Encoding-decoding, Apuntes de Historia

¡Descarga Encoding-decoding y más Apuntes en PDF de Historia solo en Docsity!

The

Gultural Studies

Read e r

Editedby

SIMON DURING

EI

Londonand NewYork

6 stuartnau

ENCODINGi. DECODING

model has been criticized for its linearity - sender/message/receiver- for its concentration on the level of message (^) exchange and for the absence of a structured conception of the different (^) moments as a complex structure of relations. But it is also possible (and useftrl) to ttrinl (^) of this process in terms of a structure produced and sustained tfuough (^) the articulation of linked but distinctive moments - productiory (^) circulation, distribution/consumption, reproduction. This would be to think of the process as a 'complex structure in dominance', sustained tfuough (^) the articulation of conlected practices, each of which, however, retains its distinctiveness and has its own specific modality, its own forms ald conditions of existence. The 'obiect' of these practices is meanings and messagesin the form of sign-vehicles of a specific icind organized, like any form of commurf- cation or language, through the operation of codes within the syntag- matic chain of a discourse. The apparatuses, relations and practices of production thus issue, at a certain moment (the moment of ,productiorr,/ circulation') in the form of symbolic vehicles constituted within (^) the rules of 'language'. It is in this discursive form that the circulation (^) of the 'product' takes place. The process thus requires, at the production end, its material instruments - its 'means' - as well as its own sets of social (production) (^) relations - the organization and combination of practices within (^) media apparatuses. But it is in the discursizteform (^) that the circulation (^) of the product takes place, as well as its (^) distribution to different audiences. Once accomplished, the discourse must then be translated - transformed, again - into social practices if the circuit is to be both completed and effective. If no 'meaning' is taken, there can be no 'consumption'.^ If the meaning is not articulated in practice, it has no effect. The value of this approach is that while each of the moments, in articulation, (^) is necessary to the circujt as a whole, no one moment can fully guarantee the next moment with which it is articulated. Since each has its specific modality and conditions of existence, each can constitute its own break or interruption (^) of the 'passage of forms' on whose conti- nuity the flow of effective production (that is, 'reproductionl) depends. Thus while in no way wanting to limit research to 'following only those leads which emerge from content analysis', we must recognize that the discursive form of the message has a privileged position in the communicative exchange (from the viewpoint of circulation), and that the moments (^) of 'encoding' and 'decoding', though only 'relativeiy autonomous' in relation to the communicative process as a whole, are detnminnte moments. A 'raw' historical event cannot, in that form, be

Encoding,decoding

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

Stuart Hall's influentialessay offers a densely theoreticalaccount of how messagesare producedand disseminated,referringparticularlyto television. He suggestsa four-stagetheory of communication:production,circulation, use (whichhere he calls distributionor consumption),and reproduction"For him eachstageis 'relativelyautonomous'fromthe (^) others.This meansthatthe codingof a messagedoes controlits receptionbut not transparentty- each stage has its own determininglimitsand possibilities.The conceptot relative autonomyallows him to argue that polysemyis not the same as pluralism: messagesare not (^) opento any interpretationor usewhatsoever-justbecause eachstage in the circuitlimitspossibilitiesin ttJenext. In actual social existence,Hall goes on to argue, messageshave a 'complexstructureof dominance'becauseat each stagethey are ,imprinled' by institutionalpowerrelations.Furthermore,a messagecan only be received at a particularstageit it is recognizableor appropriate- thoughthereis space for a messageto be usedor understoodat leastsomewhatagainstthe grain. This meansthat power^ relationsat the pointot production,tor example,will looselyfit those at the pointof consumption.In this way, the communication circuitis also a circuitwhich (^) reproducesa Datternof domination. This analysisallows Hall to insert a semiotic paradigminto a social framework,clearingthe way (^) bothfor furthertextualistand ethnographicwork. His essay has been particutarlyimportantas a basison which tieldworklike DavidMorley'shas proceeded. Fuftherreading:Hall 1977,1980;Morleyi 980, 1999. S.D.

