Reception Theory 103

exposed to scenes of rape in which the act was abhorred by the victim
throughout (Malamuth & Check, 1980). In addition, men who maintain
traditional sex role attitudes are more likely to be influenced by pornography
than men who are less sex-typed and more androgynous (McKenzie-Mohr
& Zanna, 1990). Research on women's reaction to pornography has found
subjects most disgusted by objectification, dominance, and penis worship
and least disgusted by explicit and mutual sex scenes (Cowan, 1990). The
degree of violence associated with the sexuality is important. Women who
are shown sexually violent films, but not those shown sexually explicit
nonviolent films, become less sensitive toward the victim in a mock rape
trial (Krafta, Penrod, Donnerstein, & Linz, 1992). Desensitization occurs for
both men and women.
From the preceding, a conclusion emerges that suggests media violence is
a substantial problem and media pornography, except when accompanied by
violence, less of a problem. Hong Kong kung fu movies may cause problems
for more people in more ways than Madonna. These, of course, are averaged
responses showing trends. They do not explain how these connections
between media portrayals and human behavior actually work for any one
subject. Any individual can respond in a wide variety of ways to any media
text. Against the averaged responses of behavioral social psychology, reception theory relishes and explores this variety.
Reading Media: Text, Reader, Context, and "Meaning"
When we encounter a media text, whether violent, pornographic, or
noncontroversial, we do three actions almost simultaneously. We read, we
comprehend, and we interpret. Reading means that there is a text made up
of visual or aural symbols from which meanings can be constructed; there is
a reader who is capable of constructing meaning from the text; and there is
interaction between text and reader. We perceive the symbols in the text and,
if they make sense to us, we comprehend them by placing them in some kind
of "frame." We then interpret them by relating the sense of what is going on
to what the author seems to intend and to extratextual points of reference.
These are not actually separate activities, except logically. As Steven MailIoux notes (1977), "we interpret as we perceive, or rather perception is an
interpretation" (p. 418).
Madonna's controversial 1990 music video Like a Prayer has many levels
of possible reading, but, for straight perception and comprehension, it is not
confusing. The narrative shows a black man accused of a murder he did not
commit, and it shows Madonna worshipping in front of a black male saint
in the church. In the disputed description by Ramona Curry (1990), the statue

104 Exploring Media Culture

"is thus moved to life and first blesses and later erotically kisses Madonna
as she is sprawled on her back on a pew" (p. 26). In the process, Madonna,
in a tight dress, dances in front of burning crosses and eventually seeks a
kiss from the black man who leans over her. In the end, the black male
character is set free and the statue returns to its sacred place. We "read" the
church, the statues, the dress, the kiss, the figure of Madonna, and the other
dancers. We "comprehend" the video as constituting characters in a specific
setting and sequence. We "interpret" it all as a single narrative story.
From this process of reading, we achieve meaning. Meaning, in this sense,
is not something put in the text by the author, but something we construct in
the reading of it: "reading is not the discovery of meaning but the creation
of it" (Mailloux, 1977, p. 414). Terry Eagleton makes this point more vividly
(1983): "Meanings of a text do not lie within them like wisdom teeth within
a gum, waiting patiently to be extracted" (p. 89). The competent reader is
able to pull all the parts of a text into a single, unified meaning or experience.
Still, the "meaning" of Madonna's Like a Prayer video is not simple. Ronald
Scott (1993) notes the complex and historically resonant depictions of race
and religion at work in the video. He places the meaning within the context
of the powerful history of the black church and the unrealized potential of
the mass media for altering prevailing stereotypes about blacks. For him, the
black statue was not moved by sexual motives but by compassion to help a
person in trouble. Madonna's dress and dance as such do not erotically move
the statue because, in Scott's analysis, the statue never looks over her body
or gazes lustfully; instead the statue maintains neutral, unemotional facial
expressions throughout. And the kiss, although sensual, is ambiguous and
for Scott connotes Madonna's choice of a harmonious resolution of the story
against the backdrop of the destructive burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan.
The kiss is presented too close up to say that Madonna is "sprawled on her
back" as Curry described. But Scott does not claim that his interpretation
was Madonna's intent in making the video. For our comprehension, her
actual intent and influence are irrelevant. What Scott receives from this video
is that it advocates "the positive role of the black church in the lives of all it
touches" (p. 73).
Exactly what dominates our particular construction of meaning from a text
has been divided by Staiger (1992, p. 35) into text-activated, reader-activated, or context-activated reading,
Text-activated reading emphasizes that the text exists and sets up what the
reader will do. Text-activated readings by Metz, Eco, and the semiologists
assume the reading is constituted by the text with its social and literary
conventions, and that meaning or significance is dominated by the signs and
codes in the text for the reader to interpret. The text-activated reader of
pornography takes the sexual representations very literally and might be

