ENCODING AND DECODING – STUART HALL
The
Encoding/decoding model of communication was first developed by cultural
studies scholar Stuart Hall in 1973. Titled 'Encoding and Decoding in
the Television Discourse', Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how
media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted. 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.
This
simply means, encoding/decoding is the translation of a message that is easily
understood. When you decode a message, you extract the meaning of that message
in ways that make sense to you. Decoding has both verbal and non-verbal forms
of communication: Decoding behavior without using words means observing body
language and its associated emotions. For example, some body language signs for
when someone is upset, angry, or stressed would be a use of excessive hand/arm
movements, red in the face, crying, and even sometimes silence. Sometimes when
someone is trying to get a message across to someone, the message can be
interpreted differently from person to person. Decoding is all about the
understanding of what someone already knows, based on the information given
throughout the message being received. Whether there is a large audience or
exchanging a message to one person, decoding is the process of obtaining,
absorbing, understanding, and sometimes using the information that was given throughout
a verbal or non-verbal message.
In the essay ‘Encoding and Decoding…; Stuart Hall explain that
certain cultural codes are so widely circulated and integrated in to the main
stream media that they can be seen as ‘naturalized’. These codes are most likely
to be received in ways which closely resemble the meanings put forward by the
encoder. He says that majority of people decode culture meanings by producing ‘negotiated’
readings which are a product of their own experiences and local culture.
CIRCUIT OF CULTURE – STUART HALL
Stuart Hall and Hoggart founded the University of
Birmingham Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies in 1963-64. They developed
a variety fo critical approaches for analysis, interpretation and criticism of
Cultural Studies. They focused on the interplay of representations and
ideologies of class, gender, race, ethnicity and nationality in cultural texts,
including media culture. They were among the first to study the effects of
newspapers, radio, television, films, and other popular cultural forms on
audiences. They also focused on how various audiences interpreted and used
media culture in different ways.
In his research work, Stuart Hall has analyzed culture as a
continuous circuit that is made up of ‘production – distribution – production’.
According to him, we need to analyze how media audiences produce messages, how
they circulate the messages, and how the audiences use or decode the messages
to create meaning.
He analyzed the products and institutions of corporate culture
with study of Sony Walkman. The launch of the Walkman by Sony was very
carefully timed to coincide with the school holidays as it was mostly targeted
towards the youth. Also production was done keeping in mind a reasonably priced
product. Thus it was not very high priced and was marketed and advertised from
this point of view. Mobile urban youth were represented using the product. Thus
the product was linked to its target audience and enabled them to identify with
it.
As seen in the above example, culture became a description of
a particular way of life. It expressed certain meanings and values. there is a
continuous process of cultural encoding and distribution. The way culture is
produced, circulated and decoded by the audience is controlled by advertising, marketing
and design. Through Circuit of Culture, we can study and analyze the meaning of
cultural artefacts. It is important for us to focus on the representation of
things as this affects our understanding of them and how they get shared with others.
Thus, we can see how media culture studies help us grasp
the ways in which media culture is produced, circulated and distributed.