Traditionally, mass-communications research has concepfualized the process of communication in terms of a circulation circuit or loop. This

STUART HALL

,r'/'^"#tml:;*X
,

encodilS ,/ mearung ,/ structures

frameworks of knowledge

relations of production

technical infrastructure

decoding'. mearun8 (^)
structures 2 (^)

frameworks of knowledge

relations of production

technical infrastructure

distort what has been transmitted. The lack of fit between the codes has a great deal to do with the structural differences of relation and position between broadcasters.and audiences,but it also has something to do with the aslanmetry between the codes of 'source' and 'receiver' at the moment of transformation into and out of the discursive form. What are called 'distortions' or 'misunderstandings' (^) adse preciseiy fromthe lackof equioalencebetweenthe two sides in the commuricative exchange. Once again, this defines the 'relative autonomy', but 'determinateness', of the entry and exit of the message in its discursive moments. The application of this rudimentary paradigm has already begun to transform our ulderstanding of the older term, television 'content'. We are just beginning to see how it might also transform our understanding of audience reception, 'reading' and response as well. Beginnings and endings have been announced in communications research before, so we must be cautious. But there seems some ground for thinking that a new and exciting phase in so-called audience research, of a quite new kind, may be opening up. At either end of the communicative chain the use of the semiotic paradigm promises to dispel the lingering behaviour- ism which has dogged mass-media research for so long, especially in its approach to content. Though we know the television programme is not a behavioural input, like a tap on the knee cap, it seemsto have been atnost impossible for traditional researchers to conceptualize the corr- municative process without lapsing into one or other variant of low- flying behaviourism. (^) We know, as Gerbner has^ remarked, (^) that representations of violence on the TV^ screen 'are not^ violence but

ENCODING, DECODING

messagesabout violence': but we have continued to research the ques- tion of violence, for example, as iI we were unable to comprehend this epistemologicaldistinction. The televisual sign is a complex one. It is itseu constituted by the combination of two types of discourse, visual and aural. Moreover, it is an iconic sign, in Peirce's terminology, because 'it possessessome of the properties of the thing represented'. This is a point which has led to a great deal of confusion and has provided the site of intense controversy in the study of visual language. Since the visual discourse translates a three-dimensional world into two-dimensional planes, it (^) cannot of corrse, be the referent or concept it signifies. The dog in the film can bark but it cannot bite! Reality exists outside language, but it is con- stantly mediated by and through language: and what we can know and say has to be produced in and through discourse. Dscursive 'knowl- edge' is the product not of the transparent representation of the 'real' in language but of the articulation of language on real relations and con- ditions. Thus there is no intelligible discourse without the operation of a code. Iconic signs are therefore coded signs too - even if the codes here work differently (^) from those of other signs. There is no degree zero in language. (^) Naturalism arrd'realism'- the apparent fidelity of the rep- resentation to the thing or concept represented - is the result, the effect, of a cefain (^) specific articulation of language on the 'real'. It is the result of a discursive practice. Certain codes may, of course, be so widely distributed in a specific language comrnunity or culture, and be learned at so early an age, that they appear not to be constructed - the effect of an articulation between srgn and referent - but to be 'naturally' given. Simple visual signs aPpear to have achieved a 'near-universality' (^) in this sense: though evidence remains that even apparently 'natural' visual codes are culfure- specific. However, (^) this does not mean that no codes have intervened; rather, that the codes have been profo lundly ruturalized. The operation of naturalized (^) codes reveals not (^) the transpatencv and ,naturalness, of language but the depth, the habituatior, and the near-universality of the codes in use. They produce apparently 'natural, recognitions. This has the (ideological) effect of concealing the practices of coding which are present. But we must not be fooled by appearances. Actually, what naturalized codes demonstrate is the degree of habituation (^) produced when there is a fundamental alignment and reciprocity - an achieved equivalence - between the encoding and decoding sides of an exchange of meanings. The functioning of the codes on the decoding side will

