Chapter 6 Encoding/Decoding Entertainment Media Article Swipe
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· 2024
· Open Access
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· DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110792881-007
· OA: W4403221301
Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model of cultural analysis was born as a critique of linear sender/message/receiver-models of communication, which Hall argued concentrate on message exchanges without questioning who sends and who receives a message, and the political-economic asymmetry between the two. By contrast, in encoding/ decoding analyses, the message itself-a television show or other entertainment media object-is only a pivotal object between two ‘moments’ of encoding and decoding. Encoding conceptualizes the process of how, why, and by whom a message is produced; and decoding conceptualizes how, why, and by whom the message is consumed. This chapter provides, first, an introduction to Hall and encoding/decoding as an approach to studying media entertainment; second, an overview of the theoretical challenges undergone by researchers over the last decades to operationalize and empirically apply Hall’s model; and third, an insight into the relevance to and challenges presented by 21stcentury (online, interactive, and platformized) entertainment media.
