A main theme from this weeks symposium was that of control – How much control do authors have over their audience? and whether or not an author can control how their work is interpreted. Sitting in this lecture and taking in the different ideas being debated, I feel like I agree to some extent with each of the opinions that were put forward.
When reading a book, or watching a film or listening to a conversation, it is easy for us to make our own interpretations and assumptions on what we think to be the intent of the author or speaker. We can take in the ideas we want to, and omit those we find no use for. Our minds seem to take in such works, and view them in our own way. However, in saying this, I do strongly believe that an author can definitely have some control over the way their work/writing is interpreted. I believe that it is a process that goes both ways, with the author setting the mark of thoughts, feelings and ideas, from which the audience can stick to or run off with. An authors work gets read, or viewed, by a varied audience. Within this audience there are people who will interpret what they observe in different ways, some being lead by the authors work and proving that an author can control the outcome of their intent on a reader, and others taking the authors work and finding their own meaning and intent.
I have to say that I do agree with both sides to the debate, and think that an author cannot have complete control over the way an audience interprets their work, however, to some extent they can get across their intended meaning, thoughts, or feelings in their writing, filming, editing, lyrics, or whatever it may be. I feel like having control in this context is not always black and white, but made up of grey areas also, where interpretation is controlled on both ends.