STUAF|T HALL

frequently assume the status of naturalized perceDtions, This leads us to think that the visual sign for 'cow' actually r:s(raiher than represents)lhe anirnal, cow. But if we thhk (^) of the visual representation of a cow in a manual on animal husbandry - and, even more, of the linguistic (^) sign 'cow' - we can see that both, in different degrees, are albitrury wlth respect to the concept (^) of the animal they represent. The articulation of an arbitrary (^) sign - (^) whether visual or verbal - with the concept of a referent is the product not of nature but of convention, and the conven- tionalism of discourses requires the intervention, the support, of codes. Thus Eco has argued that iconic signs 'look like obiects in the real world becausethey reproduce the conditions (that is, the codes)of perception in the viewer'. These 'conditions of perception' are, however, the result of a highly (^) coded, even if vtutually unconscious, set of operations - decodings. This is as true of the photographic or televisual image as it is of any other sign. Iconic signs are, however, particularly r,llnerable (^) to being 'read'^ as natural because visual codes of perception (^) are very widely distributed and because this type of sign is less arbitrary than a linguistic sign: the linguistic sign, 'cow', possessesnoneof the properties of the thing represented, whereas the visual sign appears to possess someof those properties. This may help us to clarify a confusion in current linguistic theory and to define precisely how some key terms are being used in this article. Lingnistic theory frequently employs the distinction 'denotation' and 'connotation'. The term 'denotation' is widely (^) equated with the literal meaning of a sign: because this literal meaning is almost univer- sally recognized, especially when visual discourse is being employed, 'denotation' has often been confused with (^) a literal transcription of 'reality'in (^) language - and thus with a 'natural sign', one pioduced without the interqention of a code. 'Connotation', (^) on the other hand, is employed simply to refer to less fixed and therefore more conventiona- Iized and changeable, associative meanings, which clearly vary frorn instance to instance and therefore must depend on the intervention of codes. We do not use the distinction (^) - denotation/connotation - in this way. From our point of view, the distinction is an analytic one only. It is useful, in analysis, to be able to apply a rough rule of thumb which distinguishes those aspects of a sign which appear to be taken, in any language community at any point in time, as its 'literal' meaning (deno- tation) from the more associative meanings for the sign which it is possible to generate (connotation). But analytic distinctions must not be

ENCOOING, DECODING

confused with distinctions in the real world. There will^ be very few instances in^ which^ signs organized in^ a discourse sig^ ly^ only their 'literal' (that is, near-universally^ consensualized) meaning.^ In^ actual discourse most signs will combine both the denotative and the connota- llrveaspects(as redefined above). It may, then, be asked why we retain the distinction at all. It is largely a matter of analytic^ value. It is because signsappear^ to acquiretheir full ideologicalvalue - appearto be open to articulation with wider ideological discourses^ and meanings -^ at the level of their 'associative'meanings (that is, at the connotative^ level) - for here 'meanings' are not apparently fixed in natural perception (that is, they are not fully^ naturalized),^ and their fluidity^ of meaning and association can be more fully exploited and transformed. So it is at the connotative lnel of the sign that situational ideologies alter and trans- form signi{ication. At this level we can see more clearly the active intervention of ideologiesin and on discourse:here, the sign is open to new accentuations and, in Volo5inov's terms, enters fully into the struggle over meanings - the class struggle in language. This does not mean that the denotative or 'literal meaning^ is^ outside ideology- Indeed, we could say that its ideological value is strongly fixed -becatse it has become so fully universal and'natural'. The terms 'denotation' and 'connotation',^ then, are merely useful analytic tools for distinguish- ing, in particular contexts, between not the presence/absenceof ideo- logy in language but the different levels at which ideologies and discoursesintersect. The level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual refer- ence and positioning in different discursive fields of meaning and association, is the point where alreadycodedsigns intersect with the deep semantic codes of a culture and take on additional, more active ideologi- cal dimensions. We might take an example from advertising discourse. Here, too, there is no 'purely denotative', and certainly no 'natural', representation. Every visual sign in advertising connotes a quality, situation, value or inference, which is present as an implication or implied meaning, depending on the connotational positioning. In Barthes'sexample,the sweateralways signifiesa'warm garment' (deno- tation) and thus the activity/value of'keeping warm'. But it is also possible,at its more connotative levels, to signify'the coming of winter' or 'a cold day'. And, in the specialized sub-codes of fashion, sweater rnay also connote a fashionable style of hnutecoutureor, alternatively, an informal style of dress. But set against the right visual background and positioned by the romantic sub-code, it may connote 'long autumn walk

