Examine individual changes

''''The Encoding/decoding model of communication''' was first developed by cultural studies scholar [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|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.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding">Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding. ''Culture, media, language'', 128-138. Retrieved from: http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~jdslack/readings/CSReadings/Hall_Encoding-n-Decoding.pdf</ref> As a founder of the [[Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies|Birmingham School of Cultural Studies]], Hall has had a major influence on media studies. His model claims that TV and other media audiences are presented with messages that are decoded, or interpreted in different ways depending on an individual's cultural background, economic standing, and personal experiences. In contrast to other media theories that disempower audiences, Hall advanced the idea that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own [[Social environment|social contexts]], and might be capable of changing messages themselves through [[collective action]]. In simpler terms, Encoding/decoding is the translation of a message that is easily understood. When you decode a message, you are extracting the meaning of that message into terms that you are able to easily understand. Decoding has both verbal and non-verbal forms through communication. Decoding behavior without using words would be observing body language. People are able to decode body language based on their emotions. For example, some body language signs for when someone is upset, anger, 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. <ref name="Active Audience">[https://stereotypebyinternet.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/active-audience/ "Active Audience."] Stereotypes in the Media. March 25, 2010.</ref> 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>Kelly, Aidan, Katrina Lawlor, and Stephanie O'Donohoe. "Chapter 8- Encoding Advertisements: The Creative Perspective." The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader. By Joseph Turow and Matthew P. McAllister. New York: Routledge, 2009. 133–49.</ref> Hall claims that the decoding subject can assume three different positions: Dominant/hegemonic position, negotiated position, and oppositional position. {{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>In Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Love, and Paul Willis (eds.), ''Culture, Media, Language'', pp. 128–38. London: Hutchinson, 1980. In {{cite journal|authors=Stuart Hall, Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner, Eds.|title=Encoding/Decoding|journal=[https://we.riseup.net/assets/102142/appadurai.pdf ''Media And Cultural Studies: Keyworks'']|year=2001|pages=171}}</ref>}} ==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. In the process of encoding, the sender (i.e. encoder) uses verbal (e.g. words, signs, images, video) and non-verbal (e.g. body language, hand gestures, face expressions) symbols for which he or she believes the receiver (that is, the decoder) will understand. The symbols can be words and numbers, images, face expressions, signals and/or actions. It is very important how a message will be encoded; it partially depends on the purpose of the message.<ref name=":3">Bankovic, M. (2013). Business communication: script. Retrieved from: <nowiki>http://www.vts.edu.rs/images/nastava/PoslovneKomunikacije/POSLOVNE_KOMUNIKACIJE-skripta.pdf</nowiki>  </ref> 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 was 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). “The event must become a ‘story’ before it can become a communicative event.” -      Stuart Hall, 1980, “Encoding/decoding”<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> ==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">Campbell, Richard. ''Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication.'' 3rd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.</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 that studied under Hall at the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies.<ref name="Dick Hebdige">[http://culturalstudiesnow.blogspot.co.at/2010/12/dick-hebdige-subculture-meaning-of.html "Dick Hebdige: Subculture: The Meaning of Style – book summary ."] The Cultural Studies Reader. December 10, 2010.</ref> 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.<ref name="Dick Hebdige" /> His exploration of the punk subculture outlines the potential causes and influences of the punk movement, especially for the youth.<ref name="Dick Hebdige" /> 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.<ref name="Dick Hebdige2">[https://solelybyvirtue.wordpress.com/2012/11/14/punks-an-origin-story/ "Punks: An Origin Story."] Solely By Virtue. November 14, 2012.</ref> 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. David Morley is a sociologist who studies the sociology of the television audience.<ref name="David Morley">Professor David Morley is a sociologist who specializes in the sociology of the television audience.</ref> Known for being a key researcher in conducting [[The Nationwide Project]] in the late 1970s, Morley took this popular news program that aired daily on BBC. It reported on national news from London and the major events of the day, and was broadcast throughout the UK.