Audience Theory

Reception Theory: 

This theory is based on the idea that there is no single meaning for any media text. The theory focuses on what people see in the media and the meanings they produce. It has been known to say that messages from the media texts can have a preferred meaning but anyone can have an individual interpretation. Stuart Hall who studied at Birmingham University in the 1970's developed that the effects model and the uses and gratifications have their problems and limitations a different approach to audiences. This considered how texts were encoded with meaning by producers and then decoded by audiences. 

Audience Readings:

These are affected by variables of age,gender, social status and social context and thus they might not accept the preferred meaning. 

Suture:

Classical Hollywood narrative, editing, sound and mise en scene 'sutures' or positions the audience in certain ways making only one preferred reading(reception theory) possible. According to these theories, the audience "stitches" itself into a film by relating to characters or world views expressed in a film, and then filling in the temporal and spatial gaps between scenes with our imaginations. This has made it all easier when techniques, codes and conventions of film are made 'invisible' by the filmmakers.