STUART HALL

or exposition/ is unfamiliar with the language, finds the concepts too alien or difficult or is foxed by the expository narative. But more often broadcastersare concerned that the audience has failed to take the meaning as they - the broadcasters- intended. What they really mean to say is that viewers are not operating within the 'dominant' or 'preferred' code. Their ideal is 'perfectly transparent communication'. Instead, what they have to confront is 'systematically distorted communication'. In recent years discrepancies of this kind have usually been explained by reference to 'selective perception'. This is the door via which a residual pluralism evades the compulsions of a highly struc- tured, asymmetrical and non-equivalent process. Of course, there will always be private, individual, variant readings. But'selective percep- tion' is almost never as selective, random or privatized as the concept suggests. The pafterns exhibit, across individual^ variants,^ significant clusterings. Arry new approach to audience studies will therefore have to begin with a critique of 'selective perceptionl theory. It was argued earlier that since there is no necessarycorrespondence between encoding (^) and decoding, the former can attempt to 'pre-fer'but cannot prescribe or guarantee the latter, which has its own conditions of existence. Unless they are wildly aberrant, encoding will have the effect of constructing some of the limits and parameters within^ which decod- ings will (^) operate. If there were no lirnits, audiences could simply read whatever they liked into any message. No doubt some total misunder- standings of this kind do exist. But the vast range must corLtajr.some degree of reciprocity between encoding and decoding moments. other- wise we could not speak of an effective communicative exchange at all. Nevertheless, this 'correspondence' is not given but constructed. It is not 'natural' but the product (^) of an articulation between two distinct moments. And the former cannot determine or guarantee, in a simPle sense, which decoding codes will be employed. Otherwise corrunuru- cation would be a perfectly equivalent circuit, and every messagewould be an instance of 'perfectly transparent communication'. We must think, then, of the variant articulations in which encoding/decoding can be combined. To elaborate on this, we offer a hypothetical analysis of some possible decoding positions, in order to reinforce the Point of^ 'no necessarycorrespondence', We identify threehypothetical positions from which decodings of a televisual discourse may be constructed. These^ need to be empirically tested and refined. But the argument that decodings do not follow inevitably from encodings, that they are not identical,^ reinJorces the

ENCODING, (^) DECODING

argument of 'no necessarycorrespondence'.It also helps to deconstruct the common-sense meaning of 'misunderstanding'^ in terms of a theory of 'systematicallydistorted communication'. The first hypothetical position is that of the dominant-hegemonic position. t{hen^ the viewer^ takes the connoted meaning hom, say, a television newscast or current affairs programne full and straight, and decodes the messagein terms of the reference code in which it has been encoded, we might say that the viewer is operatinginsidetfu dominant code.T}:.is is the ideal-typical^ case of 'perfectly^ transparent communi- cation' -^ or as close as we are likely to come to it (^) 'for all practical purposes'. Within this we can distinguish the positions produced by the professinnalcode. This is the position (produced by what we perhaps ought to identify^ as the operation of a 'metacode') which the pro- fessional broadcastersassume when encoding a messagewhich has alreadybeen signified in a hegemonic manner. The professional code is 'relatively independent' (^) of the dominant code, in that it applies criteria and transformational (^) operations of its own, especially (^) those of a technico-practical nature. The professional (^) code, however, (^) operates within the 'hegemony' of the dominant code. Indeed, it servesto repro- duce the dorninant definitions precisely by bracketing their hegemonic quality and operating instead with displaced professional codings which foreground such apparently neutral-technical questions as visual qua- lity, (^) news and presentational values, televisual quality, ,professiona- lism' and so on. The hegemonic interpretations of, say, the politics of Northern Ireland, or the Chilean coapor the Industrial Relations Bill are pnncipally (^) generated by political and military (^) elites: the particular choice of presentational occasions and formats, the selection of person- nel, the choice of images, the staging of debates are selected and combined through (^) the operation of the professional code. How the oroadcasting (^) professionals are able bofh to operate with ,relatively auton- omous' codesof th eir own and to act in such a wav as to reproduce (not without contradiction) the hegemonic signification of euents is a com- Plex matter which cannot be further spelled out here. It must suffice to say that the professionalsare linked with the defining elites not onty by (^) the (^) institutional (^) position of (^) broadcasting itsel-f as an ,ideo- logicalapparatus',but also (^) by the structure (^) of access(that is, the sysiem- atic 'over-accessing'of selectiveelite personnel and their ,definition the-situation' in television). It may even be said that the professionalof codes serve to reproduce hegemonic (^) definitions (^) specifically by ooer y biasing nof (^) their operations in a dominant direction: ideoloeical

