Raluca Petre -
Media Theory and Reception Specificities in Romania
(pag. 169-178)
In this paper I problematize the specificity of the dynamic between producers and receptors in a post-communist European country, Romania. In the first part of the paper I contextualize the institutional setting of media in Europe, and the CEE. I further attempt to explore the validity of the three „preferred reading” positions Stuart Hall identified in relation to media messages: the dominant hegemonic position, the negotiated code and the oppositional code. The main point of exploration is the contestation of the hegemonic and its meanings after the fall of communism. This paper attempts to reveal the institutionalization and naturalization of the commercial code in the years following the fall of communism and the underdevelopment of oppositional or negotiated readings of this emerging code, at least up to the moment.