Decoders

After reading the assigned pages I learned a great deal about encoding and decoding. In the book it states that all images are encoded with meanings in their creation and production that is decoded by viewers. Then in states that Stuart Hall wrote an essay explaining the three positions viewers can take as decoders of cultural images and artifacts.

The first position that i learned about was the Dominant-hegemonic reading. They identify with the dominant message of an image or text, such as a television show, in an unquestioning manner. According to Hall few viewers actually occupy this position at any time because mass culture cannot satisfy all viewer's culturally specific experiences, memories, and desires because viewers are not passive recipients of the messgae of mass media and popular culture.

Next I learned that Negotiated Reading means that they can negotiate an interpretation from the image and its dominant meanings.According to Hall most readings are negotiated ones, in which viewers actively struggle with dominant meanings and modify them in numerous ways because of their own social status, beliefs, and values.

Lastly I learned that Oppositional reading means that they can take an oppositional position, either by completely disagreeing with the ideological position embodied in an image or rejecting it altogether.

When trying to figure out which decoder I would label myself as I decided that I am most simialr to the definition of a Negotiated reading. I can see some of the dominant readings, but I object others. I struggle with most dominant meanings and modify them because of my own social status, beliefs, and values. I chose this one because I can see what most people see, and I see why the would see things that way and decode things a certain way. I can also see what TV shows and such would want me to see. But untimatly I do have a very different set of values, and beliefs and they do influence the way that I would see things and decode them.