Hall wrote that there are three ways an individual spectator can decode a piece of media, which we'll call the "text":
- The Dominant Reading: This means that the spectator agrees with the ideology around which the text has been encoded. For example, if a the reader agrees with this article from The Sun; which proposes that migration and refugee intake as a burden on the country; they're taking a dominant reading (The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy, 2016).
- The Negotiated Reading: This means that the reader considers the ideology of the text to be valid, but takes it with a pinch of salt based on their own beliefs and makes a balanced judgement. If the reader of the newspaper acknowledges that there are valid problems with the current level of migration but believes that the country should be housing people fleeing from wars, they're taking a negotiated reading.
- The Oppositional Reading: This means that the reader completely disagrees with and discredits the text based on their own ideology. If the reader of the newspaper believes there is no problem with the current level of migration and that more refugees should be allowed into the country, they're taking an oppositional reading (Hall, 1973).
Hall believed that an individual's socio-economic background was a good indicator of how they would react to certain media and this point was proved in the Nationwide Project. In 1980 David Morley and Charlotte Brunsden, two other Birmingham School members, conducted a study in which they showed certain distinct socio-economic groups an episode of the ITV magazine show Nationwide. Produced for a mainstream audience, the episode concerned the impact on early Thatcherite policies upon British industry. (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
Brunsden and Morley found that people from upper-middle class backgrounds, such as bank managers and public school students, responded positively to the messages of the program. Groups like students took more negotiated readings, believing that the show wasn't thought provoking enough, well as people such as trade unionists and shop assistants were oppositional towards the portrayal of working class men (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
We can analyse how a text has been encoded and some possible readings through the text "Extreme Makeover". Produced by ABC, it follows individuals who get cosmetic makeovers to "fix" an aspect of their character. In the episode I analysed, a woman named Micah gets an entirely cosmetic makeover as her looks made her bullied for years, well as a man named Chris requests something to make him employable and productive again after he lost both legs in a motorcycle accident. A dominant respondent may agree with the programme's ethic that surgery can fix problems pre-concieved by society. A negotiated reader may believe that some surgery is necessary, but not to the extent the programme is offering (Chris gets a cosmetic makeover as well as new prosthetics) well as an outright oppositional reading may not accept the text's construct of beauty or usefulness within society (Extreme Makeover, 2007).
The encoding and decoding model isn't without its flaws, however. In the Nationwide Study, one of the control groups was made up of African British students. This group did not respond oppositionally to the text because they were against its values but because, as first generation immigrants who had been brought up in a different culture, they did not understand them (Brunsden and Morley, 1999). If you don't understand something, how can you be defiant towards it? Also, Hall designed the model to be exclusively applicable to television, so its applications in other forms of media may be limited.
SOURCES:
Brunsdon, C. and Morley, D. (1999). The Nationwide television studies. London: Routledge.
Extreme Makeover, (2007). [TV programme] ABC.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy. (2016). [online] The Sun. Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6958425/PM-tells-us-he-wants-to-cut-immigration-yet-is-banking-on-it-to-prop-up-economy.html [Accessed 7 Mar. 2016].
Brunsden and Morley found that people from upper-middle class backgrounds, such as bank managers and public school students, responded positively to the messages of the program. Groups like students took more negotiated readings, believing that the show wasn't thought provoking enough, well as people such as trade unionists and shop assistants were oppositional towards the portrayal of working class men (Brunsden and Morley, 1999).
We can analyse how a text has been encoded and some possible readings through the text "Extreme Makeover". Produced by ABC, it follows individuals who get cosmetic makeovers to "fix" an aspect of their character. In the episode I analysed, a woman named Micah gets an entirely cosmetic makeover as her looks made her bullied for years, well as a man named Chris requests something to make him employable and productive again after he lost both legs in a motorcycle accident. A dominant respondent may agree with the programme's ethic that surgery can fix problems pre-concieved by society. A negotiated reader may believe that some surgery is necessary, but not to the extent the programme is offering (Chris gets a cosmetic makeover as well as new prosthetics) well as an outright oppositional reading may not accept the text's construct of beauty or usefulness within society (Extreme Makeover, 2007).
The encoding and decoding model isn't without its flaws, however. In the Nationwide Study, one of the control groups was made up of African British students. This group did not respond oppositionally to the text because they were against its values but because, as first generation immigrants who had been brought up in a different culture, they did not understand them (Brunsden and Morley, 1999). If you don't understand something, how can you be defiant towards it? Also, Hall designed the model to be exclusively applicable to television, so its applications in other forms of media may be limited.
SOURCES:
Brunsdon, C. and Morley, D. (1999). The Nationwide television studies. London: Routledge.
Extreme Makeover, (2007). [TV programme] ABC.
Hall, S. (1973). Encoding and decoding in the television discourse. Birmingham [England]: Centre for Cultural Studies, University of Birmingham.
The Sun Says: PM says he wants to cut immigration ... yet he is banking on it to prop up the UK’s economy. (2016). [online] The Sun. Available at: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/6958425/PM-tells-us-he-wants-to-cut-immigration-yet-is-banking-on-it-to-prop-up-economy.html [Accessed 7 Mar. 2016].
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