| Stuart Hall (cultural Theorist) |
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In 1951, Hall moved to Bristol where he lived before studying at Oxford. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College , University Of Oxford , and holds an M.A. He worked at the University Of Birmingham where he was the leading light of the Birmingham Center For Cultural Studies . He held a post with the Open University between 1979 and 1997. In the 1950s, Hall joined E. P. Thompson , Raymond Williams and others to launch two radical socialist journals — '' The New Reasoner '' and the '' New Left Review '' — in the wake of the 1956 Soviet Invasion Of Hungary (which saw many thousands of members leave the Communist Party and look for alternatives to previous orthodoxies) His career took off after co-writing ''The Popular Arts'' in 1964 . As a direct result, Hall was invited by Richard Hoggart to join the Centre For Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. In 1968, Hall became director of the unit at Birmingham University. He wrote a number of influential books in the years that followed, including: ''Situating Marx: Evaluations and Departures'' (1972), ''Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse'' (1973), and contributed to ''Policing the Crisis'' (1978). After his appointment as a professor of sociology at the Open University in 1979, Hall published further influential books, including: ''The Hard Road to Renewal'' (1988), ''Resistance Through Rituals'' (1989), ''The Formation of Modernity'' (1992), ''Questions of Cultural Identity'' (1996) and ''Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices'' (1997). He retired from the Open University in 1997. Hall's work covers issues of Hegemony and Cultural Studies , taking a post- Gramscian stance. He regards language use within a framework of Power , Institution s and politics/economics. This view presents people as ''producers'' and ''consumers'' of culture at the same time. (Hegemony refers to the willingness of one social group to dominate and control other social groups.) Hall is one of the main proponents of Reception Theory . This approach to Textual Analysis focuses on the scope for negotiation and opposition on part of the audience. This means that a text — be it a book or a movie — is not simply passively accepted by the audience, but there is an element of activity involved. The person negotiates the meaning of the text. The meaning depends on the cultural background of the person. The background can explain how some readers accept a reading of a text while others reject it. These ideas are further developed in Hall's model of encoding and decoding of media Discourse s. The meaning of a text is located somewhere between the producer and the reader. Even though the producer encodes the text in a particular way, the reader will decode it in a slightly different manner — what Hall calls the ''margin of understanding.'' This line of thought is linked to Social Constructionism . His works are widely accepted as influential, such as studies showing the link between Racial Prejudice and Media , and are important as foundational texts for contemporary Cultural Studies . Politically Hall's influence can be seen in New Labour , though Hall would recoil at the thought. Hall wrote many influential articles in the CPGB's theoretical journal, '' Marxism Today '', which challenged the left's views of markets and general organisational and political conservatism. This discourse had a profound impact on the Labour Party under both Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair , especially as many of those around both leaders came to political maturity at the apogee of the influence of ''MT''. However, Hall professes to be as unreconciled with the Labour Party as ever. He is known to TV viewers in Britain for his gentle, thoughful explanations of issues confronting a multi-cultural society and for being a widely-respected role-model. BIBLIOGRAPHY
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