week 10 Hall Flashcards
What is Encoding in Stuart Hall’s model?
Encoding is the process by which media producers create messages using cultural codes, assumptions, and intended meanings. It’s shaped by ideology and the institutional context of production.
What is Decoding in Stuart Hall’s model?
Decoding is how audiences interpret media messages. Viewers may accept, negotiate, or oppose the intended meaning based on their social and cultural background.
What is a Dominant (Hegemonic) Reading? (Stuart Hall)
When the viewer decodes the media message exactly as intended by the producer. They accept the dominant ideology and framing without resistance.
What is a Negotiated Reading? (Stuart Hall)
When the viewer partly accepts and partly resists the intended message. They agree with the overall framework but challenge certain elements based on personal experience.
What is an Oppositional Reading? (Stuart Hall)
When the viewer rejects the intended meaning and decodes the message in a way that resists or subverts the dominant ideology.
What does Hall mean by ‘Media as a site of struggle’?
Media is not a neutral platform—it is a space where meanings and ideologies are contested. Different readings show how power and interpretation clash in everyday life.
How is Hegemony related to Encoding/Decoding?
Hegemony refers to dominant ideologies being accepted as ‘common sense.’ Hall’s model shows how media supports hegemony, but audiences can also challenge it through oppositional readings.
How does Stuart Hall’s model challenge the idea of passive audiences?
Hall argues that audiences are active participants in meaning-making. They bring their own cultural context, which can lead to alternative interpretations of media texts.
How does Encoding/Decoding relate to power?
Encoding reflects institutional power—what producers want to convey. Decoding reveals audience agency—the power to interpret or resist meaning, exposing ideological conflict.
Give an example of a Negotiated Reading.
A viewer watches a superhero film and enjoys the action and message of justice, but questions the lack of diversity or stereotypical gender roles.
