Assassin's Creed and Reception Theory

• Encoding - the way meaning is channelled into a form of media.
• Decoding - extracting the meaning out of these ^
• The ideological perspective of the producer - the beliefs and values of the producer.
• Preferred reading - the reading which the producer aims for the audience to maintain by the end of viewing the form of media.
• Oppositional reading - the meaning which goes against the intended meaning.
• Negotiated reading - the meaning which is specific to the audience member, it is not directly accurate to the preferred reading, as there are multiple aspects of their own opinion involved. They agree with certain aspects, but not all.
• Issues with reception theory

What is the ideological perspective of Ubisoft? What messages are they demonstrating to their audience? 

Hints: think.... violence...history...narrative....interactivity...

• Violence helps you achieve your goals
• The only purpose of 'interacting' with other characters is to either learn information or to kill them.
•  This shows that people's lives do not really serve a purpose as no emotional connection is built.
• There are elements of history involved - which influence the costume design and weapon use, but is it completely relevant to the story? No, not really. The purpose is just to run around and kill people.

What is the preferred reading? How do you know?

• Violence helps you achieve what you want faster.
• That's the only way to progress in the game, therefore violence must hold value.

What is the oppositional reading? How do you know?

• Violence is unacceptable and causes harm
• Sound effects of dying characters.

In what ways can audiences negotiate the ideology of this game? 

• They can identify that this is a game, as exampled via the extreme speed of running, the time-period this is set, and the abilities of the main character. 
• There is an extreme emphasis on violence and the ideological perspective of "violence helps us to achieve our goals faster, and get what we want."
• A negotiated reading can be, "In a GAME setting, violence is acceptable to achieve the needs/wants of the character."

How can audiences use this game in ways that Ubisoft may have not intended?

• They can believe this is real life and replicate the actions displayed on screen.