Stuart Hall reception theory- 'Humans'

Readings- Stuart Hall

What is the preferred meaning of ‘Humans’?

‘Humans’ is a television show surrounding a dystopian reality similar to our own however it is filled with robots or ‘synths’. The synths fulfil household chores and other roles in our society. Through watching the programme the audience are given insight into a world where artificial intelligence is seen as normal and surrounds most people’s lives similar to technology in our reality. Arguably, the preferred reading of ‘Humans’ is that synths would be a negative idea. This is shown through the continuous conflict between the synths and humans and the questionable morals. The show highlights many issues that could be caused from household artificial intelligence, for example if the synths become conscious and the question of their human rights and the idea of emotional attachment with synths, sexual or familial. Placing the audience in a situation of questionable morals and decisions that are hard to make can further convey the negative viewpoint of the synths in our everyday society and can make the audience feel unsettled and uncomfortable towards the idea. Through the presentation of these issues the audience can imply that ‘Humans’ is suggesting why AI would have a negative impact on our society and should not be developed.

How is this encoded?

This preferred meaning is encoded by the audience through events in the first episode. For example; Anita taking Sophie, her unexplained flashbacks, Niska’s role in the brothel and the emotional attachment between George and Odi. The way the audience encode a message depends on their cultural background, environment, genetics and current mood among other factors and variables. Anita taking Sophie may elicit feelings of fear, especially from parents. The unexplained flashbacks may cause mystery and an urge to watch more. Niska’s role may encode feelings of anger and moral questioning and George and Odi may portray feelings of love and frustration that Odi is broken. Although these are all preferred meanings, the audience may encode each event differently and encode a different meaning.

What other readings might this text generate?

Each text can have a dominant reading, negotiated and oppositional. The dominant reading is positive towards the text whilst the negotiated has positive and negative feelings and the oppositional is against the message in the text. The dominant reading of the text is that synths should not be created but conscious ones do deserve human rights. A negotiated view many suggest that we should have some form of AI and conscious synths should not be treated terribly and exploited but do not have human rights like us and a oppositional view point may be that our society should develop AI and that conscious synths deserve no human rights. Each viewpoint encoded depends on the audience member and their background and situation. Further factors that may take place in this, is the idea of different lenses and viewpoints. For example a feminist audience would see Niska’s role differently to a non- feminist audience and the sexual objectification of the female synths. A Marxism viewpoint may change the view of the treatment of conscious synths. A post- colonial viewpoint may see synths such as Anita, Fred and Max differently to those who are British. Overall, the text can generate many different readings depending on the audience’s individual situation.