EssentialResources encoding decoding

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Y 2 ENCODTNG AND DECODING

0ne of the l<ey issues in audience studies concerns the relationship between producer, text

and audience. In many ways this equation is about a balance of power: assessing the extentto which audiences are influenced and swayed by media texts, and to what extent they

appropriate them in ways quite different to the producers' intentions.

programme as

encoding

meanrng

structures 1

frameworks

of knowledge

relations ofproduction

technicalinfrastructure

Extract 29

a/'meaningful'

discourse

\decoding.

meaning

structures 2

frameworks

:1_l!eY99e:relations of

PI-"9Tl19!technical

infrastructure

Source: S. Hall, 'Encoding/Decoding', in S. Hall et al. (eds),

Culture, Media, Language, Hutchinson, I 980, p. I 30

MEDI.A Si.UDlES: THE ESSENTIAL RESOURCE



0ne of the earliest explorations of this relationship comes in Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding model. In the diagram reproduced above, he represents the two sides: encoding,

which is the domain of the producer, and decoding, the domain of the audience. The

process of communicating a message requires that it be encoded in such a way that the

receiver of the message is able to decode it. For example, a televisual message is encoded

through the use of camera technology, transmitted as a signal and then decoded using a

television set. If you do not have a television set, then you don't have the means to

understand or decode the televisual message.

Examine the symmetry between the two sides in the diagram above. Both encoding and

decoding tal<e place within the similar contexts, which ultimately provide the means by

which the message can be transmitted and received. 0ne reason that the encoded and

decoded messages may not be the same is the capacity of the audience to vary its response

to media messages. Hall identified three possible types of response that an audience might

make to a media message, as Bell, Joyce and Rivers also point out in the extract below.

The encoding/decoding model put forward by Stuart Hall and David Morleycentred on the idea that audiences vary in their response to media messages.

This is because they are influenced by their social position, gender, age, ethnicity,occupation, experience and beliefs as well as where they are and what they are

doing when they receive a message. In this model, media texts are seen to be

encoded in such a way as to present a preferred reading to the audience butthe audience does not necessarily accept that preferred reading. Hall categorised

three kinds of audience response.

I Dominant - the audience agree with the dominant values expressed withinthe preferred reading of the text

r Negotiated - the audience generally agree with the dominant valuesexpressed within the preferred reading but they may disagree with certainaspects according to their social background

I Oppositional - the audience disagree with dominant values expressed within

thepreferred

reading of the textA. Bell, M. Joyce and D. Rivers, Advanced Media Studies, Hodder & Stoughton, 1999, p. 2l

0ne concept that has been challenged subsequently by theorists is the notion of Hall's

'preferred reading'. This refers to the way the encoder would prefer the audience tointerpret a media message, above all other possible readings. However, it could be argued

that some texts are deliberatelycreated to remain

opento interpretation. The films ofDavid Lynch/ such as Lost Highway or Mulholland Drive, are examples of texts that

deliberately leave it up to the audience to mal<e their own individual readings.

A theorist who developed the ideas behind Hall's Encoding and Decoding model was John

Fiske. He explained the distinction between the two sides of the model as an opposition

IVI EDIA.AUDIENCES



between the 'power bloc' of a dominant cultural, political and social order and'the people'.

The power bloc produces mass products that the people change by their resistance to them.

As Nicl< Stevenson explains in his essay, 'Critical Perspectives with Audience Research':

'popular culture is made by the people, not produced by the cultural industry'.

From this perspective, the audience is empowered in a way that might not be readily

observed. Stevenson goes on to cite Fisl<e's use of Madonna's music to exemplify the way

in which'the act of consumption always entails the production of meaning'.

The circulation of meaning requires us to study three levels of textuality while

teasing out the specific relations between them. First there are the cultural forms

that are produced along with the new Madonna album to create the idea of a

medla event. These can include concerts, books, posters and videos. At the next

level, there is a variety of media talk in popular magazines and newspapers,

television pop programmes and radio shows all offering a variety of criticalcommentary upon Madonna. The flnal level of textuality, the one that Fiske

claims to be most attentive to, involves the ways in which Madonna becomes

part of our everyday life. According to Fiske, Madonna's career was launched by

a rockvideo of an early song'Lucky Star'. She became established in 1985 as a

cultural icon through a series of successful LPs and singles, the film Desperateltl

Seekinq Sasan, nude shots that appeared in Penthouse and Plaqboy, as well as the

successful marketing of a certain 'look'. Fiske argues that Madonna symbolically

plays with traditional male-dominated stereotypes of the virgin and the whorein order to subtly subvert patriarchal meanings. That is, the textuality of Madonna

ideologically destabilises traditional representations of women. Fiske accounts

for Madonna's success by arguing that she is an open or writerly text rather than

a closed readerly one. In this way, Madonna is able to challenge her fans to

reinvent their own sexual identities out of the cultural resources that she and

patriarchal capitalism provides. Hence Madonna as a text is polysemic, patriar-

chal and sceptical. In the final analysis, Madonna is not popular because she is

promoted by the culture industry, but because her attempts to forge her ownidentity within a male-defined culture have a certain relevance for her fans.

N. Stevenson, 'Critical Perspectives within Audience Research' in T. O'Sullivan

and Y. lewkes (eds), Tlie Media Studies Rea.ler, Arnold , 1997 , p. 235

Choose a more u,p,'to-dlte e xar:npls :sf 6:product of mass culture that you think has

been appropr.iated by peo,ple as 'alcultural rresoutce'. Explain how you,think that

audiences may have used it differentlyfrom the way the producers intended.

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