Compare methods

	Narrative Analysis in Media	Audience Reception Analysis
Field	Communication	Communication
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	2008	1980
Originator	Narrative theory (Labov; Fisher); methods synthesized by Riessman	Stuart Hall (encoding/decoding); David Morley (empirical reception)
Type	Interpretive analysis of how media tell stories and construct meaning	Qualitative study of how audiences interpret and make meaning from media
Seminal source	Riessman, C. K. (2008). Narrative Methods for the Human Sciences. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ISBN: 9780761929987	Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe, & P. Willis (Eds.), Culture, Media, Language: Working Papers in Cultural Studies, 1972–79 (pp. 128–138). London: Hutchinson. ISBN: 9780415079068
Aliases	Media narrative analysis, Narrative criticism of media, Storytelling analysis in media, Medyada Anlatı Analizi	Reception study, Encoding/decoding analysis, Reception analysis of audiences, İzleyici Alımlama Analizi
Related	4	4
Summary	Narrative analysis examines how media tell stories — how events are selected, ordered, and given meaning through plot, character, and perspective. Drawing on narrative theory and the methodological syntheses of scholars like Catherine Riessman, it treats storytelling as a fundamental way humans organize experience and persuade, and it interprets the structure, content, and performance of media narratives.	Audience reception analysis studies how real audiences interpret and make meaning from media texts, rejecting the idea that meaning is simply transmitted from message to receiver. Built on Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model and David Morley's empirical work, it treats interpretation as an active, socially situated process and examines whether audiences accept, negotiate, or resist the meanings a text seems to prefer.