Reception Analysis

I watched an episode of the The Office called "The Sting." The video was about a salesman who is taking clients from Dunder Mifflin. Jim, Dwight, and Michael set up a sting operation so they can watch Dan, the talented salesman, in action and get pointers on how to make a good sales pitch and see why he is so good. The secondary story-line focuses on Andy forming a band with Darryl and Kevin. The central message of this video is hard to pinpoint. The Office always focuses on multiple stories and characters so it really almost depends on whose perspective you look at it from. I liked the video because I am a huge fan of the show and it happens to be one of my favorite episodes from this current season. The questions from the book focus on group interaction so I will focus on how I personally view my reactions in relation with the show. I do feel the that the show is an example of polysemy. It is open to many interpretations as I stated earlier. There can be an overlying main story-line throughout any given episode of The Office with many other small ones in place as well. In this example, the main story was the plan to set up a sting to view the sales pitch of Dan. Then, enter Andy's band, the situation regarding the dates that Pam and Dan went on, Meredith posing as a fake boss, etc, and there becomes a series of other developing stories and sub plots. Finding the main message is hard to narrow down in this episode and it tries to utilize lots of different angles to get the reaction. Sexual Humor, dry humor, musical humor, as well as others are all used to get laughs and tell the story. The is also such a varying degree of characters that can satisfy all different senses of humor.

This opens up Polyvalence. This occurs when an audience agrees with the what the text is about but have different end results and different personal interpretations. It comes down largely to encoding and decoding. Encoding is how one perceives a message from specific content, and decoding is the process of using a code to decipher a specific meaning. This is very relative to the Polyvalence one would encounter this when getting a reaction from this show. I personally watch this episode and am able to come to the conclusion that some of the core values demonstrated from the show are friendship, respect, and team work. I personally encode that interpretation based off the actions, relationships, and behaviors demonstrated by the characters and from the story line. Someone else may try to decode specific scenes, dialogue, facial expression, etc. to come up with a different end result than me. This is how Polysemy and polyvalence are relative to the show and my reactions.

2. I would most likely converge positively with other fans of The Office, and people with similar personality traits and similar sense of humor as me. This would make us interpretive communities. We would be a group that shares similar experiences, likes, values, social status, etc. Someone who likes The Office as much as I do may approach it in a similar way. They would catch the more subtle humor, or find some things funny that the average viewer would not. They would be able to see the progression and development of the characters over the seasons and the constant changes in plot. People who personally appreciate comedy over drama would be in the same interpretive community as me. If people like dry, goofy, immature humor then they would be bigger fans of the show and interpret it in a similar fashion. Going with that, fans of the show are in the same interpretive communities as the creators because according to the book, the communities that an author/producer/ creator belongs to also influence how that individual constructs the text initially. Audiences in the same communities as creators pick up on those projections as direction for understanding the text. Those outside of this specific community will not pick up the projections.

3. I personally used dominant code to analyze the episode of the office. I can say that because when I viewed this episode, my initial reaction was positive. Typically, if one responds positively to any given text, show, movie, or any other content in media, they are using dominant code. I was able to find the preferred meaning from this episode. The people that make this episode have a preferred meaning they want their audience to get, and use different codes throughout the episode to give "clues' you could say. I take those clues and piece them together to ultimately have a positive experience/interpretation of the show thus resulting in the use of dominant code. I am using the same code as the intended media producers because I obviously enjoy the show. I have watched every season and even own seasons on DVD, Netflix, and watch re-runs. Those producers are connecting with me and getting through to me at some level at least because I keep watching and enjoying the show. I get the humor, I understand the characters, and I care about what happens next. I am deciphering the meaning of the text and accepting it as the truth. I don't question it. Even if I may not enjoy one episode as much as the other I still watch it and look forward to it. All of this constitutes the reason I use dominant code when analyzing the episode.