STUART HALL AND CULTURAL STUDIES

RECEPTION THEORY focuses on the scope in textual analysis for 'negotiation' and 'opposition' on the part of the audience. This means that a text ( a book, film, advert, poster or other creative work) is not passively accepted by the audience but that the reader / viewer interprets the meanings of the texts based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
Stuart Hall’s encoding decoding model; dominant, negotiated and oppositional readings; why Hall says he studies culture instead of media specifically, and media hegemony

Summary: The mass media function to maintain the ideology of those already in power. Corporate controlled media provide the dominant discourse of the day that frames interpretation of events. Critics should seek not only to interpret culture, but to change it. Media audiences do have the capacity to resist hegemonic influence.
The mass media impose the dominant ideology on the rest of society, and the connotations of words and images are fragments of ideology that perform an unwitting service for the ruling elite.
Simply put: The media only speaks for those who have power—mass media shapes our perceptions in society. Corporations control media and thus, they can interpret things the way they wish. They do this by encoding messages in, for example, an advertisement. But, Stuart Hall says we can reject these messages, which is why he doesn’t really study media, but rather studies cultures. Meanings come from discourse (social interactions with one another) and so he’d rather study how these meanings develop from discourse.
Encoding: the process in which the media puts messages into an advertisement.
Decoding: the process in which we, the audience, formulate meaning. Meaning can be formed in 3 ways.
1) Dominant reading: this is what the media wants us to have, also called a preferred reading.
2) Negotiated reading: this is when I’d accept the advertisement, but not in the way it’s shown.
3) Oppositional reading: this is when I reject it completely.