STUART HALLS THEORIES

By Emily Smith

What am I going to be doing?

Here I am going to be researching Stuart halls

Reception theory in relation to audience and my

coursework and also about Encoding and Decoding.

The music videos which I am going to be looking at

in relation to this are:

Foals: My Number

Kodaline: Lose your mind

Encoding and Decoding.

Encoding and decoding is where in the media messages are produced in a media text, then conveyed to the viewer and then they’re consumed in hopefully the way the producer intended them to be.

The producer encodes meaning into a media text and frames the narrative in a certain way to encode meaning to the viewer. While the viewer decodes it different or accordingly to how the encoder encoded it. The meaning in which the decoder decodes can differ due to their own background and social situations.

The message has to be decoded correctly by the decoder in order for the deeper meaning to be understood. This means that the meaning can not be understood unless the producers (encoder) intended the reaction with the audience.

Something else which relates to this theory is how texts can have multiple different meanings and the audience decode the reading differently depending on their class and culture- this is called polysemy

Audience reception-Readings

Stuart halls theory suggests three main ways audience receive texts. The dominant/preferred reading, The negotiated reading and The oppositional reading.

The dominant reading- the audience will decode the text in the way that the (encoder) intended them to. The audience receives the preferred reading in such a way that the code seems natural and transparent.

The negotiated reading- the decoder(audience) partly receives the code in its intended way. However they sometimes change it in a way that reflects their own position in terms of interests, experiences and position in society.

The oppositional reading- the audiences position in society, interests and experiences are in no way relation to the preferred reading. Therefore the preferred reading is completely rejected. Thus the decoder offering an alternative to the preferred reading due to not being able to understand.

In relation to Foals: My Number

In the foals video the director has encoded

meaning for drug use. The dominant reading of

this will be received by the audience due to live

performances and live music being highly

associated with drugs. In this scene there are lots

of people in a toilet and you cant see anyone

taking drugs but because this happens whilst the

gig is also happening and at 1:30 there is an

earthquake effect and the colours changes to a

kaleidoscope effect this encodes the meaning of

drugs. Due to Mac DeMarcos videos including

controversial subjects such as drugs in his music

videos and I am highly basing my music video on

his style this is something in which I want to do in

my own music video. I could encode the meaning

of drugs by having this earth quake effect and

kaleidoscope colour scheme as this is a way of

representing drug use without actually showing it.

Foals: My Number continued…

This scene also has connotations of

dug use and the dominant reading will

be that the guy in the frame has been

taking drugs at the gig and he passes

out. Drugs taken whilst at gigs are

said to be done so you can ‘feel the

music’ and this seems to be what the

director has encoded here. The editing

is in slow motion and there is and

earthquake kaleidoscope effect of

colours. The guy is also falling around

and bobbing side to side to suggest

swaying to the music however as it is

done at a slower pace to the actual

non diegetic music it suggests

something unnatural is happened and

he is submerged in something else.

Therefore if I want to represent drug

use in my music video this could be a

technique which I could do.

Foals: My Number continued…

The video has a psychedelic retro effect

due to the colour scheme giving the video

a hologram kaleidoscope effect. Also by

having effects such as a split screen and

when someone moves they’re in slow

motion this all adds to the video having

connotations of drug use and encodes the

dominant reading of drug use due to

things that are unnatural like lighting and

colour this gives the video an abstract

narrative therefore being something I

could do in my music as I am wanting to

create an abstract music video.

In relation to Kodaline: Lose your mind

The Kodaline video has connotations that

something unnatural is happening as the

guy looks like he is in a trance

throughout the video. Creating an

abstract effect as the video is set in a

realistic setting but what the man is

doing is unconventional and abstract.

The oppositional reading by many

viewers when watching this video is that

the person in the video is high on drugs

due to him being in a trance like state of

mind and submerged within something

else that is considered unnatural and

feeling like he is invincible. The video has

been described as psychedelic the lyrics

help to spur on this view.

Therefore this is a song in which I could

use for my music video due to the song

itself being abstract, thus fitting with my

abstract disjointed theme.