Summary
Encoding/decoding is a model of mass communication in which meaning is made twice: producers encode a message, and audiences decode it from where they stand, not always as intended. The cultural theorist Stuart Hall set it out in a 1973 paper on television, written at the University of Birmingham. Misreadings of what a message connotes, he argued, have “a societal, not a communicative, basis”.
That paper names four positions for decoding: the dominant or hegemonic code; the broadcasters’ professional code; a negotiated code, which accepts the big picture while making local exceptions; and an oppositional code. The version usually taught, from Hall’s 1980 revision, has three.
Rationale
Part 1 says stories meet people whose sense-making has “already been shaped”. Hall warns communicators: when audiences refuse a message, calling it a failure to get across can hide a real conflict of interests.