Stuart Hall's theory

Introducing Mr Stuart Hall..

Stuart Hall was a cultural theorist and Professor of Sociology at the Open University.

He produced a model explaining his view on the three different ways in which an audience interpret mass media texts by differing social groups.

These are known as Encoding and Decoding which are as follows:

• Dominant Reading (also known as preferred reading): This is where the reader fully accepts the preferred reading. The audience read the media and react in a way that matches the way the producer intended them to.

                                                     

• Oppositional Reading: This is when the audience rejects and doesn't accept the producer's intentions, which could be because of their social position.

                               

• Negotiated Reading: This is where the reader partially accepts the code, they may partly agree or disagree with the intended reactions- or they may modify it in a way that reflects their position, experiences and interests.

As well as this, Hall was also interested in media power which involves social values and how it somewhat creates dominant ideologies. An example could be women's role in society. Hall states that he has a strong belief that mass media holds a clasp on what defines the problems of public concern and also catches interest through positioning of audiences.

Undoubtedly, each member of an audience will decode readings differently which brings forth the term polysemy- multiple meanings of a text which leaves it open for anyone to interpret. This can be applied to various contexts.