Jordy: encoding decoding

Stuart Hall

Subject: how messages are produced and disseminated (television)

Proposes a four stage theory of communication:

1. Production
2. Circulation
3. Use (distribution or consumption)
4. Reproduction

*** Each stage is relatively autonomous from each other, therefore…

- The coding of the message does control its message, but not transparently
- Each stage has its own determining limits and possibilities
- Polsemy is not the same as pluralism: messages are not open to any interpretation or use whatever (b/c each stage in the circuit limits possibilities in the next)

Messages have a “complex structure of dominance” … b/c at each stage they are “imprinted” by institutional power relations.

A message can be received at a particular stage only if it is recognizable or appropriate… power relations at the point of production will loosely fit those at consumption… in this way the communication circuit is a circuit which produces a pattern of dominance…

Is this referring to those in power stay in power by the manipulation of the poor? For instance, the corporate fashion industry stays in power through the production of its clothes, which need to be accepted at the consumption level. The production / consumption relationship is not reversible and guarantees the corporate fashion industry control over cultural production of clothes. Thus, there is a pattern of dominance.

Old model: sender / messenger / receiver

Distortions / misunderstanding result from lack of likeness b/w the two sides of communicating (each side of the communication is then determinate)

Television is not a behavioural input…. (i.e. tap on the knee)… that representation of violence on TV screen ‘are not violence, but messages of violence”

TV

- 2 types of discourse: aural, visual
- Iconic sign: possesses some properties of the thing it represents”?
- B/c it translates 3D to 2D it cannot be the concept it signifies.
- Reality exists outside of language, but it is constantly mediated by and through language (we only know what we’ve talked about)

If reality is mediated through language does this mean that whoever controls language also controls reality? In effect, those who control culture production may in large part control how we understand our reality. So, if the corporate media generators own the distribution methods do they as a result own part of our perceptions of reality? (reference: gulf war and the military/media controlled distribution of information vs. the Vietnam war and the independent media reporting)

Natural codes: widely distributed in language and culture

Every visual sign in advertising connotes a quality. Situation, value or inference, which is present in an implied meaning.

Sweater
= Warm garment
= Coming of winter / cold day
= Long walk in the woods

3 positions for decoding of TV discourse:

Dominant-hegemonic discourse:

- Operating inside the dominant code
- Perfectly transparent communication
- Professional code works within the dominant code of discourse

i.e. CNN’s presentation and selection of material

Negotiated discourse:

- It accords the privileged position to the dominant definition of the event will reserving the right to make a more negotiated application to the local condition.

i.e. The soldier’s personal position on the war in relation to what is presented on a national level by the president.

Oppositional discourse:

- Decode the message in a globally contrary way
- Detotalises the message in the preferred code in order to retotalise the message in with some alternative framework of reference

i.e. protesters against the war’s understanding on President Bush’s speech and then, the oppositional vocalization to it.

I feel that the most pressing issue in the article is the question of dominance in the production of messages. It seems that those who control the method of production in turn control what messages are produced. So, the TV posed a directly unfavorable position for the viewer b/c they were only receiving the inputs. Whereas with the advent of the Internet it empowers the viewer to not only receive messages, but to also participate in the production of their own.