Date of Award

Spring 2020

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Media & Communication; College of Arts & Sciences

First Advisor

Dr. Lisa Holderman

Second Advisor

Dr. Alan Powell

Third Advisor

Dr. Michael Dwyer

Abstract

Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist who helped develop what we understand as modern media theory, defined reception theory as a sort of reader response implying that all media texts are encoded and decoded with messages. A producer of a media text encodes a message which is meant to be decoded by the consumer. They might accept the message, negotiate their own reading, or completely reject it. After spending a decade as the biggest show in the world, Game of Thrones came to a close in 2019 and after months of anticipation leading up to a final season completely fell out of the cultural conversation. In this piece, I explored an application of reception theory in the context of the series finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones.

COinS
 

Encoding, Decoding, and the End of Game of Thrones

Stuart Hall, a cultural theorist who helped develop what we understand as modern media theory, defined reception theory as a sort of reader response implying that all media texts are encoded and decoded with messages. A producer of a media text encodes a message which is meant to be decoded by the consumer. They might accept the message, negotiate their own reading, or completely reject it. After spending a decade as the biggest show in the world, Game of Thrones came to a close in 2019 and after months of anticipation leading up to a final season completely fell out of the cultural conversation. In this piece, I explored an application of reception theory in the context of the series finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones.