Stuart Hall: Key Thinker

• Week 6 is about Key Thinkers, specifically Stuart Hall & George Gerbner

Stuart Hall

• Stuart Henry McPhail Hall was born on February 3, 1932, and died on February 10, 2014
• He was a British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist born in Jamaica
• Hall's model of mass communication is also called the circuit of communication (1980).
• Events have to be encoded into televisual stories reflecting an intended meaning within the context of television news and current affairs programs
• The apparent naturalness of television codes disguises their ideological potential
• Codes are rich in connotation, require decoding, and may appear transparent
• Hall does not believe encoding inevitably dictates decoding and rejected textual determinism
• Negotiated reading and oppositional reading can be seen as forms of recoding and were outlined by Hall as less compliant stances.
• People unconsciously rely on common sense with those who use similar codes to establish a preferred meaning
• Accepting these framings results in a hegemonic reading
• Factors such as class, gender, ethnicity, interpretive repertoires, and context affect reception

George Gerbner

• Gerbner was a communication professor and founder of cultivation theory, born on August 8, 1919, in Budapest, Hungary
• He attempted the general purpose of communication models in 1956
• He also emphasized the dynamic nature of communication, along with factors affecting its reliability
• Gerbner's communication model is also known as the general model (1956)
• The model can be understood when read along with the diagram beginning at E – Event.

Perceptual Dimension

• An 'E' is an event that happens in real life and the event content/message is perceived by 'M', whether it be a man or machine
• Perceiving the message from the "E" by "M" is known as "E1. It is not the same as "E", since an E is not limited to human perception
• Any man or machine cannot perceive the whole event
• This is know as Perceptual Dimension

Perceptual Dimension (Cont.)

• There are 3 factors between 'E' and 'M': Selection, Context, Availability
• M (man or machine) cannot perceive the entire content of the event "E"
• M selects interesting or needed content from the whole event and filters the rest
• Context occurs in the event and availability is based on 'M's attitude, mood, culture, and personality

Means and Controls Dimension

• E2 refers to the event content that is drawn or artified by M, where M send a message about an E to someone else.
• M creates a statement or signals about the message and Gerbner termed it Form and content as "SE2"
• S (signal or form) takes and E2 (Man's content)
• The content (E2) is structured or formed (S) by 'M' and it can communicate in a different ways or based on the structured ways.

Means and Controls Dimensions

• Use of channels/media occurs when M sends a message which he has a greater/lesser degree of control, depending on skill sets
• The question of 'control' relates to M's degree of skill in using communication channels
• Factors include how good a person is when using verbal/internet communication channel to send messages

Means and Controls Dimensions (Cont.)

• Adding other receivers (ex: M2, M3, etc.) who have further perceptions (ex: SE3, SE4, etc.) of the statements can extend this process to infinitum
• "You know, who tells the stories of a culture really governs human behaviour. It used to be the parent, the school, the church, the community. Now it's a handful of global conglomerates that have nothing to tell, but a great deal to sell” - George Gerbner

Example of Model in Practice

• In news reporting, E can be any event.
• A reporter (M) selects a particular part of event (E1) to provide their channel higher TRP ratings/boost the party which the channel supports
• Sending SE2 to a mass audience, the audience distrusted the message (SE2) and he (M1) sends to his friends with his interpretation, and then the process continues

Learn about Stuart Hall, a British Marxist sociologist, cultural theorist, and political activist. Explore his circuit of communication model, focusing on encoding, decoding, and the influence of ideology in mass communication. Understand concepts like negotiated and oppositional reading.