Most communication ‘misunderstandings’ stem from negotiated decodings at the local level

Evidence

Decoding within the negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations, while, at a more restricted, situational level, it makes its own ground rules, operating with “exceptions” to the rule. It accords the privileged position to the dominant definition of events, while reserving the right to make a more negotiated application to “local conditions,” to its own more corporate positions. This negotiated version of the dominant ideology is thus shot through with contradictions, though these are only on certain occasions brought to full visibility. Negotiated codes operate through what we might call particular or situated logics: and these logics arise from the differential position of those who occupy this position in the spectrum, and from their differential and unequal relation to power. The simplest example of a negotiated code is that which governs the response of a worker to the notion of an Industrial Relations Bill limiting the right to strike, or to arguments for a wages freeze. At the level of the national-interest economic debate, he may adopt the hegemonic definition, agreeing that “we must all pay ourselves less in order to combat inflation,” etc. This, however, may have little or no relation to his willingness to go on strike for better pay and conditions, or to oppose the Industrial Relations Bill at the level of his shop floor or union organization. We suspect that the great majority of so-called “misunderstandings” arise from the disjunctures between hegemonic-dominant encodings and negotiated-corporate decodings. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 811

Categorization

• CANDY: The worker who concedes ‘we must all pay ourselves less’ while striking anyway is a vivid, tweetable illustration of negotiated codes.
• XREF: The wages-freeze example speaks directly to Hall’s contribution to economic thought, which the reader is pursuing.