Stuart Hall (Media Audience & Representation)

Stuart Hall - Media Audience & Representation

Hall is a key theorist, two linked theories that are important:

1. Audience
2. Representation

Reception Theory - revised by Hall and another group of writers 1980s, move away from the effects theories; don't assume medias bad and brainwashing. Focus more on the condition in which the audience reads media text.  Look at how people interpret the media in different ways, different opinions.

Polysemy - When there is a wide range of possible audience interpretations, most media products, particularly the news are polysemic.

Producer      --------------------------------------------------------------------------------->   audience

(daily mail)                                                                                interprets in intended way but not                                                                                                                                     always

intended ideology; supportive of the government

e..g. if there was a story about the royal family they 

would support the queen

Stuart Hall (background):

• Initially born in jamaica
• Came over in the UK in the 50s because he had a place at Cambridge
• Had a wonderful experience but was one of the minorities there, didn't experience racism but was encouraged to feel different, but ''othered'' 
• He wanted to talk about his studies not his background.
• This was his starting point.

The 1980s - Reception Hall

Encoding/Decoding - when a producer has a particular meaning and decoding is when the meaning is taken out. 

Hall argues that most media texts have meanings encoded into them; He noticed that almost all the faces he saw on TV were white and he found that when black people, like himself were represented they were more comedic characters and he said even though it might not be intentional that representation of ethnicity might be prejudiced. This may reinforce all the stereotypes. 

This theory can apply to anything; any dominant ideology can be encoded and decoded. 

For example, an encoded ideology in a newscast would be the representation of refugees as invaders, swarming in/to 'steal our jobs'. With the imagery of refugees running in, even though it may not be intentional it reinforces prejudices,

Consumption; an ideology that having new items makes us happy. We live in a consumer society. 

These reflect and reinforce the dominant ideology

Gilroy was working alongside Stuart Hall and was interested in the idea of  ''Otherness''  they were speaking on postcolonial theory; the idea of ''us and them''

Hall also suggests that not all audiences read texts the same way; most texts are potentially polysemic. But argues that text are structured this way so that their dominant meaning limits the scope for different audience interpretations.

Hall suggests that most audiences of a given text will have a preferred or a dominant reading, others may decode that text by taking a negotiated position or an oppositional position

1. A dominant or preferred position is when the audience takes the full preferred meaning offered by the text and the ideological assumptions behind the messages
2. A negotiated position is when there is a mixture of adaption and opposition to the dominant codes. So the audience negotiates the meaning to fit with their ''lived experience'' 
3. An oppositional position is when the preferred reading is understood but opposed or re-drawn on alternative values and attitudes. The ideological assumptions are rejected

EXAMPLE

• Dominant - Dwayne Johnson's new comedy movie out, persuading mainstreaming viewers to watch
• Negotiated - Nostalgia for an older audience who grew up with Jumanji; although many didn't like the first remake so they probably won't be interested in the sequel. 
• Oppositional - Wouldn't watch because of the predictability of Dwayne Johnson (similar to other cast members like Jack Black & Kevin Hart) and his act of playing the same character type. 

Comments of the article are about Karen Gillan and her revealing outfits, while some are adoring Dwayne Johnson.

Representation:

• Hall notes that representation is not about whether the media reflects or distorts reality.
• Hall states representation is back and forth, contested.
• Through preferred meanings, representation can carry power
• Hall encourages us to go inside representations such as stereotypes and deconstruct them.

The representation of the Muslim woman in this image connotates bad, stereotyped imagery. Contested images that have been used to reinforce the stereotype.  Photographer states that she was one of many that were traumatized and not indifferent. Hall would say this is what the news could do to us, it can crop and dissect. 

Hall was interested in the representation of ''the other''. He suggests that if you watch a soap opera it is just as rich and meaning as a Shakespeare play,