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{{bq|1="The level of connotation of the visual [[Sign (semiotics)|sign]], of its [[Contextualization (sociolinguistics)|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."|2=Stuart Hall |3=1980, "Encoding/decoding."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding"/>}}
==Definition==
The ''[[Encoding (semiotics)|encoding]]'' of a message is the production of the message. It is a system of coded meanings, and in order to create that, the sender needs to understand how the world is comprehensible to the members of the audience.
The ''[[Decoding (semiotics)|decoding]]'' of a message is how an audience member is able to understand, and interpret the message. It is a process of interpretation and translation of coded information into a comprehensible form. The audience is trying to reconstruct the idea by giving meanings to symbols and by interpreting the message as a whole. Effective communication is accomplished only when the message is received and understood in the intended way. However, it is still possible for the message recipient to understand a message in a completely different way from what the encoder was trying to convey. This is when "distortions" or "misunderstanding" arise from "lack of equivalence" between the two sides in communicative exchange.<ref name=":3" />
In his essay,<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> 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. In contrast to the traditional linear approach of the sender and receiver, he perceives each of these steps as both autonomous and interdependent. Hall further explains that the meanings and messages in the discursive "production" are organized through the operation of codes within the rules of "language." "Each stage will affect the message (or "product") being conveyed as a result of its 'discursive form' (e.g. practices, instruments, relations)."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> Therefore, once the discourse is accomplished, it must be translated into social practices in order to be completed and effective – "If no 'meaning' is taken, there can be no 'consumption'." Each of these steps helps defines the one that follows, while remaining clearly distinct.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> Thus, even though each of these moments (stages) are equally important to the process as a whole, they do not completely ensure that the following moment will necessary happen. "Each can constitute its own break or interruption of the 'passage of forms' on whose continuity the flow of effective production (i.e. reproduction) depends."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" />
These four stages are:<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" />
#'''''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"<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> form the "production structures of the television."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> On the other hand, "topics, treatments, agendas, events, personnel, images of the audience, ‘definitions of the situation' from other sources and other discursive formations"<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> form the other part of wider socio-cultural and political structure.
#'''''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.
#'''''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."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> 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.
#'''''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."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> 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.
[[File:Encoding decoding of broadcast structures.jpg|alt=By Stuart Hall|centre|thumb|458x458px|Encoding and decoding of broadcast structures]]
Since discursive form plays such an important role in a communicative process, Hall suggests that "[[Encoding (semiotics)|encoding]]" and "[[Decoding (semiotics)|decoding]]" are "determinate moments."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> 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).
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*[[Reader-response criticism]]
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