Content deleted Content added
Undid revision 933530881 by 175.157.100.53 (talk) |
|||
Line 40:
Communication theorist [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]] argues that there are three positions that people may take upon decoding a television message. He argues three different positions because "decodings do not follow inevitably from encodings".<ref name="Hall">{{cite book|first=Stuart|last=Hall|authorlink=Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|title=Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks|editor1-first=Meenakshi Gigi|editor1-last=Durham|editor2-first=Douglas M.|editor2-last=Keller|publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]]|___location=Hoboken, New Jersey|date=2009|ISBN=9781405150309|page=171-74}}</ref> Thus, just because a message is encoded on television in a particular way, it does not mean it will be decoded in its intended format. This lays the foundation for Hall's hypothetical positions—he needs multiple positions because there are multiple interpretations that could occur. These positions are known as the dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position.
The first position that he discusses is the dominant-hegemonic code. This code or position is one where the consumer takes the actual meaning directly, and decodes it exactly the way it was encoded. For instance, political and military elites primarily generated the politics of [[The Troubles|Northern Ireland]] and the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|Chilean Coup]]. These elites created the "hegemonic interpretations"<ref name="Hall"/> Because these ideas were hegemonic interpretations, they became dominant. Hall demonstrates that if a viewer of a newscast on such topics decoded the message "in terms of the reference code in which it has been encoded" that the viewer would be "operating inside the dominant code"<ref name="Hall"/> Thus, the dominant code involves taking the [[Connotation|connotative]] meaning of a message in the exact way a sender intended a message to be interpreted (decoded). Under this framework, the consumer is located within the dominant point of view, and is fully sharing the texts codes and accepts and reproduces the intended meaning. Here, there is barely any misunderstanding because both the sender and receiver have the same [[cultural bias]]es.<ref>[http://juliemartin.org/juliemartin-audiencesreception.pdf "Audiences and Reception Theory."] Julie Martin: Community Manager / Animatrice De Communaute. 2007.</ref> This means that the intended message was created by the dominant class and that the recipient was also a part of the dominant point of view. And there is no misunderstanding between sender and receiver for they have similar cultural biases.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" />
A modern-day example of the dominant-hegemonic code is described by communication scholar Garrett Castleberry in his article "Understanding Stuart Hall's 'Encoding/Decoding' Through AMC's [[Breaking Bad]]". Castleberry argues that there is a dominant-hegemonic "position held by the entertainment industry that illegal drug side-effects cause less damage than perceived". If this is the dominant code and television shows like ''Breaking Bad'' support such perceptions, then they are operating within the dominant code.<ref name="academia.edu">{{cite book|first=Garret|last=Castleberry|chapter=Understanding Stuart Hall's 'Encoding/Decoding' Through AMC's Breaking Bad|title=Communication Theory and Millennial Popular Culture: Essays and Applications|editor-first=Kathleen|editor-last=Glenister Roberts|publisher=[[Peter Lang (publisher)|Peter Lang Inc.]]|___location=New York City|date=2015|ISBN=978-1433126420|page=90}}</ref> Likewise, a viewer believing such perceptions will also be operating within the dominant-hegemonic code since they are encoding the message in the way it is intended.
Line 54:
==Oppositional position==
Lastly, there is the oppositional position or code. Hall summarizes that a viewer can understand the literal (denotative) and connotative meanings of a message while decoding a message in a globally contrary way. This means that a person recognizes that their meaning is not the dominant meaning, or what was intended, but alters the message in their mind to fit an "alternative framework of reference"<ref name="Hall"/> It is more like that receiver decode a different message. Thus, readers' or viewers social situation has placed them in a directly oppositional relationship to the dominant code, and although they understand the intended meaning they do not share the text's code and end up rejecting it. Again, this code is based very much on experiences. One's personal experiences will likely influence them to take on the oppositional position when they encode hegemonic positions. Highly political discourse emerges from these oppositional codes as "events which are normally signified and decoded in a negotiated way begin to be given an oppositional reading."<ref name="Hall"/>
==The encoding/decoding model critique==
| |||