Stuart Hall (born 1932 in Kingston, Jamaica) is a cultural theorist from the United Kingdom. He has contributed to key works on culture and media studies, as well as politics. 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... Location of Kingston Kingston (population 600,000) is the capital of Jamaica. ... Culture theory is the branch of anthropology and other related social science disciplines (e. ... The word culture, from the Latin colo, -ere, with its root meaning to cultivate, generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance. ... Media studies is a social science that studies the nature and effects of mass media upon individuals and society, as well as analysing actual media content and representations. ...

In 1951, Hall moved to Bristol where he lived before studying at Oxford. He was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, University of Oxford, and holds an M.A. He worked at the University of Birmingham where he was the leading light of the Birmingham Center for Cultural Studies. He held a post with the Open University between 1979 and 1997. Rhodes House in Oxford Rhodes Scholarships were created by Cecil John Rhodes. ... College name The House of Scholars of Merton Named after Walter de Merton Established 1264 Sister College Peterhouse Warden Prof. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford, England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The University of Birmingham is an English university in the city of Birmingham. ... The Birmingham Center for Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham was founded in 1964 by Richard Hoggart. ... The Open University (OU) is the UKs open learning university, established in 1969. ...

In the 1950s, Hall joined E. P. Thompson, Raymond Williams and others to launch two radical socialist journals — The New Reasoner and the New Left Review — in the wake of the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary (which saw many thousands of members leave the Communist Party and look for alternatives to previous orthodoxies) His career took off after co-writing The Popular Arts in 1964. As a direct result, Hall was invited by Richard Hoggart to join the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies in Birmingham. Edward Palmer Thompson (February 3, 1924 - August 28, 1993), was a British historian, socialist and peace campaigner. ... Raymond Williams (31 August 1921 - 26 January 1988) was a highly influential Welsh academic, novelist and critic. ... During the crisis of the 1950s within the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), John Saville and Edward Palmer Thompson created a journal of dissident Communism named the Reasoner. ... In 1960 in the UK, the editors of the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review merged their boards and formed the New Left Review. ... 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Hungarians investigate a disabled Soviet tank in Budapest The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a popular revolt against Soviet influence and control in Hungary. ... The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was a political party in the United Kingdom, which existed from 1920 to 1991. ... For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ... Richard Hoggart (born September 24, 1918) is a British sociologist, widely known for his 1957 book The Uses of Literacy. ... The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) was a research centre at the University of Birmingham. ...

In 1968, Hall became director of the unit at Birmingham University. He wrote a number of influential books in the years that followed, including: Situating Marx: Evaluations and Departures (1972), Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse (1973), and Policing the Crisis (1978).

After his appointment as a professor of sociology at the Open University in 1979, Hall published further influential books, including: The Hard Road to Renewal (1988), Resistance Through Rituals (1989), The Formation of Modernity (1992), Questions of Cultural Identity (1996) and Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (1997). He retired from the Open University in 1997.

Hall's work covers issues of hegemony and cultural studies, taking a post-Gramscian stance. He regards language use within a framework of power, institutions and politics/economics. This view presents people as producers and consumers of culture at the same time. (Hegemony refers to the willingness of one social group to dominate and control other social groups.) Hegemony (pronounced ) (greek:ηγεμονία) is the dominance of one group over other groups, with or without the threat of force, to the extent that, for instance, the dominant party can dictate the terms of trade to its advantage; more broadly, cultural perspectives become skewed to favor the dominant group. ... Cultural studies combines sociology, social theory, literary theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ... Antonio Gramsci Antonio Gramsci (January 22, 1891 – April 27, 1937) was an Italian writer, politician, leader and theorist of Socialism, Communism and Anti-Fascism. ... It has been suggested that Bases of power be merged into this article or section. ... This article is about institutions as social mechanisms. ...

Hall is one of the main proponents of reception theory. This approach to textual analysis focuses on the scope for negotiation and opposition on part of the audience. This means that a text — be it a book or a movie — is not simply passively accepted by the audience, but there is an element of activity involved. The person negotiates the meaning of the text. The meaning depends on the cultural background of the person. The background can explain how some readers accept a reading of a text while others reject it. Reception Theory is a version of Reader Response literary theory that emphasizes the readers reception of a literary text. ...

These ideas are further developed in Hall's model of encoding and decoding of media discourses. The meaning of a text is located somewhere between the producer and the reader. Even though the producer encodes the text in a particular way, the reader will decode it in a slightly different manner — what Hall calls the margin of understanding. This line of thought is linked to social constructionism. ... Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge developed by Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann with their 1966 book, The Social Construction of Reality. ...

His works are widely accepted as influential, such as studies showing the link between racial prejudice and media, and are important as foundational texts for contemporary cultural studies. It has been suggested that Racism in Mass Media be merged into this article or section. ... Cultural studies combines sociology, social theory, literary theory, film/video studies, cultural anthropology and art history/criticism to study cultural phenomena in industrial societies. ...

Politically Hall's influence can be seen in New Labour, though Hall would recoil at the thought. Hall wrote many influential articles in the CPGB's theoretical journal, Marxism Today, which challenged the left's views of markets and general organisational and political conservatism. This discourse had a profound impact on the Labour Party under both Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair, especially as many of those around both leaders came to political maturity at the apogee of the influence of MT. The Labour Party has historically been the principal left wing political party of the United Kingdom since its formation in the early 20th century (see British politics). ... Marxism Today was the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Great Britain prior to its dissolution in 1991. ... Rt. ... The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. ...

However, Hall professes to be as unreconciled with the Labour Party as ever. He is known to TV viewers in Britain for his gentle, thoughful explanations of issues confronting a multi-cultural society and for being a widely-respected role-model.

Bibliography

• Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Studies: two paradigms in Media," Culture and Society 2, 1980, 57-72.
• Hall, Stuart. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, 1997.
• Hall, Stuart. Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse, 1973.
• Hall, Stuart. "Notes on Deconstructing the Popular" in People's History and Socialist Theory, London: Routledge, 1981, 227-49.

References