Theorist: Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist who has been particularly involved in influencing racial thinking in the UK.

Black representation

Hall argues that the representation of the black subject has been through two phases. 

The first was a challenge of the racist stereotype and asserting a positive black identity. This was typically through recovery of a lost African history in which an essential core is found.

In the second phase, the black subject is considered to be produced inside 'regimes of representation'.

Media power

Hall was concerned with media power, including how it propagates social values.

"The mass media play a crucial role in defining the problems and issues of public concern. They are the main channels of public discourse in our segregated society".

In 1971 he made an influential appearance on BBC television where he criticized media portrayal of blacks.

"There is something radically wrong with the way black immigrants - West Indians, Asians, Africans-are handled by and presented on the mass media"

He noted how blacks appeared on TV often in racially stereotyping positions, despite liberal assumptions and discussions by broadcasters.

"When blacks appear in the documentary/current affairs part of broadcasting, they are always attached to some 'immigrant issue': they have to be involved in some crisis or drama to become visible actors to the media."

"There has been little, attempt either in drama, documentary or features to explore and express the rich, complex, diverse and troubled experience of blacks."

Stuart Hall suggests 3 ways in which we may read media texts:

1. The preferred reading – where an audience will read a media text in the way in which the director intends for them to read it

2. The negotiated reading – where the audience may choose to believe parts of the media text, but not all

3. The oppositional reading – where the audience oppose the representations and views of the media text