Preferred/dominant, negotiated, oppositional

Here, i am going to analyse three episodes from Ugly Betty in terms of encoding/decoding and state whether they are either preferred, dominant or oppositional readings, as well as state reasons why I have opted for them.

The first is Tornado Girl from season 3 and the scene where Marc tells Betty how he had cheated on his (then) boyfriend, Cliff with another guy. For me personally, this scene takes on a negotiated reading because here he admits what he has done and feels so guilty about what had happened- yet he still hadn't told Cliff what he did, until after Betty had spoken to him about it. I agree with this reading because a) he came out and confessed all, rather than remain silent and b) it took Marc a lot of guts to admit to Betty, and Cliff also, about his cheating. But for some, they would disagree with this reading because they thought that Marc should not have told Betty- mainly as they thought that it was a matter of which was of a personal nature that only Marc and Cliff should discuss together themselves and that it would not have made that much of a difference anyway. In the end, Marc lost Cliff and they broke up as a result.

The second is from season 1 and this adapts a preferred/dominant reading. Here, the scene is taken from the episode, 'Sofia's Choice' when Betty confronts Sofia in her office, after she discovers how Sofia, who turns out to be the villian, humiliated Daniel on national TV and used her to endorse her own career. The dominant reading in this scene is that of Betty being outraged by what Sofia did and of whom felt sorry for Daniel that in the end she quit her position at NYW and returned to Mode.

The third is from season 3 entitled 'Rabbit Test' and this one takes on an oppositional reading. The scene here is when Willie along with Marc change the paternity results when they discover the mother of Baby William to be Christina, as opposed to Wilhelmina, who had long been interested in having this baby. Ever since she hired Christina to be her surrogate. This is an oppositional reading because with Willie and Marc, as the audience we are supposed to feel anger towards them as they hid the truth away from Christina, and especially with Willie getting Marc to re-type the DNA results.

An ideology is a set of ideas or beliefs that are determined by the ruling classes and very often these ideas are contested and challenged. The media is one outlet which attempts to produce these ideas and beliefs- and yet it is up to us to decide whether or not we ought to agree with and support them, or oppose and reject them. Stuart Hall's encoding/decoding model seeks to highlight that there is more than one way of reading texts and that texts enlist the audience to take up a position- be it, preferred, negotiated or oppositional, based on what they see.

The ideologies in Ugly Betty say a lot about the characters, their predicaments and situations and how the likes of Betty, Daniel, Marc and Amanda go about their daily working and personal lives.
The decisions and actions they take are often made in relation to their status as individuals and via their social and cultural backgrounds.

Through its storylines, the show engages us to think, discuss and decide if those ideas and decisions do challenge how those in power at Mode convey those ideas and make decisions, and whether these are to benefit others or themselves only.

from http://www.fanpop.com/spots/ugly-betty/articles/15640