Audience Reception Theory

Audience Reception Theory

In literary studies, reception theory originated from the work of Hans-Robert Jauss in the late 1960s. In the 1980s and 1990s a lot of work was carried out on the way individuals received and interpreted a text, and how their individual circumstances (gender, class, age, and ethnicity) affected their reading.

The approach to textual analysis focused on the scope for "negotiation" and "opposition" on the part of the audience. This means that a text, (whether it is a book, movie, or another form of creative work) is not only passively accepted by the audience, but that the reader and/or viewer interpret the meanings of the media product based on their own individual cultural background and life experiences. The meaning of a media product is not boldly hidden within the text itself, but is created within the relationship between the text and the reader.

To summaries, the reception theory places the viewer in context, taking into account all of the contributing factors that might have influenced how he or she will interpret the meaning of the media product.