Stuart Hall Encoding and Decoding

Stuart Hall Encoding and Decoding

When a message is delivered to an audience, there is a high probability of the message being changed if the decoding is not done correctly. Depending on an individual’s economic background and personal experience, the encoded message is interpreted in different ways. Stuart Hall shows that there is a different way of interpreting a particular message by the audience. There are four stages which, include the production of the message, circulation, use, and reproduction of the message. It is, therefore, essential to use code that does not have contradicting meaning. In the world today, social media is the largest platform for conveying messages. Politicians and celebrities are using social media to send messages to the world.

However, although it gives the advantage of having a broad audience, the problem arises when there is a disjunction between the producer’s intended message, and how the recipients interpret the message. Due to the different modes of coding, the producer’s intended message may be misunderstood. This paper will discuss posts from a public figure that illustrate Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding.

Donald Trump has, for a long time through his messages on social media, tried to brand himself as a leader for all people. He also brands himself as a leader who is willing and ready to work with all people despite their race and ethnicity. He also brands himself as a leader that respects the rights of people, both men and women, and a leader that appreciates diversity. However, due to the encoding of his messages on social media, the recipients have always interpreted his message differently. Trump has, on many occasions, said that the audience misinterpreted his message. Trump has clarified his messages many times to ensure the intended meaning is retained.

First is the discrepancy in Donald Trump’s tweet on building a wall. In his tweet, he talks about building a wall in Colorado. He wrote on Twitter, “we are building a wall in Colorado, we are not building a wall in Kansas, but they get to benefit from it” (Oct 24, 2019). The coding in Trump’s message was that a wall would be built the border, and it will be beneficial for all the people. However, the recipients of the message had different decoding. To some recipients, the message was about building a wall that would block people from entering different regions of the United States. The wall is a separation of different people who are not from this country. A receiver of an encoded message interprets the message according to their own mental experiences. The coding of the message gave different meanings to the word wall, which led to different interpretations to show discrimination. The discrepancy arose due to the coding giving different meanings to various recipients of the message.

The second discrepancy is Trump’s tweet about the four women of colour. In his tweet, he wrote, “the squads “(July 14, 2019). Trump used the squads to refers to the four congresswomen. He then proceeded to write, “why don’t they go back and try help the broken and crime-infested places which they come from “. It is a tweet that was interpreted to mean different things from what Trump intended. The audience interpreted this message as telling the four women of colour to go back to their country, which was full of crime and was dirty. It was also interpreted to show that he was racist because it was addressed to four women of colour. In his branding, Trump shows that he respects women, and he appreciates them. Later on, he said the message he was trying to send to the people is that people of colour should give back to their countries. To Trump, going back meant giving back a hand to their country of origin. It is a message on social media that goes against what Trumps as a leader brand himself. Since the message was coded to mean various things, the message was decoded differently.

The third discrepancy in Trump’s message is on the tweet addressing a young activist Greta Thunberg. Trump on twitter wrote, “the girl seems to be a very happy young girl who looks forward to a brighter future” (Sep 24, 2019). The girl was autistic, and in her video, she talked about the corruption in leadership as the leading cause of depriving her of joy. In Greta’s speech, she talked about leaving in an empty world and that the emptiness is caused by the leaders. Trump brands himself as a man that will work with all people, even those who are disabled. Due to personal experiences of the recipients, the message was interpreted to show that Trump hates to disable people, and his word was taken as mockery. The tweet was decoded to reveal that he did not think the girl had a future because he was disabled. Trump, later on, explains that his messages meant nothing more than they said and that he was genuine about saying the girl had a bright future. His message was decoded to show something different from his original intended meaning.

Trump’s messages being misinterpreted by the audience shows the four stages of the communication model. The production stage is when Trump will be tweeting a message to the audience and giving his opinion to the audience. Through his choice of words show the encoding process. “The circulation process is how the message is transmitted” (Castleberry,85). Social media provides a massive platform for people to view messages, and because of the audience’s beliefs and values, the message is distributed and put to use. At this stage, “the messages are decoded by the audience and depending on who the recipient is, they interpreted the message differently” (Shaw,602). Lastly is the reproduction stage, where the audience decides to react to the message that they have decoded based on their own experiences and beliefs.

In conclusion, social media plays a significant role in how the audience receives the message. “On sending a message to the audience, it may be decoded differently depending on the personal experiences and the social background of the recipient.” When coding a message, it is vital to code it in a way that the audience can interpret it easily and correctly. When information is coded in a manner that can give more than one meaning, it creates a discrepancy between the original message and the interpreted message. According to Hall decoding, a message is in some sense a creative process. I agree with his concept because as someone is encoding a message, it is up to him to ensure that it does not give contradicting message. Donald Trump attempts to brand himself as a leader of all Americans and that he respects all people despite their colour and gender. However, through the messages he shares in social media, the messages are decoded differently by the audience. Depending on the audience’s experiences and beliefs, the message has been decoded to mean things that are not in line with what Trump brands himself. Therefore, because of the possibility of misinterpreting a decoded message, it is important to code a message in a manner that can easily be interpreted.

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Work cited

Castleberry, Garret. “Understanding Stuart Hall’s ‘encoding/decoding’ model through TV’s ‘Breaking bad’.” Communication theory and millennial popular culture: Essays and applications (2016): 84-95.

Shaw, Adrienne. “Encoding and decoding affordances: Stuart Hall and interactive media technologies.” media, culture & society 39.4 (2017): 592-602.

Link:https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18234613/trump-tweets-border-wall-construction-explained

link:http://www.thejewishstar.com/stories/trump-draws-israel-into-squad-tweet-storm,18122

link:https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahkim/2019/09/24/trumps-tweet-greta-thunberg/