Stuart Hall and his theory on encoding and decoding

Encoding is when the producer encodes a message into the film in a certain way. Then the reader/ viewer decodes (understands) that message. In the media the producer may try and encode one meaning and the audience decodes it in another, for example the produce want the message to be that violence is bad however the viewer may understand the message as being that violence is good.

According to Hall there are three different types of ways the audience reads the text;

• Dominant reading- The audience decodes the information the way the producer intended the audience to decode it.
• Negotiated reading- The viewer accepts and understands how the producer intended the information to be understood but in some cases they modify the information to a way which reflects there thought, position and experiences.
• Oppositional reading- The audience rejects the meaning due to the viewer social position and how they want to be seen.

Hall also was interested in how the media can dominant particular social values to create ideologies. He believes that the mass media controls the way we as the audience take concern of public issues though audience positioning. He also believed in Polysemy, this is where text/ the media can have multiple meanings. This is where the audience decodes the media text in different ways as each person interprets text in different ways.