"Encoding, Decoding"

To start off I think that we need to review our notes on Adorno. In our guided notes from last class we learned that Adorno view mass culture as: “more nefarious, enslaved to market forces, and as automating the reactions of audiences, producing consumers as passive sheep enslaved to authoritarian systems of control.” In “Encoding, decoding” Stuart Hall talks extensively about television one of the tools used to create mass culture. Early on in his essay, Hall introduces his idea of a four-stage cycle of communication in contrast to the more traditional linear idea of sender/message/receiver. Hall proposes the four-stage theory of production, circulation, distribution/consumption and reproduction.
Let us compare the two to the creation of a weekly television episode. In the traditional sender/message/receiver method, we just see a general overview of the process. A studio films a TV show, its broadcast and the viewer at home watches it. However, with Hall’s four-stage method of looking at communication we start to see the meat of the process. A studio creates a television show, and does the actual filming this is the production phase. Then the show is edited and is sent to the televisions stations that are going to air it, this is the circulation phase. Then the show is broadcast into millions of home where millions pf people watch, this is the distribution and consumption part of the cycle. Then we of course come to the reproduction phase. I see this happening in two different ways. The first one is that the studio creates another episode similar to the one that airs because it was a success and it is what the audience expects to see. For example on Law & Order it is the same thing every week a murder, some conflict, the detectives solve the case and then a trial. The second way I can see reproduction happening is on the creation of a similar series but the premise is still the same. Just look at any crime show from the last thirty years. They all follow the format of a crime is committed, detectives solve it, bad guys go to jail. The shows might vary a bit series from series but at the basic level, they are all the same.

With his four-stage communication cycle, Hall manages to complicate Adorno’s ideas. For example, at what point did the stereotype enter the cycle and become the standard view that everyone takes? Was it in the production phase or was it in the reproduction phase? In addition, in what cycle did it happen, too? The first one or the hundredth? For now, though let us concentrate on the idea of mass culture as authoritarian. By breaking communication into four smaller stages, Hall creates an opportunity to control and regulate it at each phase. Not that this would always be bad. The government, a corporation, or any other authoritarian system can step in at any point in the cycle and either break it or modify whatever is happening at this phase. In the production phase the government could stop certain material from being used. At the end of the cycle in the reproduction phase, they, the authority, could stop any material from ever being used again. In the distribution/consumption, who views it, how they view it, and when the view it, would be under an authority’s control. In addition, under authoritarian control an increase in the sameness of content could be seen because of the limited number of permitted ideas.

Another thing that Hall discusses in his essay is semiotics. For Hall semiotics is how a form of communication disseminates information. It is learned form of different meanings behind different visuals and actions. However, the information that it is trying to convey can sometimes be misunderstood by the receiver. This happens when there is a “lack of equivalence” as Hall puts it. Simply put it means what you intend something to be is not the same for me, perhaps because of my background. For example, I think cats are cute and cuddly. You on the other hand may think that cats are evil and hang out with witches. This is just our difference of opinion or beliefs. Nevertheless, semiotics can still be useful for reaching a large and broad audience. Take for example “Triumph of Will”. We could argue that Leni Riefenstahl had awesome use of semiotics in the film because even in class without the proper soundtrack, we modern democracy loving Americans were able to understand that the film was saying that Nazis are awesome. I’m sure get into more detail in class so I’ll leave off here.