Dominant
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This is an article about corporations and climate change. It is presented in a way that the public finds “legitimate” because it is in the Washington Post and because the current societal norm on the subject is one of urgency and importance. America is interested in how big business is handling this problem. The Post knows this and they also know that the public seems to desire to blame the “big guys” therefore making it their job to fix it. However, even though this is the popular opinion of late the implications cannot always fit into a neat box of accusation. Therefore the article uses the most commonplace “large view” of society to give the article legitimacy, even though that view point in itself may leave certain truths out.
Negotiated
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This form of decoding uses a mixture of “adaptive and oppositional” elements, as the article states. Explaining that the reader understands the broad points in the article but can connect with the more subtle messages that play to a more localized bias. This may create “contradictions” in the main thrust of the article that are not always clearly visible to everyone. In other words, as a whole the community may agree with the idea of getting rid of teacher’s unions, but those that are directly affected- the teachers in the community, may read and absorb the messages in a completely different way. So, while on one level the Negotiated version may be universally accepted, there are other more pragmatic, personal and localized levels of understanding that may not accept it. Hall cites this type of decoding as the basis of those on the larger more “elite” and “corporate” levels as claiming this to be a source of “failure of communications”.
Oppositional
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This article outlines the oppositional decoding message immediately by using Dems in the title. While the article points out a legitimate desire to investigate the possibilities of expanding the court, by an Act of Congress; it is clearly a fight between Democrats and Republicans over the future of social and civil justice that has fueled this issue. This form of decoding seems to imply that this code is significant in that the reader understands the presentation of information and absorbs it fully but does not accept it at face value. In other words, he/she does not ingest it with objectivity. It registers as the “coding” of information to relative or aimed at specific groups.
