Negotiated media readings give subordinate classes space while legitimating dominant codes

Evidence

“Negotiated” decodings, which allow wide “exceptions” to be made in terms of the way the audience situates itself within the hegemonic field of ideologies, but which also legitimate the wider reach, the inclusive reference, the greater overall coherence of the dominant encodings, reflect and are based upon what we called, earlier, the structured complementarity of the classes. That is, the areas for negotiation within the hegemonic codes provide precisely those necessary spaces in the discourse where corporate and subordinate classes insert themselves. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 921

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes Gramscian hegemony theory and the ‘structured complementarity of the classes’ concept from Hall’s earlier work.
• DEEPTHINKING: Captures how ideological flexibility itself serves domination by containing dissent within recognizable frames.