Reception Theory 105

especially swayed by whether the victim of a portrayed rape is represented
as finally succumbing to pleasure in the rape, making such a portrayal
especially dangerous for that viewer. The "text-activated" reader of Madonna
includes the classic "wannabe." This reader is eager to know everything
about Madonna and what Madonna thinks she is doing. Madonna's text itself
has meaning.
Her music means a lot to me because for many years I've enjoyed listening to
her. Ever since I can remember I've always had her to listen to, so losing her I
guess would be a loss.Male, 23
Reader-activated reading argues that the text exists, but the reader, as an
individual, can greatly redo or appropriate that text. In the more radical
reception theory of Norman Holland or David Bleich, the reader is constituted by social and literary conventions or psychologies and the meaning or
significance is not in the text but in the reader's interpretation. For example,
subliminal sex in media, in the controversial interpretation of Wilson Bryan
Keyes, triggers powerful subconscious responses in the viewer of ice cubes
in a magazine liquor advertisement. The viewer finds sexual organs, orgies,
and other imagery in what in itself appears image-free and neutral. Viewing
a Madonna video, a professional dancer may be looking for new moves, a
pubescent male may be looking for flesh, a young rock musician may be
seeking ideas for a music video, or a conservative evangelist may be looking
for material to condemn. Each of them places their personal concerns ahead
of those of the text itself.
Context-activated reading assumes that the text and the reader are equally
significant in creating meaning. In the context-activated works of Stuart Hall
or Tony Bennett, the historical context is very significant for the interaction.
Meaning or significance occurs in the contextual intersection between text
and reader, an intersection that occurs in a historical context and may relate
to other historical contexts. This is the healthy, well-adjusted person reading
either pornography or violence in media. Such people are able to keep these
subjects in context and not be overly swayed by any one representation. Of
course, many viewers do not have that balance, particularly ones who subject
themselves to heavy diets of violence or pornography.
The extensive analyses of Madonna in The Madonna Connection
(Schwichtenberg, 1993a) take care to "contextualize" Madonna's place as a
provocative figure in a fragmented, postmodern entertainment world. Hius,
in the context of historical suppression of expressive women, Madonna is an
admirable feminist. Yet in the context of commercial exploitation, Madonna
is a rip-off artist and master tease. And further, in the context of the
professional media, Madonna is a sophisticated businesswoman. In a

