Stuart Hall - Encoding and Decoding

 An active audience theory, this is how the audience deal with the messages they are given by the media:

•Production – Encoding (construction) of a message begins. The creator of the message is feeding off of society's beliefs, and values.  They are hoping to put across as certain message.

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

•Use (distribution or consumption) – The message has to be adopted as a meaningful discourse and it has to be meaningfully decoded. However, the decoding/interpreting of a message requires active recipients.

•Reproduction – This stage is directly after audience members have interpreted a message in their own way based on their experiences and beliefs. The decoded meanings are the ones with "an effect. At this point, you will see whether individuals take action after they have been exposed to a specific message.