What’s on TV?
We are used to conceiving a communicative structure in a linear way: a message goes from a sender to a recipient. However, this is not the only communicative theory which interests the researchers.
Stuart Hall, cultural theorist and sociologist, in 1973 noticed that the audience is not only a receptor. This is the encoding/decoding theory, which provides two key-moments: a creation of meaning that the “encoder” wants to express (encoding) and a reception of the message that changes depending on the audience’s feedback (decoding).
A deeper analysis shows, however, that this loop has many other components that can be difficult to understand. I will try to take a quite popular TV show (which is the means used by Hall) as an example.
This week the Brit Awards -one of the most famous nights of pop-music awards- took place. As an annual meeting of all teenagers and not only, the Brit Awards turned out to be a great musical event, welcoming famous artists from the UK and elsewhere. I am sure that even those who have never seen the Brit Awards before know what I am talking about. This show has a great influence on the audience and for such a reason could be read in many ways.
Based on the knowledge of the concepts on which the encoding process works, we can say that:
a) The ‘Frameworks of Knowledge’ used by the encoder are that the awards represent every singer’s aspiration (as the Oscar are for actors).
b) The ‘Relations of production’, also known as the context and the market promotion, are in this case not just the UK market, but the worldwide one (think of the importance of English music today!)
c) The 'Technical Infrastructures' represent how the message is technically transmitted (video editing, stage, performances, music etc...).
From these components, the audience creates its position according to three points:
a) Dominant: It may be the idea that the award is the highest success for a British singer (I know about girls crying for the One Direction’s win).
b) Negotiated: It could be: ' ok, I do not care about my favourite singer’s winning, I just care about their performance!'
c) Oppositional: It may be the idea that music needs not to be watched or that everybody is different: why would I abide by others judgment? Or even the opposition to every kind of music commercialization.
This is a quite schematic analysis of how it is possible to read a particular message from different points of view. Nevertheless, what is interesting is the fact of being able to make the viewer an integral part of a circuit, going beyond the idea of a passive spectator, becoming a key figure in the encoding and decoding process. I believe that nowadays it is very important to foreground the critical role of the viewer, because he himself is the cause and purpose of the media trial.
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| From: http://www.capitalfm.com/brits/news/2016-date-venue-hosts/ |
a) The ‘Frameworks of Knowledge’ used by the encoder are that the awards represent every singer’s aspiration (as the Oscar are for actors).
b) The ‘Relations of production’, also known as the context and the market promotion, are in this case not just the UK market, but the worldwide one (think of the importance of English music today!)
c) The 'Technical Infrastructures' represent how the message is technically transmitted (video editing, stage, performances, music etc...).
 |
| From: http://www.nme.com/photos/30-bizarre-facts-about-the-brit-awards/165151 |
a) Dominant: It may be the idea that the award is the highest success for a British singer (I know about girls crying for the One Direction’s win).
b) Negotiated: It could be: ' ok, I do not care about my favourite singer’s winning, I just care about their performance!'
c) Oppositional: It may be the idea that music needs not to be watched or that everybody is different: why would I abide by others judgment? Or even the opposition to every kind of music commercialization.
This is a quite schematic analysis of how it is possible to read a particular message from different points of view. Nevertheless, what is interesting is the fact of being able to make the viewer an integral part of a circuit, going beyond the idea of a passive spectator, becoming a key figure in the encoding and decoding process. I believe that nowadays it is very important to foreground the critical role of the viewer, because he himself is the cause and purpose of the media trial.
References
Becker A, 2010, Encoding and Decoding in FOX’s American Idol. [video online] Available on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqg6tVWEbkY
Brit Awards Ltd 2016, Brit Awards 2016. Avaible on: http://www.brits.co.uk/
De Graft R, 2014, Introduction to Communication Science 4-8: Encoding, Decoding and the Construction of Meaning. [video online] Available on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEnOn7LfAXk
Hall, S. 1980. 'Encoding/Decoding'. In: Stuart Hall, Dorothy Hobson, Andrew Lowe and Paul Tillis, eds. Culture, Media, Language. London: Hutchison, pp. 128-38. Available at: https://spstudentenhancement.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/stuart-hall-1980.pdf
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