Hi, everybody. Today I want to talk to you about the concepts of coding and decoding. This concept, which is essential for understanding the production and interpretation of media information, was developed by Stuart Hall in 1973.
Hall’s theory allows us to realize that the transmission of information is not unidirectional, but an interactive process. “Coding” refers to the process by which information producers (such as media, politicians, advertisers, etc.) inject specific meaning into information content according to their own opinions, cultural values, social positions, etc. “Decoding” is the process of understanding and recreating the information by combining the experience, emotion and social background of the audience after receiving it.
This process is extremely complicated, because audiences may interpret the same content differently in different contexts (Hall, 1980). Therefore, decoding is not simply accepting the meaning transmitted by the media, but an active and subjective process, which often leads to completely different understandings due to individual differences (Morley, 1992).
In August, for example, Britain saw its worst riots in nearly 13 years, which began after a man attacked a dance classroom with a knife, killing and injuring many. False information began to spread on social media that the assailant was a radicalized Muslim immigrant (BBC News, 2024).
After the message was “coded” through social media, it was quickly accepted by many users, especially the emphasis on the “immigration status” of the knifier.
This “coding” triggered anti-immigrant sentiment, which led to the emergence of large numbers of anti-immigrant protesters and, ultimately, riots.
However, this “coding” based on false information is not completely accepted by everyone. Instead of The expected far-right protests, anti-racists took to the streets in large numbers to resist the violence of far-right rioters (The Guardian, 2024). This suggests that not all viewers accepted the “coding” of the message, but rather that some people, through their own understandings of social justice and racial equality, rejected the idea of blaming the immigrant community for this violence.
This response highlights the agency of the audience and the diversity in the decoding process, and their “decoding” results argue that it is wrong to blame violence solely on immigrant groups, which is a social act of prejudice and injustice. Ang (1991) also mentioned that different social groups decode based on their own identities and values, showing the non-homogeneity of the decoding process.
The theory of encoding and decoding enables us to see how information is produced, transmitted and understood in different social contexts, especially in the face of complex social and political issues. The “encoding” process of media content is not only a form of cultural expression, but deeply affects social cognition, public emotions and political positions. In the modern social media environment, this process has become more diversified and controversial.
REFERENCES:
Ang, I. (2006). Desperately seeking the audience. London: Routledge.
BBC News. (2024). Why are there riots happening in the UK? BBC News. Available from https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/videos/c1jlrxj6wgyo [Accessed 17 November 2024].
Hall, S. (1980). Encoding/decoding in culture, media, language. London : Routledge.
Morley, D. (2003). Television, audiences and cultural studies. Routledge.
The Guardian. (2024). Thousands ofanti-racism protesterstake to streets across England tocounter far-right rallies. The Guardian. Available from https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/aug/07/thousands-of-anti-racism-protesters-take-to-streets-to-counter-far-right-rallies [Accessed 17 November 2024].
