Hall’s encoding/decoding model revisited in the digital platform age: de/encoding, lincoding, affordecoding, and en/decoding

This paper updates Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model to examine the reproduction and contestation of dominant-hegemonic ideologies in the digital platform era. While Hall’s model analyzed television broadcasting within mass media systems, today’s communication processes are fundamentally transformed by the rise of platform capitalism. A key contribution involves replacing Hall’s ‘relations of production’ with ‘social positions’ to address intersecting systems of inequalities in a media environment where the boundaries between message producers and consumers have become blurred. Building on this foundation, this paper introduces four interconnected concepts: de/encoding (media/content producers’ creation of messages based on extracted user data), lincoding (connection of users with messages, platforms themselves, and other users through algorithmic systems exercised by AI and platform workers), affordecoding (users’ interpretation and utilization of platform affordances), and en/decoding (users’ dual roles as message consumers and producers). The resulting DLAE (De/encoding, Lincoding, Affordecoding, and En/decoding) model provides a tentative theoretical framework for understanding how multiple dominant-hegemonic ideologies are maintained and challenged through digital communication processes. While acknowledging the intensifying reproduction of dominant-hegemonic ideologies through commercial platforms, the model simultaneously recognizes possibilities for user resistance and negotiation through interactive media technologies.