Page 136 - Decoding Culture

D
RESISTING THE O M I N ANT 129
securing hegemony is not automatic; there is always the potential
and the actuality of resistance. To get some leverage on this aspect
of communication, and to avoid sinking into yet another form of
pluralism in which audiences are free to read 'texts' however they
wish, Hall offers three 'hypothetical positions' from which audi­
ences may set about their decoding activities. The first he
describes as the 'dominant-hegemonic' position, where the televi­
sion viewer decodes the message 'in terms of the reference code in
which it has been encoded' (Hall, 1980d: 136) thus arriving at the
'preferred reading'. Note that there is an assumption here that the
initial coding - often mediated through a special sub-code charac­
teristic of broadcasters which he calls the 'professional code' - is
cast in terms of the dominant ideology, although the semiotic logic
of the process (as opposed to the ontological assumption of ideo­
logical dominance) permits coding 'freedom' at either end of the
communications chain. The second position is that of the 'negoti­
ated code'. Here decoding involves a mixture of possibilities at
different levels: l ilt accords the privileged position to the dominant
'
definitions of events while reserving the right to make a more
negotiated application to "local conditions'" (ibid: 137) . Inevitably
this form of decoding has the potential to give rise to all sorts of
contradictions and ambiguities, constituting precisely the kinds of
circumstances that broadcasters tend to identify as communication
failures. Lastly, the message may be decoded in a way contrary to
the dominant coding, understood, that is, from within an alterna­
tive reference framework. This is the case of the 'oppositional
code', and its use signals fully the presence of the 'struggle in dis­
course'.
Essentially, then, Hall is here trying to tread a fine line between
a position in which consent to relations of dominance and subordi­
nation is achieved via media constraint and one which recognizes
the complexity and relative 'freedom' of audience reading

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