Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies - Devon Farrell

The part of Stuart Hall’s Cultural Studies chapter that I found the most interesting was the section, An Obstinate Audience. The section addresses “the fact that media present a preferred interpretation of human events is no reason to assume that the audience will correctly take in the offered ideology. He states “the powerless” can translate the message in accordance to their personal ideas and interest. Content can be interpreted differently by anybody.
Television encodes a dominant meaning to their productions. Societies mostly base decoding these messages by the social, cultural and political world they live in. This forms an accepted ideology to which most citizens conform. People can accept, reject or negotiate the message. Hall outlines three decoding options:

1.Operating inside the dominant code. The audience reading agrees with the preferred reading.

2.Applying a negotiable code. The audience takes in the message but does not agree.

3.Substituting an oppositional code. The audience sees through the establishment bias and mounts an organized effort against it.

While watching the clip below see if you recognize and agree with the dominant hegemonic meaning (operating inside the dominant code) or if you recognize and disagree with the dominant hegemonic meaning (Applying a negotiable code). I can’t see how you can apply the third decoding option.

Hall's encoding and decoding theory

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.

Stuart Hall's Cultural Studies

First I would like to start off by saying that I personally found this theory to be among the more interesting of topics the class has yet covered. It clearly relates back to other theories, but most directly Framing. From what I understand a large part of this theory is about how people in power(politicians, corporations, etc) remain in power because they use the media to frame them in the way that the seem fit. This way they are in control in more ways then one, not only in direct control, like for example a politician would pass laws to have rather direct control, but they are also in indirect control because they frame things in the media in a favorable fashion for them. The other aspect that I enjoyed about this theory is how Hall says that it should be 'challenged' and essentially stopped, even if this is done so by just realizing that this is happening.

I decided to include an article about George Orwell's Novel, 1984. Although the reference is needless to say rather extreme, It shares many strong concepts nonetheless.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1410023/use_of_symbolism_and_themes_in_george_pg2.html?cat=38