Stuart Hall evaluates daily practices in life, most systems of meaning delivered through the television means since he is a cultural theorist. From his scrutiny of television, Stuart Hall came up with a theoretical model to explicate the influence of television transmissions. That was the genesis of Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model. The fundamental principle of Hall’s encoding/decoding model is that the media equipment is significant in production, circulation, distribution, and reproduction more or less than transmitting a message (Hall, 1980). Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model centers on the ideological magnitudes of communication production and reception in a commercial world. To sufficiently comprehend the encoding/decoding model by Stuart Hall, drawing links to the fundamentals of this theory is important. First, Stuart Hall was intensely motivated by Marxist theory, mainly ideas relating to the mass’s battle against the bourgeoisie. Hall’s cultural theory is intensely entrenched in the Marxist theory of send-message-receive to another system of production, circulation, distribution/consumption, and reproduction (Hall, 1980).
The implication of the text in the encoding/decoding model of media communication created by Stuart Hall is positioned between its reader and the encoder (Hall, 1980). The encoder structures meaning in a definite way, while the decoder decodes it in a varied way, depending on his or her background, the diverse social conditions, and frames of understanding. Hall (1980) suggests that the connotation in a text is neither a rigid concept nor a completely uncertain ‘polysemy.’ Even though Hall remarks on the polysemic nature of connotation in text, one must certainly take a place. Such a place is the harmonizing point in the course of action of the encoder and the decoder, the effect of anxiety between the encoder’s main intention and the decoder’s interpretation strategies.
According to this premise, the encoder is attempting to reassign his or her version of a firm meaning found on his or her locale and cultural point of view to the decoder, even as the decoder becomes accustomed to a new version depending on his or her surroundings. The moment the projected meaning is formed, it is then tracked by the medium of communication, but “at a certain point, however, the broadcasting structures must yield encoded messages in the form of a meaningful discourse” (Hall, 1980: 130). In the course of television discourse, the connotation is decoded by the listeners and viewers. In the course of the decoding procedure, the new translation of denotation may be consistent with the initial one, or be opposed to it; however, in most incidences, it is normally a result of finding the middle ground. Fundamentally, Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model has greater connotation once the audience shows their denotation.
Stuart Hall typified three main reading tactics that, regardless of a polysemic core elucidation, are preferred by the listeners and viewers in the decoding course. First, whilst the decoder’s position is close to the encoder’s, he or she will interpret within the framework of the main code; the “preferred reading” (Hall, 1980: 136).
Second, whilst the encoder’s position is opposite to the decoder’s, the decoder will make his or her translation of the communication with completely dissimilar intention; the decoder may interpret subversively to the main connotation from an oppositional viewpoint (Hall, 1980). When a person is operating under this place, Hall affirms that “he or she is operating with what we must call an oppositional code” (Hall, 1980: 137). Third, and more frequently, the decoder will assume a conferred location, which is to agree to some pieces of the main meaning, but discard and changes others, to ensemble their perceptions and goals.
In conclusion, Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model is a crucial account outlining the purpose of advertising tactics. His cultural theory is intensely entrenched in the Marxist theory of send-message-receive. The implication of the text in the encoding/decoding model of media communication is positioned between its reader and the encoder. The encoder structures meaning in a definite way, while the decoder decodes it in a varied way, depending on his or her background, the diverse social conditions and frames of understanding He typified three main reading tactics that, regardless of a polysemic core elucidation, are preferred by the listeners and viewers in the decoding course.
Using Stuart Hall’s model, the objective of advertisers becomes perceptible; advertisers are the principal encoders of messages that are decoded by the listeners in an outwardly lucid conversion from product to end-user. Even though decoders may have several meanings, they certainly take a place in which he summarizes three likely means of decoding: the dominant-hegemonic position, the negotiated position, and the oppositional position (Hall, 1980). The objective of advertisers and their encoding approaches is to exploit material goods and continue the way of production, circulation, distribution, and reproduction.
Reference
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse. London: Hutchinson.