106 Exploring Media Culture

fully contextualized reading, all of the many aspects of Madonna are
included.
All three kinds of readings of the film Truth or Dare, the 1991 documentary of Madonna's "Blond Ambition" tour, have been analyzed by Deidre
Pribram (1993). First, the "text-activated" reader finds the film a useful
source for understanding how and why the text of Madonna's concerts are
as they are. This wannabe gets behind the scenes through the documentary.
Second, the "reader-activated" responses emphasize subjective value judgments and include popular press characterizations of her tour: "The Shameless One Stages a Raunchy, Revealing Self-Portrait," "a natural-born exhibitionist exhibits herself," and "a touching, vulgar, erotic and revealing
documentary" (Pribram, 1993, p. 190). As hyper-active readers, the tabloid
press predigests the projected responses of its audience. Third, a "contextactivated" reaction includes Pribram's own reading of the film in reference
to feminist reception of Madonna as a postmodern persona. Sexuality, power,
gender ambiguity, performance, control, and simulation are central to Truth
or Dare in the context of feminist struggle within patriarchal society.
If the text is complex, how simple is the subject reading it? French
reception studies shift away from the German sense of a unified reader
incorporating coherent meaning from a text and move toward the sense of a
decentered, textualized reader. For Gadamer's and German reception theory,
understanding occurs when our "horizon" made of historical meanings and
assumptions fuses with the horizon within the work itself. In the text, instead
of leaving home, Gadamer notes, we "come home" (Eagleton, 1983, p. 72),
implying a preexisting unified reader identity. But for Barthes and French
theory, the plurality of the texts is extended to the reading subject as well.
The "I" becomes not a unified center from which meaning and interpretation
emerge but is instead marked by dispersion and plurality. Barthes (1974)
observes: "This T which approaches the text is already itself a plurality of
other texts, of codes which are infinite or, more precisely, lost (whose origin
is lost)" (p. 10). In this way, a single subject, "I," may react to Madonna
differently at different times and even to different aspects of Madonna in
contradictory ways. Eagleton (1983) sees this theoretical difference stereotypically as German rationalism against French hedonism, with the latter
caught up in an exuberant dance of language and delight in textures. For
French decentered subjects, both text and reader are indeterminate and carry
us away from home in what Barthes describes as a kind of readerly orgasm.
Whatever the medium, reception studies posit an active reader, whether
centered or not, generating meaning from the perception and interpretation
of a directing but indeterminate text. On CD or tape, in video or film, live or
recorded, put on a pedestal or in the gutter, only "I" can discover what
Madonna means to me.

Reception Theory 107

Who Wins? Preferred, Negotiated,
and Oppositional Readings
Many debates have revolved around the question of the alleged "passivity"
or, alternatively, the "opposition" of the reader as he or she constructs
meaning from a text. Elitist theories of both right and left until mid-century
tended to regard audience members as cultural dopes. Conservatives wanted
to protect audiences from brutal culture and to lead them to finer things*
Radicals wanted to free audiences from commercial exploitation and repressive messages in mass culture. In either case, and in much media theory and
research, audience members were assumed to be inactive recipients of
messages from radio, television, advertising, music, newspapers, movies,
and all media. Literary theory and cognitive psychology have attacked this
assumption at its heart and rejected the crude behaviorism that supported it.
People do not take Madonna in a passive way; they react! The reactions of
what is now called "the active audience" may be accepting, rejecting, or
mixed, as we see in reactions to Madonna.
In a general sense, a media discourse may be decoded from three hypothetical positions outlined by Hall in his presentation of the encoding/decoding model (1980). The preferred reading accepts fully the intended coding
that was placed in the text by the producers and reflects the dominant
ideology. This is the "dominant-hegemonic" position and it operates within
the dominant code. Consider reactions to the Vietnam War as an example.
When American news and entertainment programming drew on Cold War
categories and images to represent the Vietnam War, there were implied
negative judgments about Communism, North Vietnam, and the Vietcong,
and the preferred reading was that the Communist (North) side was evil and
the precapitalist (South) side good. Initially, both American politicians and
the press presented the war in this way and the preferred public reading was
acceptance.
The negotiated reading, identified by Hall, contains a mixture of acceptance and rejection of the dominant code and the preferred meaning encoded
into the text. The negotiated reading usually accepts the larger frame provided
by the dominant code but makes exceptions to it. A negotiated reading of the
Vietnam War emerged within the American public over time. People still
accepted the overall opposition to Communism but concluded that this war
was not worth the cost in lives and dollars.
The oppositional reading decodes the message in a totally contrary way
within an alternative frame of reference. This response understands the
dominant and intended preferred meaning encoded by the media production
but interprets the message in a globally contrary way. An oppositional
reading by radical antiwar activists found the prowar messages of Presidents

