Raw events only gain meaning through socially coded translation into signs

Evidence

Events on their own cannot, as we have tried to show, signify: they must be made intelligible ; and the process of social intelligibility consists precisely in those practices which translate “real” events (whether drawn from actuality or fictionally constructed) into symbolic form. This is the process we have called encoding . But encoding (Hall, “Encoding and Decoding”) means precisely that—selecting the codes which assign meanings to events, placing events in a referential context which attribute meaning to them. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 921

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines encoding as the process translating events into symbolic form via code selection.
• XREF: Connects to Hall’s famous ‘Encoding and Decoding’ essay and the broader communications-studies tradition. — connects to: Conventions only confer status when performed publicly as signs — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 188