vastaanottoopin

Vastaanotto-oppi, or reception theory, is a framework for analyzing how audiences interpret and respond to texts and media. It asserts that meaning is not fixed by the author alone but is produced in the interaction between a text and its readers or viewers, shaped by historical, social, and cultural contexts.

The development of reception theory began in mid-20th-century literary criticism in Germany with the ideas of Hans Robert Jauss and Wolfgang Iser, who argued that readers bring expectations to a text and that different readers can derive different meanings. In Anglo-American scholarship, reader-response theory and later Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model extended reception analysis to mass media, emphasizing that audiences actively interpret messages and may decode them in ways aligned with dominant ideologies, negotiated positions, or oppositional readings.

Key concepts include the horizon of expectations, through which prior knowledge influences interpretation; and the idea that texts are open to multiple readings rather than having a single intended meaning. Reception theory also examines how reception changes over time as social conditions shift, and how media technologies affect access and interpretation.

Applications include literary criticism, film and television studies, fan cultures, and media sociology. Critics note that the approach foregrounds audience agency but may underemphasize authorial intention or production contexts. In Finnish academia, vastaanotto-oppi is taught as part of literature, media studies, and cultural studies, highlighting the dynamic relationship between texts and their audiences.