- Dominant Reading- Reader fully accepts the preferred reading (audience will read the text the way the author intended them to) so that he code seems natural and transparent.
- Negotiated Reading- The reader partly believes the code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests.
- Oppositional Reading- The readers social position places them in an oppositional relation to the dominant code. They reject the reading.
Hall was concerned with media power, including how it propagates particular social values, ideologies (in other words framing public debate surrounding certain issues; e.g. the role of women in society, asylum and immigration, the welfare system, the monarchy etc...)
He believes that the mass media create and define issues of public concern and interest through audience positioning.
Polysemy is the capacity for a text to have multiple meanings. It is to do with how individuals interpret and decode readings in different contexts and cultures.