Encoding/decoding model of communication: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:26, 24 November 2020

Revision as of 22:04, 3 December 2020

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In simpler terms, 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.

For example, since advertisements can have multiple layers of meaning, they can be decoded in various ways and can mean something different to different people.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Aidan|last1=Kelly|first2=Katrina|last2=Lawlor|first3=Stephanie|last3=O'Donohoe|chapter=Chapter 8: Encoding Advertisements: The Creative Perspective|title=The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader|editor1-first=Joseph|editor1-last=Turow|editor2-first=Matthew P.|editor2-last=McAllister|publisher=[[Routledge]]|___location=Hoboken, New Jersey|date=2009|ISBNisbn=978-0415963305|pages=133–49}}</ref>

{{bqquote|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==

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==Application of model==

This model has been adopted and applied by many media theorists since Hall developed it. Hall's work has been central to the development of cultural studies, and continues today because of the importance of decoding. [[Cultural Studies]] started challenging the mainstream media effects models in 1960. The main focus was how audience members make meanings and understand reality through their use of cultural symbols in both print and visual media.<ref name="Media & Culture">{{cite book|first=Richard|last=Campbell|title=Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication|publisher=[[St. Martin's Press]]|___location=Boston, Massachusetts|date=2002|ISBNisbn=978-0312403287}}</ref> It is important to look at cultural research because its focus on daily experiences, looking at race, gender, class and sexuality all help bring meaning to the world we live in today. Theorists such as [[Dick Hebdige]], David Morley, and [[Janice Radway]] have been heavily influenced by Hall, and applied his theory to help develop their own:

Hebdige was a British cultural and critic scholar who studied under Hall at the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. His model builds from Hall's idea of [[Subculture]]. He is most known for his influential book ''[[Subculture: The Meaning of Style]]'', where he argues that younger generations are challenging dominant ideologies by developing distinct styles and practices that manifest their separate identity, and subversions. His exploration of the punk subculture outlines the potential causes and influences of the punk movement, especially for the youth. His extensive study on subcultures and its resistance against mainstream society showed that the punk subculture used commodification to differentiate themselves from, or become accepted by, the mainstream. Hebdige believed that punk was incorporated into the media in an attempt to categorize it within society, and he critically examines this issue by applying Hall's theory of encoding and decoding.

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== Three positions upon decoding messages ==

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|last=Hall|first=Stuart|title=Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks|date=2009|publisher=[[Wiley (publisher)|Wiley]]|ISBNisbn=9781405150309|editor1-last=Durham|editor1-first=Meenakshi Gigi|___location=Hoboken, New Jersey|pages=171–74|authorlinkauthor-link=Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|editor2-last=Keller|editor2-first=Douglas M.}}</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.

===Dominant/hegemonic 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|ISBNisbn=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.

===Negotiated position===

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==The encoding/decoding model critique==

Hall's encoding/decoding model has left its proponents with three main problems to solve<ref>{{cite journal|first1=Shangwei|last1=Wu|first2=Tabe|last2=Bergman|url=http://www.participations.org/Volume%2016/Issue%201/7.pdf|title=An active, resistant audience – but in whose interest? Online discussions on Chinese TV dramas as maintaining dominant ideology|journal=Participations: International Journal of Audience Research|volume=16|issue=1|date=May 2019|page=23}}</ref> The first problem concerns polysemy. The three positions of decoding proposed by Hall are based on the audience’saudience's conscious awareness of the intended meanings encoded into the text. In other words, these positions – agreement, negotiation, opposition – are in relation to the intended meaning. However, polysemy means that the audience may create new meanings out of the text. The audience’saudience's perceived meanings may not be intended by the producers. Therefore, ‘polysemy’ and ‘opposition’ should be seen as two analytically distinct processes, although they do interconnect in the overall reading process.<ref>Morley, D. (2006). Unanswered questions in audience research. ''The Communication Review 9''(2), 101–121.</ref><ref name="doi.org">Schrøder, K. C. (2000). Making sense of audience discourses: Towards a multidimensional model of mass media reception. ''European Journal of Cultural Studies 3''(2), 233–258. https://doi.org/10.1177/136754940000300205</ref> The second problem relates to aesthetics. TV viewers may take an aesthetically critical stance towards the text, commenting on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic aspects of textual production. Underlying this is the viewers’ awareness of the ‘constructedness’ of the text, which is a different dimension from meaning making in the decoding process.<ref name="doi.org"/><ref>Michelle, C. (2007). Modes of reception: A consolidated analytical framework. ''The Communication Review 10''(3), 181–222. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420701528057

</ref> The third problem addresses the positions of encoding. Hall’sHall's model does not differentiate the various positions media producers may take in relation to the dominant ideology. Instead, it assumes that encoding always takes place within a dominant-hegemonic position.<ref name=":0">Ross, S. (2011, May 25th). The encoding/decoding model revisited: ''Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association''. Boston, MA.</ref>

Ross<ref name=":0"/> suggests two ways to modify Hall's typology of the Encoding/Decoding Model by expanding the original version.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> While presenting the modified typology, Ross stresses that his suggested version doesn't imply to replace the original model but rather to expand it and to let the model work in a new way. Further is the explanation of one of the alternative models suggested by Ross,<ref name=":0" /> which is a more complex typology consisting of nine combinations of encoding and decoding positions (Figure 1 and Figure 2). The reasons why the original model needs to be revisited and the alternative model description to follow.

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In the text-relative version a Neutralization category moved to the lower right cell while saving its meaning. Neutralization means applying dominant ideology to the radical text or rejecting oppositional texts.

Wu and Bergman<ref>Wu, S., & Bergman, T. (2019). An active, resistant audience – but in whose interest? Online discussions on Chinese TV dramas as maintaining dominant ideology. ''Participations 16''(1), 23.</ref> propose a revision to Hall's encoding/decoding model in a different way. They conceptualize the adoption of certain codes by producers and viewers respectively as ''encoding strategies'' and ''decoding strategies''. For producers, encoding strategies are partly influenced by their imagination of how the audience will decode their products, which they conceptualize as the ''imagined decoding strategies''. For viewers, their awareness of the ‘constructedness’ of the text means that from the text they also perceive, apart from its meaning, the encoding strategies, which are not necessarily the same strategies adopted by producers. These ''perceived encoding strategies'' constitute an important dimension of the decoding process. Based on their intended meanings and imagined decoding strategies, media producers execute certain encoding strategies and give a certain shape to the text. In the decoding process, viewers derive both perceived meanings and perceived encoding strategies from the text. From these two dimensions, viewers arrive at their evaluation of the text. This revised model admits the diversity of producers’ ideological positions in the encoding process. Clearly separating perceived meanings from intended meanings, it anticipates the situation of polysemy. By distinguishing between perceived meanings and perceived encoding strategies, it also gives space to audience’saudience's awareness of the ‘constructedness’ of the text.

To conclude, while Hall's Encoding/Decoding model of communication is highly evaluated and widely used in research, it has been criticised as it contains some unsolved problems. This section discussed some flaws in the original model and introduced proposed revisions to Hall's typology.

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==References==

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