Broadcast communication between elites and audiences is systematically distorted by structure

Evidence

I propose to organize my reflections around the question of the encoding/decoding moments in the communicative process: and, from this base, to argue that, in societies like ours, communication between the production elites in broadcasting and their audiences is necessarily a form of “systematically distorted communication.” This argument then has a direct bearing on cultural policies, especially those policies of education and so on which might be directed toward “helping the audience to receive the television communication better, more effectively.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 783

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the essay’s central concept — ‘systematically distorted communication’ — and its policy implication that the audience is not the problem.
• XREF: Resonates with the reader’s interest in how Hall’s critique turns media illiteracy from an audience failing into a structural feature of broadcasting. — connects to: Broadcast mass media turn audiences into passive listeners with no means of reply. — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 94; Media’s total mobilization makes communication of transcending contents technically impossible — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 312; Mass media exploit receiver attention through a stark production-to-reception asymmetry. — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 192 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 783