STUART HALL

reproduction therefore takes place here inadvertently,^ unconsciously, 'behind men's backs'. Of course, conflicts, contradictions and even misunderstandings regularly arise between the dominant and the pro- fessional significations and their signifying agencies. The second posidon we would identify^ is that of the negotiatedcode or position. Majority audiences probably understand quite adequately what has been dominantly defined and professionally^ signified.^ The dominant definitions, however, are hegemonic precisely because they represent definitions of situations and events which are 'in dorninance' (8lobal).Dominant definitions connect events, implicitly or explicitly, to grand totalizations, to the Breat syntagmatic views-of-the-world:^ they take 'large views' of issues: they relate events to the 'national interest' or to the level of geo-politics, even if^ they make these connections in truncated, inverted or mystified ways. The definition^ of a hegemonic viewpoint is (a) that it defines within its terms the mental horizon,^ the universe, of possible meanings, of a whole sector of relations in a society or culture; and (b) that it carries with it the stamp of legitimacy -^ it appears coterminous with what is^ 'natural', 'inevitable',^ 'taken^ for granted' about the social order. Decoding within^ the negotiatedansion contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it a&nowl- edges the legitimary of the hegemonic definitions to make the gmnd significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules - it operates with excePtions to the rule. It accords the privileged position to the dominart definitions^ of events while reserving the right to make a more negotiated application to 'local conditions', to its own more corryrate posltions. This negotiated version of the dominant^ ideology is thus shot through with^ contradic- tions, though these are only on certain occasions brought^ to full visi- bility. Negotiated codes operate through what we might call particular or situated logics: and these logics are sustained by their differential and unequal relation to the discourses and logics of power. The simplest example of a negotiated code is that which^ governs the response of a worker to the notion of an Industrial Relations Bill limiting^ the dght to strike or to arguments for a wages freeze. At the level of the 'national interest' economic debate the decoder may adopt the hegemonic defi- nition, agreeing that 'we must al1 pay ourselves less in order to combat inflation'. This, however, may have little or no relation to his/her will- ingness to go on strike for better pay and conditions or to oppose the Industrial Relations Bill at the level of shop-floor or union organization. We suspect that the great maiority of so-called 'misulderstandings'^ arise

ENC<)DING. DECODING

from the contradictions and disjunctures between hegemonic-dominant encodings and negotiated-corporatedecodings. It is just these mis- matches in^ the levels which^ most provoke^ defining^ elites and pro- fessionals to identify^ a 'failure in comrnunications'. Finally, it is possible for a viewer perfectly to understand both the literal and the connotative inflection given by a discourse but to decode the message^ in a globally contrary way. He/she detotalizes the message in the preferred code in order to retotalize the message within some alternative framework^ of reference. This is the case of the viewer who listensto a debate^ on the need to limit wages but 'reads' every mention of the 'national^ interesf as 'classinterest'. He/she is operating with what we must call an oppositionalcode. One of the most significant political moments (they also coincide with crisis points within the broadcasting organizations themselves, for obvious reasons) is the point when events which are normally signified and decoded in a negotiated way begin to be given an oppositional reading. Here the 'politics o{ signification' - the strugglein discourse- is ioined.

NOTE

This article is an edited extract from Tncoding and Decoding in Television Discourse , CCCSStencilledPaper (^) no. 7.