Stuart Hall: Encoding/Decoding vs. Sender/Receiver Models for Communication

There are three basic systems of representation, reflective, intentional, and constructionist. The reflective approach (mimesis) seeks to find meaning in the objects, events, or people themselves. Truth and meaning are said to already exist within the world and language is used as a means of depiction of that truth rather than an interpretation. This approach is flawed because each individual relates differently to each experience they encounter.

The intentional approach to representation is the idea that the author of the expression creates truth or meaning. This is the idea that we use language to get across our intended meaning. This ‘sender-receiver’ theory supposes that proper use of language will communicate only what you intend to say and that you will be completely understood. While we do create messages with intent, the receiver is still limited to interpreting the message based upon their own particular experiential references, which makes it impossible for exact meaning to be shared.

The third approach to representation is the contructionist approach that recognizes the social interaction that takes place during the communication process. Meaning does not exist in objects themselves (reflection), nor in the individual (intentionality), but rather is formed through a system of communication that involves the translation of an idea into a system of codes that is expressed, received, interpreted and given feedback. Hall reshapes the send-receive theory into a model of encoding and decoding. Hall’s communication model rejects the textual determinism of the earlier sender-receiver model and gives both the encoder and decoder significant roles in forming contextual meaning.

Hall described the model of encoding/decoding in structural terms based upon the articulation of differentiated moments, production, circulation, distribution/consumption, and reproduction. The occurrence of one moment doesn’t necessarily guarantee the next and the communication isn’t complete until the encoded message is decoded and reproduced into social practice. We do not consume messages unless we alter or incorporate them into our social practices and there are many points at which interruptions or breaks can occur in the communication cycle.

Halls model stresses the socio-political relationship between encoder and decoder. The relative socio-political position of the encoder and decoder impact the identification of codes within a discourse. “The lack of fit between the codes has a great deal to do with the structural differences of relation and position between broadcasters and audiences, but it also has something to do with the asymmetry between the codes of “source” and “receiver” at the moment of transformation into and out of the discursive form.”

Raw historical events cannot be transmitted without first being converted into a story. Broadcasters of news must utilize linguistic codes (that are created by the culture in which they operate), thus the audience is also the source for these codes. The stigmatic encoding of the event for transmission via audio and visual discourse on television gives the message a privileged position and asserts a form of domination, or at the minimum a privileged position, in relation to the audience. When a television station broadcast a news story they encode the information from a particular viewpoint or ideology. The broadcaster is creating a preferred meaning. With television in particular, the Visual signifiers bear strong resemblance to the signified and are somewhat less subjective and therefore are more dangerous because they are more readily accepted as “natural” or “truthful”.

However the audience watching the newscast can decode the story using one of three strategies. The audience can decode the message “straight” and accept the “dominant” meaning by accepting the codes as they are presented (dominant-hegemonic position), or they can negotiate and accept part of the preferred meaning and modify some of the codes to add their own meaning, or they can oppose the message while understanding it’s intended connotative meaning.

The significance of Hall’s theory lies in the development of the framework of understanding that precedes the encoding and decoding of discourse based upon relative socio political positions within hegemonic structures. Hall points out that mass media broadcasters, while incorporating a relatively autonomous professional code, are operating within the umbrella of the hegemonic codes. What is refreshing about Hall’s work as compared to Adorno and Horkheimer, is the empowerment of the decoder through their negotiated or oppositional positions.

Magritte's Ceci n'est pas une pipe [This is not a pipe.]