Hall has become one of the main proponents of reception theory, and developed Hall's Theory of encoding and decoding. One of his major ideas is that people don't only read and accept text, rather they encode and decode the text to decide whether they agree or disagree with an idea or argument that the author has made.
I just recently watched the movie swing vote that starred Kevin Costner, Dennis Hopper, and Kelsey Grammer, it reminded me of wag the dog in many ways, and I think it incorporates many ideas of Hall’s encoding and decoding theory. It’s about two candidates both vying to become President of the United States, and they’re both trying to get the vote of one man. During their campaign for this one vote they change their ideas and what they believe and release these hilarious campaign ad’s all directed at one person. You sit there watching this movie trying to figure out if he can pick up and decode the encoded messages in the commercials even though some of them are right out in the open to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ_U0QJ3dx0&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvLrRC567zQ&feature=related
The film plays mostly on the fact that Americans are uneducated to what happening around the world and even in their own country. You wonder that If a democrat stated he had republican views or the other way around how would that be perceived by that person’s base of voters would it affect them how would they react to it. Their cultural ideals would definitely come into play and someone they supported in the past they may not in the future based on one issue and how they perceive it how they decode it in their own mind.
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I have not seen the movie Swing Vote, but I do agree that many Americans much of the time are so openly blind to so many of the things going on around them, and I even include myself in this at times, and that American’s tend to change their minds and opinions are things easily without much thought or consideration for how it affects others. I think that much of the time, Americans act selfishly for their own benefit, and because of this, tend to neglect the reality or saneness of their choices, much of which the movie and the video clips are playing on. These spoofs are trying to show that Americans tend to ignore the fact that they can so easily be influenced in one direction one minute and another the next, especially in terms of political party and political issues and this is why politics is such a controversial issue in America. In terms of Hall, people do encode and decode texts do determine what they think of it, but this what everyday life is like, interpreting what things are by decoding them one thing at a time. As complex a theory as it may seem, it really is pretty simple when it comes down to it when looking at it from a life perspective.
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ReplyDeleteI really like your second example, Kelsey Grammer runs for president. WTF. "Hall has a genuine respect for the ability of people to resist the dominant code." He doesn't think citizens are so easily duped by people who run the media. The message I decoded is the presidential candidate and republicans for gay marriages.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard for me to accept this message without opposing its application. The way gays are shown in commercial, and a republican claiming that he is pro gay rights has me questioning the message. To resist the dominant gay ideology the audience has to substitute the oppositional code. The dominant gay ideology I spotted in the clip was the music playing in the background and the stereotypical flamboyance of the gay people shown in the commercial. If an audience sees through the message they could mount an organized effort to demythologize like Jesse Jackson's example in the book.
Yes as according to Hall, all individuals have a mind of their own, their own thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Watching these clips, people will interpret and decode the ads (not just these but all around us) according to our beliefs and previous experiences. In the second clip's case, some people can watch it and think that it is time for America to be more openly accepting of gays but some people can watch it and think that being gay is wrong according to their beliefs. I think it really all depends on the individual as Hall claims and those individual thoughts go out to influence others to give new ideas and that can lead to more people decoding ads in more different ways.
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