By Yeseo Jeon
Love Island USA Season 3 is a reality TV show premiered on CBS on July 7, 2021. The show captures single men and women spending time together in a luxury villa in Hawaii as they try to find love. During their time, the islanders are presented with challenges and games to test their compatibilities with one another. The overall winning couple win a grand total of $100,000 and leave the island together.
Stuart Hall notes three hypothetical positions from which decodings of television can occur: dominant, negotiated, and oppositional narratives. Analyzing the three narratives for Love Island USA Season 3 can allow us to understand how the show functions and interacts with its audience.
First, a dominant position of decoding would encompass the decode of formal and ideological concepts with the encoder’s intent. In the case of Love Island, a viewer may understand that the show is about single men and women trying to find true love as they overcome challenges and games together. The viewer would also understand the entertainment that lies in the psychological and social dynamics on the island and relate to the reflections of real life scenarios in a more intensified setting. For example, the audience would recognize the show’s exploration of intimacy, cheating, compatibility, communication issues, alliances, and relationships. When Cashay is heartbroken over Cinco’s inability to choose between Trina and her throughout the show, the viewer feels empathy for her, upset about Cinco’s lack of commitment.
For an oppositional narrative, viewers may interpret the show in a way that challenges or opposes these dominant readings. The audience may understand the connotations of the show, but decode the message in a contrary way. For instance, many viewers criticize Love Island’s heteronormative focus and lack of inclusivity as well as its way of perpetuating sexual double standards. Audience members with a lack of similar perspectives and life experiences as the show producers may respond in an oppositional manner to the show, finding it disturbing and not relatable.
Finally, a negotiated position would be a way of decoding somewhere in the middle of these two ways of reading. While Love Island is a popular show loved by many, it has also understandably been received with much backlash. Many viewers may find it entertaining to watch due to the show’s psychological and suspenseful catches, but may also find some points disturbing and problematic.