Encoding/decoding model of communication: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|Cultural studies model}}

The '''encoding/decoding model of communication''' emerged in rough and general form in 1948 in [[Claude E. Shannon]]'s "A Mathematical Theory of Communication," where it was part of a technical schema for designating the technological encoding of signals. Gradually, it was adapted by communications scholars, most notably [[Wilbur Schramm]], in the 1950s, primarily to explain how mass communications could be effectively transmitted to a public, its meanings intact by the audience (i.e., decoders).<ref name="How communication works">{{cite book|first=Schramm|last=Wilbur|title=The process and effects of mass communication|publisher=[[University of Illinois Press]]|___location=Urbana, Illinois|date=1954}}</ref> As the jargon of Shannon's information theory moved into semiotics, notably through the work of thinkers [[Roman Jakobson]], [[Roland Barthes]], and [[Umberto Eco]], who in the course of the 1960s began to put more emphasis on the social and political aspects of encoding.<ref name="Code">{{cite book|first=Bernard|last=Geoghegan|title=Code: From Information Theory to French Theory|publisher=[[Duke University Press]]|___location=Durhan, North Carolina|date=2024}}</ref> It became much more widely known, and popularised, when adapted by cultural studies scholar [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]] in 1973, for a conference addressing mass communications scholars (were were familiar with the model from its widespread circulation in communication studies). In a Marxist twist on this model, Stuart Hall's study, titled the study 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse.' offered a theoretical approach of how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding">{{cite web |last1=Hall |first1=Stuart |title=Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse |url=https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/history/cccs/stencilled-occasional-papers/1to8and11to24and38to48/SOP07.pdf |website=University of Birmingham |access-date=27 October 2019}}</ref> Hall proposed that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own [[Social environment|social contexts]] and capability of changing messages through [[collective action]].

Thus, encoding/decoding is the translation needed for a message to be easily understood. When you decode a message, you extract the meaning of that message in ways to simplify it. Decoding has both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication: Decoding behavior without using words, such as displays of non-verbal communication. There are many examples, including observing body language and its associated emotions, e.g. monitoring signs when someone is upset, angry, or stressed where they use excessive hand/arm movements, crying, and even silence. Moreover, there are times when an individual can send a message across to someone, the message can be interpreted differently from person to person. Decoding is all about understanding others, 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 and sometimes utilizing information that was given throughout a verbal or non-verbal message.