<ref name="David Morley" /> He applied Hall's [[reception theory]] to study the encoding/decoding model of this news program. This study focused on the ways this program addressed the audience member and the ideological themes it presented. Morley then took it a step further and conducted a qualitative research that included individuals with varying social backgrounds.<ref name="David Morley" /> This was where Hall's research came into play. He wanted to see how they would react to certain clips of the program based on Hall's three decoding methods: dominant/hegemonic, negotiated, or oppositional. [[Janice Radway]] an American literacy and cultural studies scholar, conducted a study on women in terms of romance reading. In her book [[Reading the Romance|Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature]] Radway studied a group of midwestern women that were fans of romance novels. She argued that this cultural activity functioned as personal time for women that didn't typically have any personal time to themselves.<ref name="Media & Culture" /> Although her work was not seen as scientific, and her study applied only to a small group of women, she was interested in interpreting how women could relate their everyday life to a fiction book.<ref name="Media & Culture" /> As a result, her study demonstrated that these studies define culture in very broad terms, because in the end culture is made up of the symbols of expression that society uses to make sense of everyday life.<ref name="Media & Culture" /> Radway's audience research worked off of Hall's theory of encoding/decoding. Studying how specific individuals receive and interpret messages based on their backgrounds was something that played a huge role in Radway's study on women. Some women related to the book and some identified as though they were characters in the book; but the meaning, dependent upon their backgrounds, identities and beliefs, circulates within society and is reinforced by Hall's theory of encoding/decoding. ==Dominant/hegemonic position== This position is one where the consumer takes the actual meaning directly, and decodes it exactly the way it was encoded. The consumer is located within the dominant point of view, and is fully sharing the texts codes and accepts and reproduces the intended meaning.<ref name="Active Audience" /> 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> "The domains of 'preferred meanings' have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of social structures, of 'how things work for all practical purposes in this culture', the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> ==Negotiated position== This position is a mixture of accepting and rejecting elements. Readers are acknowledging the dominant message, but are not willing to completely accept it the way the encoder has intended. The reader to a certain extent shares the texts code and generally accepts the preferred meaning, but is simultaneously resisting and modifying it in a way which reflects their own experiences and interests.<ref name="Active Audience" /> As Hall states, "decoding within the negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules- it operates with exceptions to the rule".<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" /> ==Oppositional position== In this position a consumer understands the literal meaning, but due to different backgrounds each individual has their own way of decoding messages, while forming their own interpretations.<ref name="Active Audience" /> The readers' social situation has placed them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, and although they understand the intended meaning they do not share the text's code and end up rejecting it.<ref name="Active Audience" /> {{See also|resistant reading}} ==See also== * [[Active audience theory]] ==The encoding/decoding model critique== Ross<ref name=":0">Ross, S. (2011, May 25th). The encoding/decoding model revisited: ''Annual Meeting of the International Communication Association''. Boston, MA.</ref> 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. In line with previous scholarship criticizing Hall’s model, Ross<ref name=":0" /> and Morley<ref name=":1">Morley, D. (2006). Unanswered questions in audience research.  ''Communication Review 9''(2), 101-121.</ref> argue that the model has some unsolved problems. First, Morley mentions that in the decoding stage there is a need to distinguish comprehension of the text and its evaluation. Comprehension here refers to the reader’s understanding of the text in the basic sense and the sender's intention, and to possible readers interpretations of the text (borrowed from Schroder<ref name=":2">Schrøder, K. (2000). Making sense of audience discourses: Towards a multidimensional model of mass media reception. ''European Journal of Cultural Studies 3''(2), 233-258.