Page 133 - Decoding Culture

126 D E C O D I N G C U L TURE

leadership - in short for hegemony. But 'hegemony' in Gramsci's
sense requires, not the simple escalation of a whole class to power,
with its fully formed 'philosophy', but the process by which a histor­
ical bloc of social f o rces is constructed and the ascendancy of that
bloc secured. So the way we conceptualize the relationship between
'ruling ideas' and 'ruling classes' is best thought in terms of the
processes of 'hegemonic domination'. (Hall, 1996: 43-44)

As the 1980s progressed, and Hall sought to grapple with the chal­
lenge posed to marxist analysis by Thatcherism', this shift would
become increasingly apparent. Indeed, Sparks (1996b: 97) argues
that 'in the current associated with Stuart Hall, the link between
marxism and cultural studies was much more contingent and tran­
sitory than it once appeared even to its main actors', going on to
suggest that its 'productive life' was no more than five to ten years.
While that may be slightly less than charitable, clearly Sparks (ibid:
98) is correct to suggest that the development of cultural studies
involved 'a continual loosening of some of the categories thought to
be characteristic of marxism'. Where that leads can conveniently
be seen in the main contours of what came to be known as the
'encoding/ decoding' model.

Encoding, decoding and polysemy

The encoding/decoding model neatly captures the particular com­
bination of semiotics and hegemony theory around which so much
of the CCCS analysis of the media revolved. As we saw at the begin­
ning of this chapter, CCCS thinking was resistant to the textual
determinism of early Screen theory, arguing instead that the inher­
ent polysemy of significatory practices confounded such a strongly
text-driven view and, therefore, that 'audiences' should be under­
stood to be composed of active social agents rather than

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