Textual Analysis

Stuart Hall's Encoding/Decoding Model

All media products are 'texts'. When you read, watch, play, listen to a media text, you make meaning of the sounds and imagery presented. This process of making meaning or understanding the media text is called DECODING. DECODING = understanding a media text. CODES can be visual (you can see them) or aural (you can hear them). Codes have symbolic value. For example in our society wearing a pair of glasses (glasses are the code) symbolises, or connotates, that you are clever. TV drama, magazines and videogames use these symbolic codes to generate character types and character archetypes.

What visual codes are at work? What connotations do the visual codes have?

What visual codes are in this picture from GTA4? How is the male character (Nico) represented? How is the female character (Cherry) represented? Does the representation of both characters tell us anything about the AUDIENCE for GTA4? 

What visual codes are in this picture from the Lara Croft movie and videogame? Do the codes reinforce a stereotypical portrayal of women in the media? 

What codes are at work on these front covers? These codes work together and establish the CONVENTIONS of lads magazines; the conventions are repeated in each issue; conventions link to audience expectations - the readers of Loaded and Nuts are well aware of the conventions of the mag - it's the reason they buy it! Conventions link closely to genre. The audience for example know the conventions of a Rom Com movie, a first-person shoot em' up, a driving game etc.

Stuart Hall's ENCODING/DECODING model

According to Stuart hall there are 3 ways to DECODE a media text: 1) Preferred or Dominant Reading = the way the     producer of a text intended the text to be understood. 2) Oppositional Reading = where the preferred or     dominant meaning is recognised but rejected for     cultural or political reasons. 3) Negotiated Reading = where the reader agress with     elements of the text, but not all. Look back at the Loaded and Nuts covers; which reading do you take?

IDEOLOGY Stuart Hall's model is interesting because it is personal. It is about how you respond to the media text(s). Your response is based on your personal beliefs, culture and outlook. Another word for beliefs and values is IDEOLOGY.  IDEOLOGY = a set of beliefs that are held by a person and by society as a whole. For example in England we live in a capitalist society; the ideology of a capitalist society is that money is king and our happiness is based on the things we have and the money we make. Again you can take a preferred, oppositional or negotiated stance on Capitalism. 

IDEOLOGY and ideological constructions are within every media text. The ideology may be explicit (obvious) or implicit (not obvious);  It is your job as media students to question the ideology that is inherent within a media text. Look back on all of the media texts in this presentation. What IDEOLOGY is explicitly or implicitly presented in the media texts?