The concepts of encoding and decoding were introduced by Hall around 1970, using television communication as the basis for his research.Coding and decoding study the two ends of television communication.
Encoding
Encoding refers to the need for communicators to convert the information they want to convey into speech, sound, text or other forms, such as those who work in the communications industry, those who produce the content of their communications, and so on.
Decoding
Decoding is when the audience interprets and understands the information they have received and explores its meaning.
Hall proposes three hypothetical positions for decoding, each of which represents three different perspectives from which an audience’s understanding of a message can produce very different results.
At the same time, when we try to apply these two ideas in practice, we find that under these three positions there are still many factors that influence the process of information transfer.
Factors affecting encoding:
- Differences in knowledge received by the audience
- Compliance with laws and regulations
- Presence of regulatory bodies
- The need for professionalism among communication practitioners
- Selection of information dissemination platforms
Factors affecting decoding:
- The environmental context in which the audience receives the information
- Differences in audience experience lead to different understandings
So it is a difficult task for the audience to sift through the information and find the most appropriate understanding with all these influences and also the dominant presence of the presenter. So in many events it’s difficult for people to find the real truth in a noisy information environment.
This week, TVB, a famous TV station in Hong Kong, China, released a workplace drama series featuring live news broadcasts.
In the interpretation of the role to feel the timeliness of the news, authenticity, but at the same time the protagonists to get a better position, in the news interviews to use all kinds of ways to get the freshest information, to get higher ratings, for the events continue to dig deep behind the story.
The theme of the opening credits of one of the episodes is the truthfulness of news. With all the information piling up, can people find the real truth in it.
Reference:
Shaw, A. (2017) ‘Encoding and decoding affordances: Stuart Hall and interactive media technologies’, Media, culture & society, 39(4), pp. 592-602.
