CUST 100 Week 17: 29 January Stuart Hall: Encoding/Decoding Reading: Stuart Hall, ‘Encoding/Decoding’ (Coursepack) N.B. If you want a semiotics refesher in relation to ‘Encoding-Decoding,’ please check the following site: Daniel Chandler, ‘Semiotics for Beginners—Encoding/Decoding’ http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.htmls The domains of ‘preferred meanings’ have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of the social structures of ‘how things work for all practical purposes in this culture’, the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions. And [encoding] cannot determine or guarantee, in a simple sense, which decoding codes will be employed. Otherwise communication would be a perfectly equivalent circuit, and every message would be an instance of ‘perfectly transparent communication. Introductory remarks This week we are going to look at the active role of the audience in the construction of meaning that takes place in the circuits of commodified culture Hall’s basic thesis: circuits of communication reproduce a pattern of domination—meaning is interrelated with power This takes place during a process of what Hall calls encoding and decoding Encoding: refers to the creation of cultural texts (i.e. TV program) Decoding: refers to the interpretation of cultural texts While Hall emphasizes the active role of the audience, he also realizes that interpretation is conditioned by the preferred reading that is encoded into the text upon production This encoding is imprinted by institutional power relations and express a ‘complex structure of dominance’—ideology Nonetheless, meaning (the preferred reading) is never guaranteed So while we always have agency in the construction of meaning, our interpretation is always in relation to the preferred reading—even if it radically differs Thus Hall situates meaning as polysemic not pluralistic Key themes and concepts 1 Process of Encoding-Decoding 2) Semiotic aspect of Encoding-Decoding 1) Process of Encoding-Decoding Hall offers a four-stage model for the process of communication (he originally wrote this paper specifically about television broadcasting) He does so because he wants to understand how meaning is produced Specifically, he wants to know two things: • 1) how do we actively participate in the construction of meaning • 2) how does dominant meaning gets reproduced He emphasizes how meaning (the symbolic) always occurs in a specific context (material) As such, he is implicitly critical of Behaviourist models (like ‘effects, uses and gratifications’ as used in Psychology) which focus exclusively on the interior interpretation of the individual There are four ‘relatively autonomous’ stages in the production and dissemination of meaning i) Production—ENCODING ii) Circulation iii) Use (reception/consumption)—DECODING iv) Reproduction Each stage “has its specific modality and conditions of existence” In short, one stages does not strictly determine the following stage Thus decoding often differs (slightly or greatly) from encoding—i.e. how a message is interpreted is not always the same as how it was constructed i) Production • both material and symbolic This is a set of material practices w/n a given media apparatus The institutional structures of broadcasting, with their practices and networks of production, their organized relations and technical infrastructures, are required to produce a programme. The symbolic is the actual construction of the message • is it where the message in encoded The encoding is the key moment in the entire circuit of communication 2 key points about ‘encoding’ in production 1) The ‘event’ or content must be put into ‘message form’ • a privileged moment in the overall circuit/process • i.e. ‘raw’ events cannot be circulated (they must be ‘encoded’ first) 2) Encoding takes place via what Hall calls the “institutional-societal r/ns of production” • this production structure does not form a ‘closed system’ • it is w/n “a wider socio-cultural, and political structure” ii) Circulation There is a difference in how we perceive something that is circulated on a major network vs. community television On a more basic level, there is a difference in how we perceive a visual image as opposed to the written word (C.F. Medium theory) • each medium as its own ‘conditions of perception’ In short, how the content is circulated is going to influence how it is received The visual image of TV is a good example The dog in a film can bark but it cannot bite. In other words, TV violence is not violence; rather, it is a message about violence Many (most?) have difficulty making this distinction because visual images appear as if they are transparent representations of reality We often forget that visual images are themselves encoded We must understand how ‘reality’ is both mediated and coded • reality is not natural • reality is articulated thru. codes • reality is mediated • reality is naturalized thru. codes This brings us to another basic point made by Hall: Communication is not a process by which ‘reality’ is transparently represented We need to look not for verisimilitude but for how reality is naturalized thru. codes In short, reality only becomes reality thru. a process of codification The operation of naturalized codes reveals not the transparency and ‘naturalness’ of language but the depth, the habituation and the near-universality of the codes in use. Naturalized codes produce a seemingly natural or transparent recognition of reality that has the ideological effect of concealing the practice of coding It is thru. the naturalization of codes that dominant meaning gets produced— thus constructing equivalency b/n encoding and decoding We read signs as natural even though they are only ever coded When codes are naturalized to this degree, Hall calls it an ideological effect— the practice and intervention of the codes (in ordering reality) are concealed iii) Use—Decoding Some of the most important details of decoding will be covered in section 2) below Here I will outline the three key positions Hall outlines for decoding This is the site in the circuit of communication where the audience is active The preferred reading or encoding is not always fully accepted—although the encoding sets parameters and limits for decoding Hall emphasizes the structural (not the individual) aspect of such variations A) Dominant or Hegemonic A virtually identical equivalence b/n encoding and decoding • you receive the cultural text fully within the dominant code • the coding seems natural and transparent B) Negotiated The preferred reading is accepted as ‘legitimate’ with some alteration • a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements • overall the decoding is very similar to the encoding but there are specific modifications • full of contradictions and disjunctions C) Oppositional The preferred reading is rejected • a clear understanding of the dominant coding • but it is wholly refused and replaced by a different set of codes that reflects the receivers alternative frame of reference 2) Semiotic aspect of Encoding-Decoding iii) Use—Decoding CONT’D What is unique about Hall’s approach is that he inserts a semiotic paradigm into a social framework This is important because semiotics were typically used for an abstract analysis of meaning (synchronic structuralist method) Hall situates our active participation in the construction of meaning in both its material and symbolic context Semiotics refresher in relation to ‘Encoding-Decoding’ Semiotics is the study of signs—dvlpd in the early 20th c. by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure Sign (word/symbol and its meaning) = signifier (thing represented by sign) + signified (concept or idea of signifier) Meaning is produced thru. a system of signs—codification Denotation and Connotation The level of connotation…is where already coded signs intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional, more active ideological dimensions. Important conceptual tools necessary for understanding the process of encoding/decoding The semiotic construction of meaning is broken down into two levels by Roland Barthes in the late 1950s (Mythologies) Denotative level • the literal meaning of something Connotative level • associative meaning • where the ‘struggle over meanings’ occurs (Volosinov) Denotative-Connotative level and the construction of meaning Denotative level • the level of meaning that is naturalized • coding (ideology) as deeply sedimented • a reflection of structural power r/ns • a reflection of the “dominant cultural order” This level is part of what Hall calls “the structure of discourses in dominance” In other words, it helps to produce the dominant or preferred reading (which is encoded into the message) This dominant or preferred reading has both • i) the institutional/political/ideological order imprinted in them • ii) become institutionalized themselves (in encoding) Connotative level Where our active participation in the construction of meaning takes place When decoding is negotiated or oppositional, it occurs on the connotative level But the connotative level always operates in r/n to the denotative level If we take the negotiated or oppositional position, we are working against the preferred meaning • against “the orders of social life, of economic and political power, and of ideology” Thus even oppositional readings are never an individual or private matter but are in r/n to encoding that