Some theorists seem to suggest that the power to control communication is held by the producers of messages whereas other theorists argue that the power to control interpretations of texts are held by the consumers of culture operating within specific cultural contexts. Which of these positions is true? Why?

It can be agreed to a large extent that the power to control interpretations of texts are held by the consumers of culture operating within specific cultural contexts. However, this is not to refute completely that producers of messages hold some power to control communication. Previous studies of the theories of communication provide the set of assumptions that the process of communication is actually one-way. On the other hand,
“With the statistical explosion of probabilities and choices, how could mass culture take hold? The very consumption that the passive audience theorists so feared was turned on its head. Bauer's triumphant shout announced that the passive audience was liberated” (Biocca, n.d.). Thus, even though producers of texts attempt to send messages to the consumers, the consumers have the option of choosing which text they want to decode.
Consumers of any text form may interpret messages from them in any way they please, some of which may not be the original objective of the producer. Texts have to be consumed in order for their meaning to be interpreted and established; even dominant discourses involve a struggle in which both producers and consumers are implicated in the co-construction of their meaning and its reproduction. “Consumption is, as a result, unpredictable since there are a number of contradictory ways in which knowledge can be consumed, some of which may be quite different from the intentions of the original producers” (Hassard & Keleman, 2002). “On the audience side, Hall defined three types of decoding: dominant, negotiated and oppositional” (Mattelart & Mattelart 1998, pp. 89). Ideal readings are those in which the readers’ social situations are aligned with the dominant ideology and thus producing the dominant,