings are constructed through viewing or reading, and the process of making sense of the media