Stuart Hall - Encoding Decoding

Encoding/Decoding:

- first developed by cultural studies scholar Stuart Hall in 1973 in an essay titled
'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse';
- Hall takes a semiotic approach and builds on the work of Roland Barthes and
Umberto Eco;
- His model claims that television and other media audiences are presented with
messages that are decoded, or interpreted in different ways depending on an
individual's cultural background, economic standing, and personal experiences. In
contrast to other media theories that disempower audiences, Hall proposed that
audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their
own social contexts, and might be capable of changing messages themselves
through collective action → When you decode a message, you extract the meaning
of that message in ways that make sense to you;
- "The level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual reference and positioning
in different discursive fields of meaning and association, is the point where already
coded signs intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional
more active ideological dimensions." (Hall:1980);

Hall compares two models of communication. The first, the traditional model is
criticized for its linearity – sender/message/receiver – and for its lack of structured
conception of various moments as a complex structure of relations. The author proposes
the idea that there is more to the process of communication and, thus, advances a four-
stage model of communication that takes into account the production, circulation, use
and reproduction of media messages.

These four stages are:
1. Production – This is where the encoding, the construction of a message begins.

Production process has its own "discursive" aspect, as it is also framed by meanings
and ideas; by drawing upon society's dominant ideologies, the creator of the message
is feeding off of society's beliefs, and values. Numerous factors are involved in the
production process. On one hand "knowledge-in-use concerning the routines of
production, technical skills, professional ideologies, institutional knowledge,
definitions and assumptions, assumptions about the audience" form the "production
structures of the television." On the other hand, "topics, treatments, agendas, events,
personnel, images of the audience, ‘definitions of the situation' from other sources and
other discursive formations" form the other part of wider socio-cultural and political
structure.
2. Circulation – How individuals perceive things: visual vs. written. How things are
circulated influences how audience members will receive the message and put it to
use. According to Philip Elliott the audience is both the "source" and the
"receiver" of the television message. For example, circulation and reception of a
media message are incorporated in the production process through numerous
"feedbacks." So circulation and perception, although not identical, are certainly related
to and involved into the production process.
3. Use (distribution or consumption) – For a message to be successfully "realized", "the

broadcasting structures must yield encoded messages in the form of a meaningful
discourse." This means that the message has to be adopted as a meaningful discourse
and it has to be meaningfully decoded. However, the decoding/interpreting of a
message requires active recipients.
4. Reproduction – This stage is directly after audience members have interpreted a

message in their own way based on their experiences and beliefs. The decoded
meanings are the ones with "an effect" (e.g. influence, instruct, entertain) with "very
complex perceptual, cognitive, emotional, ideological or behavioral
consequences." What is done with the message after it has been interpreted is where
this stage comes in. At this point, you will see whether individuals take action after
they have been exposed to a specific message.
Since discursive form plays such an important role in a communicative process, Hall suggests
that "encoding" and "decoding" are "determinate moments." What he means by that is that an
event, for example, cannot be transmitted in its "raw format." A person would have to be
physically at the place of the event to see it in such format. Rather, he states that events can
only be transported to the audience in the audio-visual forms of televisual discourse (that is,
the message goes to processes of production and distribution). This is when the other
determinant moment begins – decoding, or interpretation of the images and messages through
a wider social, cultural, and political cognitive spectrum (that is, the processes of consumption
and reproduction).
"The event must become a 'story' before it can become a communicative event."
(Hall:1980);
Communication theorist Stuart Hall argues that there are three positions that people may take
upon decoding a television message. He argues three different positions because "decodings
do not follow inevitably from encodings." Thus, just because a message is encoded on
television in a particular way, it does not mean it will be decoded in its intended format. This
lays the foundation for Hall's hypothetical positions—he needs multiple positions because
there are multiple interpretations that could occur. These positions are known as the
dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position.
1. The first position that he discusses is the dominant-hegemonic code. This code or
position is one where the consumer takes the actual meaning directly, and
decodes it exactly the way it was encoded. For instance, political and military elites
primarily generated the politics of Northern Ireland and the Chilean Coup. These elites
created the "hegemonic interpretations" Because these ideas were hegemonic
interpretations, they became dominant. Hall demonstrates that if a viewer of a
newscast on such topics decoded the message "in terms of the reference code in which
it has been encoded" that the viewer would be "operating inside the dominant
code" Thus, the dominant code involves taking the connotative meaning of a message
in the exact way a sender intended a message to be interpreted (decoded). Under this
framework, the consumer is located within the dominant point of view, and is fully
sharing the texts codes and accepts and reproduces the intended meaning. Here, there
is barely any misunderstanding because both the sender and receiver have the
same cultural biases.This means that the intended message was created by the
dominant class and that the recipient was also a part of the dominant point of
view.
2. Another hypothetical position is the negotiated position. This position is a mixture of

accepting and rejecting elements. Readers are acknowledging the dominant message,
but are not willing to completely accept the message the way the encoder intended.
The reader to a certain extent, shares the texts code and generally accepts the preferred
meaning, but is simultaneously resisting and modifying it in a way which reflects their
own experiences and interests. Hall explains this when he states "decoding within the
negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it
acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand
significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it
makes its own ground rules- it operates with exceptions to the rule". Basically, this
means that people understand the dominant position, they generally believe the
position, but they are in a situation where they must make up their own separate
rules to coexist with the dominant position. Hall provides an example involving an
Industrial Relations Bill. In his example, he shows how a factory worker may
recognize and agree with the dominant position that a wage freeze is beneficial.
However, while the worker may recognize that the wage freeze is needed, they may
not be willing to partake in a wage freeze since it will directly affect them rather than
others His example demonstrates that people may negotiate a code to work around
their own beliefs and self-interests. This code is very much based on context.
3. Lastly, there is the oppositional position or code. Hall summarizes that a viewer can
understand the literal (denotative) and connotative meanings of a message while
decoding a message in a globally contrary way. This means that a person recognizes
that their meaning is not the dominant meaning, or what was intended, but alters the
message in their mind to fit an "alternative framework of reference". Thus, readers' or
viewers social situation has placed them in a directly oppositional relationship to the
dominant code, and although they understand the intended meaning they do not share
the text's code and end up rejecting it. Again, this code is based very much on
experiences. One's personal experiences will likely influence them to take on the
oppositional position when they encode hegemonic positions. Highly political
discourse emerges from these oppositional codes as "events which are normally
signified and decoded in a negotiated way begin to be given an oppositional reading

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Encoding/Decoding:

These four stages are:

1. Production – This is where the encoding, the construction of a message begins.

3. Use (distribution or consumption) – For a message to be successfully "realized", "the

4. Reproduction – This stage is directly after audience members have interpreted a

2. Another hypothetical position is the negotiated position. This position is a mixture of

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