1

CODING/DECODING
Marcella Rego Lins Barbosa
Maria Carolina Macari

HALL, Stuart. Encoding/decoding. In: SONIK, Liv (org.). From the diaspora:
Identities and cultural mediations. Belo Horizonte: UFMG Press, 2003. p. 387-
404.

Important exponent of the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies of

University of Birmingham, Stuart Hall made significant contributions in the field of

Cultural Studies. In his article 'Encoding/Decoding', published for the first

Once in 1980, he seeks to build a model of the communicative process that stops treating

the receptor as a passive subject, taking into account the complexities involved in

construction of the discourse issued by the message producer.

Hall begins the text by outlining a historical overview of Media Studies, with the

with the intention of identifying the weak points in the approaches taken thus far. For him, the

traditional research in mass communication predicts the communicative process

just like a linear circuit that goes through the following stages: emission, message

the reception.

The author then presents a new way of thinking about the communicative process in

mass, that is, as a structure of complex relationships. In this way, the circuit is

sustained and goes through distinct and interconnected moments: production, circulation,

distribution, consumption and reproduction, distancing itself from the perspective present in research

traditional.

This new model takes some points from the theory developed by Karl Marx in

Introductory Notes on the "skeleton of commodity production" (HALL, 2003,

p. 387). The study of producing, communicating, and disseminating discourses begins to connect with the

economic and productive relations of our society.

 2

Hall emphasizes that the discursive exchange of the message has a privileged position.

within the communicative circuit. Discourses do not exist without the audience engaging

decodings, or in the author's words: 'If no meaning is presented, it cannot'

"to have consumption" (HALL, 2003, p.388). In a simplified way, products circulate

in the form of speeches and they, in turn, must be decoded, translated by the

audience. Thus, speeches must be transformed into social practices so that the

The circuit completes and produces significant effects.

To explain and illustrate this new proposed approach to study the process

communicative, Hall discusses the institutional structures of broadcasting, especially the

television. The television signs are iconic, relating to perceptions of reality

spread in a society or culture through the formation of codes. There are no

television speeches that are not tied to a specific reality or intended for a

specific audience that identifies with these messages. The codes are constructed from

in a way that they can be read.

The audience, while providing subjects, agendas, themes, etc. for

that production structures can encode a meaningful discourse, it is also

the one responsible for interpreting these codes, that is, decoding the television message.

The effect of this message depends, precisely, on its appropriation as a discourse.

significant, what happens during the decoding process. Along this path, the

viewers are no longer seen as the passive subjects of the basic model of

communication.

Before this message can have a satisfying effect, a need

for it to have a use, it must first be appropriate as meaningful discourse
and be significantly decoded. It is this set of meanings that has
an effect, influences, entertains, instructs or persuades, with consequences
perceptual, cognitive, emotional, ideological, or behavioral very
complex " (HALL, 2003, p.390).
 3

In this way, the production and reception of the television message are phases that inter-

they relate, even being distinct moments in the circuit. Adopting this perspective, the

the audience is, at the same time, both a source and a receiver of the television message: "Circulation and

Reception is a moment in the process of producing the television message and is

reincorporated through a certain number of indirect and structured feedbacks

production process" (HALL, 2003, p.398).

Distancing himself, so to speak, from linguistic theory, Hall expresses that reading

two signs from the audience, during the process of decoding the message

television, it must involve an identification of elements present at both levels

connotative, as well as denotative. It is essential that the receivers read the signs of

more subjective way–level of connotation–and also, based on interpretations that

they approach more literary senses - level of denotation -. In summary, Hall asserts

We do not use the distinction between denotation and connotation in this way. In our

"From a standpoint, the distinction is only analytical" (HALL, 2003, p. 394).

Next, the author clarifies some points about the elements of the signs.

present in each level. While the denotative level displays elements that have undergone the

the action of a dominant ideology for the normalization of the sign - i.e., certain aspects

that "seem to be considered in any language community and at any

"time" (HALL, 2003, p. 395), expressing a literal sense - it is at the level of connotation

where ideologies operate in speeches, in a way that alters and transforms meaning

two signs.

On the connotative level, close relationships with culture, knowledge, and history

are established, allowing signs to actively transform and take on

additional ideological dimensions. By granting the signs elements that allow their

configuration as potentially transformable into more than one configuration

 4

connotative, it is observed at this level a greater polysemy than that found in

denotative, fixed by closed and naturalized codes.

Obviously there are individual and particular perceptions, found at the level

of connotation, but "selective perception is never as selective and as random as the

the concept suggests" (HALL, 2003, p.398). This polysemic nature does not mean that the

the audience can arbitrarily assign any meaning to the television signs in

moment of decoding. The encoding, by the sender of the television message,

produces the formation of limits and parameters within which the decoding will operate.

A certain correspondence, or 'reciprocity between the moments of encoding and

"decoding" (HALL, 2003, p. 399), should be constructed, generally at the level of

connotation, so that there is an effective communicative exchange.

As seen above, the meanings and messages are not simply

broadcast, but produced. Following this reasoning, the author argues that it is no longer

there is one more exact correspondence between coding and decoding. The sender already

cannot guarantee or prescribe how the audience will decode the message

produced by him. Nevertheless, an attempt is made to predict the readings more

likely within a certain society and/or culture.

These preferred readings have, embedded in them, the entire social order while

set of meanings, practices, and beliefs” (HALL, 2003, p. 397). Concisely, they

are built based on the classifications of the social, cultural, and political world of

society or culture in which the emitter and the receiver operate, i.e., the cultural order

dominant.

Despite the effort made by the broadcasters, on certain occasions the audience

failure to capture the meaning they intended - the preferred reading - In order to

illustrate the various articulations that can be constructed between the sender and the receiver, Hall
 5

proposes three hypothetical positions from which the decoding of a discourse

television can be built:

1. Hegemonic-dominant position: The viewer operates within the code

dominates and decodes the television message from the same frame of reference in

that it was coded (preferred reading). This dominant code is

articulated through the professional code, that is, the aspects of a nature

technique and practice that govern the processes of production and reproduce the

hegemonic meaning of events implicitly and

unconscious.

2. Traded code: The viewer recognizes the legitimacy of the definitions

hegemonic regarding the more general (abstract) significations, while it creates

basic rules at a restricted and situational level (situated). In this position, it is

a version of the dominant ideology was presented with some contradictions.

3. Code of opposition: The viewer recognizes the dominant code in

television speech, yet chooses to decode it from an alternative framework

of reference, outside the dominant cultural order.

The lack of symmetry observed in communicative exchanges illustrates, precisely, the

key moment when Hall's model expresses its innovative character. The operation of

The viewer in an opposition code allows for the construction of contestatory readings.

that, in a certain way, challenge the dominant ideology, creating potential for a 'politics

of meaning - the struggle in discourse” (HALL, 2003, p. 402).

Spelling/vocabulary [1 PT]: 0.8

Structure of the text (beginning, middle, end) [ 2 PT]: 2

 6

Contextualization of the text (where it came from, what it serves, author's project)

]: 2

Analysis (how it argues, what it mobilizes) [2.5 PT] 2.5

Critical response, personal comments [2 PT] 1.5