Encoding/Decoding

Messages are constantly being sent and received, but it is how those messages are understood and interpreted by people that determine their overall effectiveness.

This week’s reading focuses on Stuart Hall’s theory of Encoding/Decoding. An encoder is someone who is delivering a message (in the example used, a television producer), while the decoder is the person receiving the message (audience). Hall discusses how the goal of a television producer is to make their audience understand and interpret what they are saying in the way it was meant to be delivered.

Hall mentions linguistic theory and how miscommunication can exist when a message is being encoded due to the “denotative” and “connotative” meanings associated with words and signs. “Denotative” refers to a widely associated literal meaning of something, while “connotative” refers to individual (non-fixed) interpretations and associations to something’s meaning. The example used in the article (Barthes example) was that the sweater always signifies a “warm garment” (denotation) which allows people to keep warm. However, in a more connotative meaning it could signify “the coming of winter” or “a cold day”, if put in fashionable outlook it could symbolize an “informal style of dress”, while if put in a romantic outlook it could refer to a “long autumn walk in the woods”.

Denotation and connotation have a profound impact on the way messages are decoded by an audience. Television is a denotative thing but its messages can be very connotative which causes misinterpretation by audiences.




Hall explains that there are three hypothetical positions of which decoders of a television broadcast can interpret an encoding. They are as follows:


1. Dominant-hegemonic position: When a viewer takes the connoted meaning from something like a television newscast or current affairs program full and straight, and decodes the message in the way it was encoded (viewer is operating inside the dominant code). Basically the message is understood as it was meant to be.

2. Negotiated code or position: The majority of the audience probably understands what is being encoded by the television show however it contains a bit of adaptive and oppositional elements. Basically people understand what is being said but have some opposition or miscommunication intertwined in the message they have received.

3. Oppositional code: The viewer takes the message and completely reconstructs it into an alternative framework of reference. Basically the viewer listens to the message but doesn’t understand or chooses not to interpret the message the way it was meant to be decoded, while making up something completely different.

Everyone has different interpretations, beliefs and biases that influence the way they think and relay messages to others. The examples used in Hall’s theory of encoding/decoding focus on television but I believe this theory could also be applied to everyday communication between people, advertisements or any other way messages are sent and received.


- Cody Reed