Page 139 - Decoding Culture

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

than a reassertion of the codedness of communication, in which, as
I have already observed, all decoding is 'negotiated' but in relation
to the whole significatory system and not just a hypothetical dom­
inant meaning. Unfortunately, however, to shelter so much of the
process under the 'preferred reading' umbrella serves to conceal
rather than expose two vital ingredients of any semiotically sensi­
tive view of readership: the constitutive role played by agents in
ascribing meaning to cultural artefacts and the ubiquity of poly­
semy in complex communications.
Morley (ibid: 87) puts the requirement for a 'preferred reading'
concept in a rather more qualified way:

If a notion such as a 'preferred reading' is to have any value, it is not
as a means of abstracted 'fixing' of one interpretation over and
above others, but as a means of accounting for how, under certain
conditions, in particular contexts, a text will be read in a particular
way by (at least some sections of) the audience.

But in that case, it will be the general theoretical terms through
which conditions, contexts and reading processes are understood
that will be the key focus, none of which - either in the Nationwide
study or elsewhere - are well served by a model in which 'pre­
ferred reading' plays a central role. That it came to do so in this
particular strand of CCCS thinking is a clear indication of the con­
straints placed on their work by the dominant ideology/hegemony
model with which they chose to realise the project of a critical
marxist cultural studies.

Critical cultural studies

This chapter has concentrated on those features of the CCCS pro­
ject that sought to develop a general account of the role of culture

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