Reception Theory

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 RECEPTION THEORY

1.1 Reception theory: Historical context and basic assumptions

1.2 Protention and Retention

1.3 Hall's theory of prefered reading

2 MEDIA AND PSYCHOANALYSIS:

Freud and Lacan's contributions to the

psychoanalysis of film and television texts

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Psychoanalysis and it's relevance to the

analysis of film and television texts

2.3 Freud's oedipal complex and Lacan's structural approach

2.4 Conclusion

3 FILM THEORY

3.1 Introduction

3.1.1 21-an example of Realism

3.1.2 Conclusion

4 SOURCES

1 RECEPTION THEORY

Reception Theory is when we empirically and theoretically investigate readers and the process of interpretation and negotiation. Interpretaion becomes the process of negotiation between texts and readers situated between specific social and cultural contexts. When applied to the mass media; the reader becomes the "user", audience becomes the "viewer" and "texts" refers to any mass madium (newspapers, television programmes, radio, films)

1.1 Reception theory: Historical context and basic assumptions

Wolfgang Iser was one of the founding fathers of Reception Theory. Iser developed concepts such as wandering viewpoint, protention and retention and paradigmatic and syntagmatic components of the texts to explain how readers interact with the text.

The four basic assumption that explain interpretation and the aesthetic experience are

· the appropriation of messages

· filling in of blanks

· horizons of expectaions

· identification

The above assumptions basically explain that "each person has the ability to interpret the same text differently, and that a text by itself – i.e. without a reader – has no specific meaning."(Reception Theory: Active Audience Theory with ‘The Simpsons’ 2008)

1.2 Protention and Retention

Protention is to formulate and imagine how things will develop in the future, while retention is when...