Theorists- Audience

Question 1

Gerbner

Answer 1

Repeated exposure to patterns of representation over long periods of time can shape and influence the way the audience perceives the world
around them (i.e. by cultivating particular points of view and opinions).
Cultivation reinforces mainstream, or dominant, values and ideologies.

Question 2

Stuart Hall

Answer 2

Communication is a process involving encoding by producers and decoding by the audience.
There are three hypothetical positions from which meanings can be decoded:
1. the dominant-hegemonic position: the encoder’s intended meaning is fully understood and accepted;
2. the negotiated position: the legitimacy of the encoder’s message is acknowledge, but the message is adapted to better fit the decoder’s
individual experiences or context;
3. the oppositional position: the encoder’s message is understood, but the decoder disagrees with it, reading it in a contrary or
oppositional way

Question 3

Jenkins

Answer 3

Fans are active participants in the construction and circulation of textual meanings.
Fans also appropriate texts and read them in ways that are not fully authorised by the media producers (“textual poaching”)
Fans construct their social and cultural identities by borrowing and inflecting mass culture images and participate in a culture that offers a vital
social dimension.