</ref>). Evaluation is how readers relate the text to the ideological position (also borrowed from Schroder<ref name=":2" />). Second, Morley<ref name=":1" /> discusses the problem of understanding the concept of ‘oppositional reading’. There might be confusion between referring ‘oppositional reading’ to rejecting the preferred meaning (dominant ideology) and to disagreement with the text. For example, imagine that an oppositional TV channel produced a news story about some flaws in the ObamaCare. According to the original model, a reader can fully share the text’s code and accept its meaning, or reject it and bring an alternative frame of it. In the first case nevertheless a reader fully agrees with the text, s/he would be in opposition to the dominant ideology (we understand dominant ideology here as promoting government initiatives), while in the second case by disagreeing with the news story a reader would actually favor dominant ideology. That leads to the final problem of the original model -- assuming that all the media encode texts within the dominant ideology and thus suggesting that media is homogeneous in nature<ref name=":0" />. In order to address these problems, Ross<ref name=":0" /> suggests two steps in modifying the original model. The first step is to distinguish between the graphical model and the typology, which is different decoding positions (dominant-hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional). The second step is to divide the model into two versions, an ideology version (Figure 1) and a text-related version (Figure 2). '''Figure 1. The modified encoding/decoding typology (ideology version)'''<ref name=":0" /> {| class="wikitable" ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" | ! colspan="3" |ENCODING POSITIONS |- |'''Dominant-hegemonic encoding''' '''(Hall's assumed mode)''' |'''Negotiated Encoding''' '''(partly critical text)''' |'''Oppositional encoding''' '''(a radical text)''' |- | rowspan="3" |'''DECODING POSITIONS''' (ideological) |'''Dominant-hegemonic''' '''position''' |Dominant-hegemonic reading of dominant-hegemonic text |Dominant-hegemonic reading of negotiated text = ''Neutralization'' |Dominant-hegemonic reading of oppositional text = ''Neutralization'' |- |'''Negotiated position''' |Negotiated reading of dominant-hegemonic text |Negotiated reading of negotiated text |Negotiated reading of oppositional text |- |'''Oppositional position''' |Oppositional reading of dominant-hegemonic text |Oppositional reading of negotiated text = ''Amplification of critique'' |Oppositional reading of oppositional text = ''Agreement with oppositional text'' |} The main addition to both new typologies of Hall’s model is adding two types of encoding meanings, which are a Negotiated position and an Oppositional position. As the original model makes all media institutions encode messages in the dominant-hegemonic manner<ref name="Encoding and Decoding" />, Ross<ref name=":0" /> takes a step further and ‘allow’ media institutions to encode texts according to the oppositional or negotiated framework. Thus, media texts in both Hall’s versions can be dominant-hegemonic (Hall’s assumed mode), partly critical or radical. Another addition to the original model is the appearance of a Neutralization category meaning that media texts encoded within an oppositional or negotiated framework are decoded according to the dominant ideology.  Let’s look at the upper right corner of the Ross ideology version (Figure 1) at the cell when a radical text intersects with a dominant-hegemonic decoding position. For example, neutralization will happen if a TV news report conveying a message about an oppositional political party in Russia may be interpreted by a conservative viewer as an evidence of the US sponsorship of anti-government organizations underlying Russian independency. Let’s now look at the lower right corner of the same version at the cell when a radical text is decoded by viewers within an oppositional position. In this case ‘oppositional reading of oppositional text’ needs explanation that it equals to the  “agreement with oppositional text” as readers text evaluation might cause misunderstanding. '''Figure 2. The modified encoding/decoding typology (text-relative version)'''<ref name=":0" /> {| class="wikitable" ! colspan="2" rowspan="2" | ! colspan="3" |ENCODING POSITIONS |- |'''Dominant-hegemonic encoding''' '''(Hall's assumed mode)''' |'''Negotiated Encoding''' '''(partly critical text)''' |'''Oppositional encoding''' '''(a radical text)''' |- | rowspan="3" |'''DECODING POSITIONS''' (text-relative) |'''Text-accepting''' '''position''' |Text-acceptance of dominant-hegemonic text |Text-acceptance of negotiated text |Text-acceptance of oppositional text |- |'''Text-negotiation''' '''position''' |Negotiation of dominant-hegemonic text |Negotiation of negotiated text |Negotiation of oppositional text |- |'''Text-oppositional''' '''position''' |Text-oppositional reading of dominant-hegemonic text |Text-oppositional reading of negotiated text |Text-oppositional reading of oppositional text = ''Neutralization'' |} In order to avoid misinterpretations and to make an alternative typology more reader-friendly, Ross suggests a text-relative version that stresses not the ideological tendency of the text, but rather if receivers are in agreement or opposition with any kind of text<ref name=":0" />. In this version Ross changed the term ‘dominant-hegemonic’ to ‘text-acceptance’; and the term ‘oppositional’ to ‘text-oppositional’ in order to remind readers the difference between opposition to the dominant ideology and opposition to the text. 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. 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 summarized by Ross<ref name=":0" /> and introduced one of the alternative ways to modify Hall’s typology. ==References== {{reflist}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Encoding Decoding Model of Communication}} [[Category:Literary theory]] [[Category:Media theories]]'