The ways in which audiences respond to media texts are often determined by a number of factors. For example, in film, an audience member is arguably more likely to adopt the preferred reading, as per Stuart Hall's reception theory, if they are able to identify with the characters. For example, in Kingsman: The Secret Service, directed by Matthew Vaughn in 2014, the preferred reading of the text is to view Eggsy as the protagonist and as a "good" character and one way this can be achieved is by making him relatable to the audience. As a working class teenage boy, many consumers of the text are likely to identify with him and therefore understand the trials and tribulations that he endures on a level personal to his character. This concept of identification also links to the Uses and Gratifications theory whereby audiences choose to consume a media text based on the fact that they can relate and identify with elements of it.

This concept of the audience being able to identify to the characters is also used throughout Weekend, directed and written by Andrew Haigh in 2011, is likely to appeal to an audience of homosexual people better than it would an audience of heterosexual people for the reason that homosexual people would be able to identify with the issues, themes and narrative somewhat better than a heterosexual person might. This can be evidenced through the fact that the film was restricted to just ten cinemas in Italy after the Italian Bishop's Conference Film Evaluation Commission branded the story "indecent" and "unusable". This shows the opposition reading to the film in that people were offended by the contents of the film rather than understanding the issues explored and discussed. However, the ban across the majority of cinemas was soon lifted after audiences adopted the preferred reading to the text and the film took the highest per-screen-average takings in it's opening weekend.

Again in regards to being able to identify with the characters or themes of a film, a film that this is likely not true for is Skyfall, a film directed by Sam Mendes in 2012 that belongs to the James Bond franchise, as the lifestyles represented are not likely to be relatable to the general public. Regardless, audience response to the film has been positive, given the fact that the box office figures of Skyfall are 1.109 billion USD. There are many reasons that the audience may have responded so well to the film. Some of these reasons include the fact that the film belongs to an already popular franchise, being the 23rd film under the James Bond name, and so there would have been considerable anticipation - especially within public and media discourse - regarding the film. Likewise, the use of star power in having famous names such as Dame Judi Dench have roles in the film is likely to have appealed to the audience. In regards to genre, given the breadth of action films across the film industry - from popular action franchises such as Men in Black and the Bourne series, for example - it is connoted that the mass audience is made up of a considerable number of fans of the action and so, by meeting the conventions of the action genre, it is likely that the film would generate a positive response from fans of the action genre. This positive response, in regards to Skyfall, can be measured by a number of factors, including social media response. The James Bond franchise has 369k followers on Twitter, for example, and these followers are more than likely to be audience members who enjoy the James Bond films.

Regarding to measuring audience response, as well as observing box office figures and social media statistics, the awards that films receive are also a measure of how the audience's reponded. For example, Weekend won the Audience Award Emerging Visions award at the SXSW Film Festival which shows that the audience responded positively to the film. Likewise, Skyfall won an array of different awards, including two Oscar Academy Awards, a Golden Globe and two BAFTA Awards, amongst a breadth of others. Kingsman: The Secret Service was also award winning, having won two Empire Awards.

To conclude, audiences often respond in different ways to different texts, adopting either a preferred, negotiated or oppositional reading based on a number of factors which may effect their perception of the text. As active audiences, the way in which they have perceived a text can often be measured by the way in which they physically respond: the number of people who consume a film, for example, or whether or not a film has received awards nominated by the audience, as another example.