Socio-cultural models of communication

Schrøder, K. (2013). Socio-cultural models of communication. Paul Cobley and Peter J. Schulz (Ed.). Theories and miodels of communication, 327-347Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter.

Abstract: The chapter illuminates the core mind-set of socio-cultural models of communication by tracing the scholarly debates that took place around a significant moment of cultural studies, when in 1973 Stuart Hall published his canonical article about the processes of encoding and decoding media messages. Socio-cultural models as seen by Hall and the equally seminal Raymond Williams are holistic, they conceptualize discursive sense-making practices, and they insist on the formative role of situational and social contexts. The model’s implications for scholarly analytical practices are demonstrated through short overview profiles of two central research traditions during four decades: 1. audience and reception research and 2. discourse analytical approaches.