108 Exploring Media Culture

Johnson or Nixon to be nothing more than empty propaganda defending an

indefensible war in a wrong-headed larger cause. Oppositional reading
interpreted the United States losing the war in Vietnam as a result of its being
on the wrong side.
"Negotiated readings are probably what most of us do most of the time,"
in Hall's view (1994, p. 265). This is because, on the one side, a perfectly
transparent reading, in which the decoding by the reader perfectly corresponds to the encoding or preferred discourse, is not usual. Each of us brings
our own quirks and subjective associations to the text. On the other side, a
perfectly revolutionary reading that systematically pulls from the text the
opposite of what the encoders intended is also not usual. One may interpret
the exercise of law and order as oppression and injustice, but it requires rare
effort and attention in addition to political savvy to read all uses of police
force in an oppositional way. In the negotiated and most frequent reading,
we are "boxing and coxing" with the text, in the words of Hall, rather than
accepting or rejecting it whole.
Fiske argues for resistant readings in his interpretation of "the popular."
Popular resistance to domination is always present in the popular, according
to Fiske. He has expanded the definition of oppositional and negotiated
decoding to include all active consumption of popular culture. He explains,
"popular culture is made by subordinated peoples in their own interests out
of resources that also, contradictorily, serve the economic interest of the
dominant. Popular culture is made from within and below, not imposed from
without or above ...." (1989a, p. 2). The opposition may take the form of
direct resistance or less direct evasion. In Fiske's reading, the female fans of
Madonna resist the patriarchal meanings of female sexuality, and surfers at
the beach evade social discipline with its ideological control. "Resistance,"
Fiske notes, "produces meanings before pleasures" whereas "evasion is more
pleasurable than meaningful" (p. 2). Both are oppositional.
Celeste Michelle Condit (1991) has warned against overestimating the
power of these resistant readings of a polysemic text. In a study of how
viewers read an episode of the television series Cagney & Lacey, she found
opposing interpretations based not on the perception of the text but on the
evaluation of it, in this case as either for or against abortion. She found that
both pro- and antiabortion leaders had "read" the text of the episode in the
same way. But one liked it and the other did not. This means that judgments
of the text, not comprehension, were the source of disagreement. The conflict
was not over the multiple layers of embedded meaning proposed by the text,
those "polysemic" differences encoded in the narrative. Rather, the disagreement was over values, the "polyvalent" responses to the text by the different
readers. This qualifies Fiske's implication that the polysemy of texts always
generates oppositional interpretation, as if every casual viewer were engaged
in stubborn debate with the screen. Gitlin (1986) cautions that we not confuse

Reception Theory 109

casual surfing of cable channels with facing down the tanks in Tiananmen
Square. Overstating audience "resistance" and "evasion" in reading the
popular is quite possible. There are couch potatoes out there who generate
very little meaning beyond what the media text gives. As an alternative, the
terminology of preferred, negotiated, and oppositional readings, with an
emphasis on the negotiated, offers balance.
Which Are the Preferred Readings of
Violence, Sex, or Madonna?
Madonna does what she wants to do. For example, while in Canada the officials
didn't want her to perform "Like a Virgin" on her Blond Ambition tour.
They said it was against the law to touch yourself in public, but she did
it.Female, 26
Madonna knows exactly how to play the media system. She, as a woman, is
taking herself to the outer limits. She's very risk taking and has a lot of nerve
and I admire that in her. She's a self-determined person yet also presents herself
as a sex object by expressing her open sexuality.Female, 22
She has been testing some boundaries, and I always like that. Why not shake
up those people in Kansas?Female, 25
There's nothing left to shock us with. What's next? X-rays?Female, 21
She thinks she's in charge but I think it is the public. When the public stops
caring, it won't matter if she is walking nude with a bone through her cheek.
Female, 25
Placing readings of Madonna in the schema of preferred, negotiated, and
oppositional readings is a bit difficult. Her own relationship to the dominant
culture is an uneasy one, sometimes oppositional, other times accommodating. As a result, one form of opposition to Madonna is itself based in
acceptance of the preferred, dominant conservative culture and reading.
Other forms of opposition to Madonna may oppose her but also oppose those
larger social norms* Likewise, accepting the "preferred" reading of Madonna
as proposed by Madonna herself may take several forms. One may accept
her because she appears to reject society's norms, or one may accept her
because she doesn't seem to have deviated too far from what is seen as
society's norms. But of course, as many of our quotes from students about
Madonna indicate, the "negotiated" reading that accepts some and rejects other
aspects of Ms. Ciccone is the most common.

