Videogames 8 - Assassin's Creed and reception theory

• Key Theory 17 - Stuart Hall's Reception Theory (Encoding/decoding model)
• Encoding is when an idea or a message is presented (often by a producer) towards a decoder (The audience) who are then tasked with picking this message apart and making sense of it, working out their own take upon what they have been provided with, this is the process of decoding.
• The ideological perspective of the producer is always encoded in every single media product, through media language. This also means that every media product, therefore, demonstrates a mediated perspective of reality, and in doing so betrays the ideological goals, biases and assumptions of the producer.  Ideological perspective can be encoded through many things, mise-en-scene, soundtrack, shot types, editing used, audio, these are all examples as to what a  producer uses in order to do so.
  
• Preferred reading/ Dominant Reading
  This is the ideal way that a media producer would wish for their audience to consume their texts, in a passive manner of full agreement with the ideological perspectives being preached via the media language of the piece. This would abide by examples like Bandura's effects model, reception theory opposes this by arguing that audiences are active as opposed to passive and can decode media messages in many differing ways.
• Oppositional reading
  The complete juxtaposition to the preferred reading, this is when the viewer of a media text upon decoding it, is entirely against the ideological perspectives presented to them.
• Negotiated reading
  The most common and more nuanced reading that is argued by Hall's Reception Theory, that the viewer is active during the process of decoding a media text and is able to agree with some areas while disagreeing with others from the text to fit their own opinion, views, etc. 
• Issues with reception theory
  Do we need to accept a dominant ideology, to begin with? Theorists like Henry Jenkins (Fandom) as well as David Gauntlet (Theories surrounding identity) both suggest that audiences are prone to largely ignoring the intended dominant ideological perspectives of a media text, and can interpret media products any which way that they feel. 
  
  Negotiating the Assassin's Creed franchise:
  
• What is the ideological perspective of Ubisoft? What messages are they demonstrating to their audience?
  • Violence within the world of Assassin's Creed is emphasised as acceptable and justified should it be used to further an ideological or political cause. (I.E. The Assasins are constantly attempting to stop power falling into the hands of the Templars to use for their supposedly evil ambitions.)
    
  • Violence is acceptable and is an enjoyable activity, extra diegetically, the character we're assuming control of in the game most likely narratively doesn't enjoy the extreme amounts of violence, but for us as the player, it is fun to parkour around on a murdering spree. This isn't as to the person playing being a psychopath, but it is rather because we negotiate video games and understand they are not verbatim with real life.
• What is the preferred reading? How do you know?
• Naturally, the preferred reading would be for the player to be manipulated enough to an agreement with the Assassin's ideology within the context of the game's narrative, and to be complacent with the reasoning provided for the acts of violence, etc, that you perform while playing the game.
• What is the oppositional reading? How do you know?
  
• I suppose the oppositional reading would be to completely be against everything in the game, 'violence is still violence'. That being said, why would you pick up a copy of an expensive triple-A game if you were of the oppositional reading?
• In what ways can audiences negotiate the ideology of this game? 
  
• The player of an Assasin's Creed game doesn't necessarily have to agree with the ideological perspectives of the Assasins as these killers with a cause, they in some cases during the games, are in encouraged to sympathise with the other side of the conflict in that of the antagonistic force of the Templars.
• How can audiences use this game in ways that Ubisoft may have not intended?
• Objectively, a player can still play the game and enjoy the mechanics of it therapeutically without giving care for the message of the narrative encoded through the text. 
• Is this gameplay video a negotiated reading? Why?
  
• I'd argue that the gameplay video, in this case, is not a negotiated reading, but is very much the preferred reading of the text. The purpose of the video is to display to viewers the gameplay without any commentary, to offer them a passive viewing experience of the most surface-level reading of the game. The lack of commentary also revokes any expressed views, thoughts, etc that the player might otherwise have voiced and negotiated what they were decoding.