RELATED THEORIES AND THE PERCEPTION OF IDENTITY

Marcuse

Items of additional research in seeking out matters related to writing identity. Identity is, inter alia, as others see us. How is what is written perceived? To that end we have ‘reception theory’, which is, according to Professor Harold Marcuse (American professor of modern and contemporary German history - teaching at the University of California,, Santa Barbara) "the history of the meanings that have been imputed to historical events. It traces the different ways in which participants, observers, historians and other retrospective interpreters have attempted to make sense of events both as they unfolded and over time since then, to make those events meaningful for the present in which they lived and live."

Hall

This is an extension of reader/response literary theory and the Encoding/Decoding model of communication as developed by theorist Stuart Hall. Titled 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’ Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted. His model claims that TV and other media audiences are presented with messages that are decoded, or interpreted in different ways depending on an individual's cultural background, economic standing, and personal experiences. In contrast to other media theories that disempower audiences, Hall advanced the idea that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own social contexts, and might be capable of changing messages themselves through collective action.

For example, since advertisements can have multiple layers of meaning, they can be decoded in various ways and can mean something different to different people. Hall claims that the decoding subject can assume three different positions: Dominant/hegemonic position, negotiated position, and oppositional position.

Hall advances a four-stage model of communication that takes into account the production, circulation, use and reproduction of media messages. In contrast to the traditional linear approach of the sender and receiver, he perceives each of these steps as both autonomous and interdependent. "Each stage will affect the message (or ”product”) being conveyed as a result of its ’discursive form’ (e.g. practices, instruments, relations). This implies that, for example, the sender of information can never be sure that it will be perceived by the target audience in the way that was intended, because of this chain of discourse." Each of these steps helps defines the one that follows, while remaining clearly distinct. These four stages are:

1. Production- Where the encoding of a message takes place. By drawing upon society's dominant ideologies, the creator of the message is feeding off of society's beliefs, and values.

2. Circulation- How individuals perceive things: visual vs. written. How things are circulated influences how audience members will receive the message and put it use.

3. Use (distribution or consumption)- This is the decoding/interpreting of a message which requires active recipients. This is a complex process of understanding for the audience.

4. Reproduction- This is the stage after audience members have interpreted the message in their own way based off of their experiences and beliefs. What is done with the message after it has been interpreted is where this stage comes in. At this point, you will see whether individuals take action after they have been exposed to a specific message.

The encoding of a message is the production of the message. It is a system of coded meanings, and in order to create that, the sender needs to understand how the world is comprehensible to the members of the audience. The decoding of a message is how an audience member is able to understand, and interpret the message.

Much of this material is more than applicable to the close reading of signs of identity as I perceive them.  Of this there is more to come.
Here is the first of four lectures in Youtube featuring Stuart Hall.