110 Exploring Media Culture

On the more general questions of sex and violence in the media, there are
also contradictory decodings because the encoding is ambiguous. Is dominant media for or against sex and violence? Media entertainment content in
drama, talk shows, and news, especially during ratings periods, is saturated
with sex and violence. The dominant discourse encoded into the media
culture is approval of violence to resolve conflict and of sex to sell goods
and motivate other activities. Yet the puritan tradition is strong enough to
oppose explicit portrayal of nudity and sexual acts in most English-speaking
countries today, except in clearly identified adult vehicles. Somewhat differently, violence is roundly condemned and bemoaned in society even as it
flourishes in media. Therefore, the preferred encoding of media culture
would appear to be proviolence and prosex, despite words and warnings to
the contrary.
What then are the preferred or oppositional decodings or readings of these
overarching messages of sex and violence? The preferred or conventional
reading accepts media violence in the United States, except for the most
graphic forms coming into the home on television. The preferred reading in
Great Britain and Canada accepts many more limits on violence. The preferred reading in the United States of media sex likewise accepts it but rejects
explicit portrayals, except with restricted access as in private viewing or the
NC-17 rating. Curiously, the greater acceptance in America of violence over
sex seems to contradict the behavioral research evidence on effects. Once
again, the most common reaction is a negotiated reading that simultaneously
accepts and rejects selected elements of the dominant encoding of sex and
violence. The difficulty in pluralistic, democratic societies is to then determine public policies that accept complexity and find a balance between
dominant preferences and oppositional rights.
How do young people read Madonna as a whole? Often in contradictory
ways. For example, I asked 70 university undergraduates whether they
"approve" or "disapprove" of Madonna. (They were not part of the larger
survey.) More men were negative, with 19 disapproving, 16 approving, and
8 in between. More women were positive, with 11 approving, 8 disapproving,
and 8 in between. In the total group, exactly 27 approved and 27 disapproved,
with 16 in between. With many in this group, the first image that comes to
mind with regard to Madonna involves sex. Even those who approve of her
acknowledge that they think first of "slut" or of pointed cone bras and
lingerie. The semiotic excess spilling over from Madonna leads Fiske
(1989a) to speak of her image "not as a model meaning for young girls in
patriarchy, but a site of semiotic struggle between the forces of patriarchal
control and feminine resistance, of capitalism and the subordinate, of the
adult and the young" (p. 97).
No one doubts Madonna's ability to market herself as this "site of semiotic
struggle."

Reception Theory 111

The woman is a marketing genius! I don't think her music is fine. She looks
like a whore. But, hey, can she sell!Female, 22
When I think of Madonna, I think of a marketing genius. She knows exactly
what the public wants of her. Madonna means the ability to look into the hearts
of the consumers and present them with something that {hey want but normally
do not receive. For example, the explicit costumes and gestures they receive
from viewing her. I think it's the voyeur quality that sells.Male, 25
Madonna is a performer who has been incredibly successful by scandalizing
and exposing herself. She does what every performer does, but takes it to an
extreme. Madonna is a businesswoman. She knows what sells, what people
want to see, and what will cause a commotion. She takes this and uses it to her
advantage.Male, 20
Madonna is a very smart business woman who worked very hard to get where
she is today. I feel she is very intelligent, gets what she wants when she wants
it, and serves as a positive role model for those striving for the top. I feel that
too many people are jealous and that is why they are so negative toward
her.Female, 24
The marketing thrust of Madonna and all of media culture has qualities of
hegemony and domination and plays a role in the way we read media texts. 2 In
light of this, an emphasis on context-activated reading sees encoding taking
place within the circuits of production in capitalism and decoding taking place
within the circuits of consumption in capitalism. The dominant system's
encoding serves to privilege certain readings, but decoding makes variations on
those readings. Dominant capitalist encodings of violence, sex, or Madonna
propose them as acceptable vehicles for moving commodities and enriching the
privileged but is less comfortable with them as sources of pleasure or
opposition in their own right. Preferred readings accept that, oppositional
readings oppose it, and negotiated readings navigate between the extremes.

The Power of "Interpretive Communities" in

Media Reception
I hang out with a lot of people who almost idolize and worship Madonna, so I
hear only good things about her. Negative media attention doesn't get a second
look by my peers.Male, 20