Page 138 - Decoding Culture

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RESIST N G THE O M INANT 131
that preferred reading as its key reference point. Wren-Lewis
(1983: 184) suggests that ' [ tlhis is effectively to reproduce the
Screen position' and, while that may somewhat overstate the case,
his subsequent point is well made that this approach precludes
understanding the subject's role in constituting signification.
Signification requires involvement of the reading agent to com­
plete the process of meaning construction, an activity which cannot
properly be understood via a model that sees the message as con­
tained within the text prior to reading. As Wren-Lewis (ibid) goes
on to observe: [ tlhe fact that many decoders will come up with the
'
same reading does not make that meaning an essential part of the
text. The power of the text's signifiers to determine a specific set of
readings will be constituted by historical subjects, whose place in
society/history will enable them to form the same associations
and differences, the same signifying patterns.'
So, while postulating a 'preferred reading' does not exactly repli­
cate the terms of subject-positioning theory, the encoding/
decoding model does ask that concept to carry a great deal of
weight. Morley (1992: 121) observes that its purpose was to link
the general case about hegemony to specific processes of commu­
nication, a task somewhat confounded by the fact that 'hegemony
has on the whole been treated as an abstract concept - referring
rather widely to the whole field of cultural process through which
"dominant meanings" are constructed - without these particular
processes being examined in any detail'. In consequence, the
model only coheres by suggesting that broadcasters' products (as
a direct result of their 'professional code' and, indirectly, the dom­
inant-hegemonic code) incorporate a preferred reading; that the
text itself can be semiotically understood as carrying this pre-deter­
mined (by the dominant ideology) meaning; and that the 'reader'
accepts, negotiates with, or rejects it. Without the 'preferred read­
ing' to connect the elements, the model would be no more (or less)

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