SAGE Publications

London•Thousand Oaks•New Delhi

in association with

REPRESENTATION

QINTf.I1NATIONAI

Edited by STUART HALL

 INl RODUC.:f ION

Stuart Hall
The chapters in this volume all deal, in different ways, with the question of
representation. This is one of the central practices which produce culture
and a key 'moment' in what has been called the 'circuit of culture' (see du
Gay, Hallet al., 1997*). But what does representation have to do with
'culture': what is the connection between them'! To put it simply, culture is
about 'shared meanings'. Now, language is the privileged medium in which
we 'make sense' of things, in which meaning is produced and exchanged.
Meanings can only be shat·ed through our common access to language. So
language is central to meaning and culture and has always heen regarded as
the key repository of cultural values and meanings.

-------1
regulation identit~_j

The circuit of
culture
produ<.tion- -1
I

But how does language construct meanings? How does it sustain the
dialogue between participants which enables them to build up a cullure of
shared understandings and so interpret the world in roughly the same ways?
Language is able to do this because it operates as a representational system.
In language, we use signs and symbols- whether they are sounds, written
words, electronically produced images, musical notes. even objects- to
stand for or represent to other people our concepts, ideas and feelings.
Language is one of the 'media' through which thoughts, ideas and feelings
are represented in a culture. Representation through language is therefore
central to the processes by which meaning is produced. This is the basic,
underlying idea which underpins all six chapters in this book. Each chapter
examines 'the production and circulation of meaning through language' in
different ways, in relation to different ex8.1llp]es, different areas of social

* A referoll(:o in l>o :s anothor bonk. 01 auotlter chapter i anolh~r bnok, inlho se

2 Rl:PR.I S�N I A I ION· �[Link]. RcPRI StN f I IONS ANI) 51GNlrYING l'IV\Cl ICbS

practice. Together, these chapters push forward and develop our

understanding of how representation actually works.
'Culture' is oue of the most difficult concepts in the human and social sciences
and there are many different ways of defining it. In more traditional
definitions of the term, culture is said to embody the 'best that has been
thought and said' in a society. It is the sum of the great ideas, as represented in
the classic works of literature, painting, music and philosophy-the 'high
culture· of an age. Belonging to the same frame ofreference, but more 'modern'
in its associations, is the use of 'culture' to refer to the widely distributed
forms of popular music, publishing, art, design and literature, or the activities
ofleisure-time and entertainment. which make up the everyday lives ofthe
majority of 'ordinary people' - what is called the 'mass culture' or the 'popular
culture' of an age. High culture versus popular culture was, for many years,
the classic way of £raming the debate about culture - the terms carrying a
powerfully evaluative charge (roughly, high= good: popular= debased). In
recent years, and in a more ·social science' context, the word 'culture' is used
to refer to whatever is distinctive about the ·way oflife' of a people,
community, nation or social group. This has come to be known as the
'anthropological' definition. Alternatively. the word can be used to describe
the 'shared values' of a group or of society - which is like the anthropological
definition. only with a more sociological emphasis. You will find traces of all
these meanings somewhere in this hook. However. as its title suggests,
'culture· is usually being used in these chapters in a somewhat different,
more specialized way.
What has come to be called the 'cultural turn' in the social and human
sciences, especially in cultural studies and the sociology of culture, has
tended lo emphasiZ(' the importance of meaning to the definition of culture.
Culture, it is argued, is not so much a set of things - novels and paintings or
TV programmes and comics - as a process, a set of practices. Primarily,
culture is concerned with the production and the exchange of meanings - the
'giving and taking of meaning' - between the members of a society or group.
To say that two people belong to the same culture is to say that they interpret
the world in roughly the same ways and can express themselves, their
thoughts and feelings about the worlcl. in ways which will be understood by
each other. Thus culture depends on its participants interpreting
meaningfully what is happening around them, and 'making sense' of the
world, in broadly similar ways.
This focus on 'shared meanings' may sometimes make culture sound too
unitary and too cognitive. In any culture, there is always a great diversity of
meanings about any topic. and more than one way of interpreting or
representing it. Also, culture is about feelings, attachments and emotions as
well as concepts and ideas. The expression on my face 'says something· about
who I am (identity) and what I am feeling (emotions) and what group I feel I
belong to (attachment), which can be 'read' and understood by other people,
even if I didn't intend deliberately to communicate anything as formal as 'a
 INTRODUCliON 3

message', and even if the other person couldn't g1ve a very logical account of
how s/he came to understand what I was 'saying' Above all, cultural
meanings are not only 'in the head' They organize and regulate social
practices, influence our conduct and consequently have real, practical
effects.
The emphasis on cultural practices is important. It is participants in a culture
who give meaning to people, objects and events. Things 'in themselves'
rsrely if ever have any one, single, fixed and unchanging meaning. Even
something as obvious as a stone can be a stone, a boundary marker or a piece
of sculpture, depending on what it means- that is, within a certain context of
use, within what the philosophers call different 'language games' (i.e. the
language of boundaries, the language of sculpture, and so on). It is by our use
of things, and what we say, think and feel about them -how we represent
them- that we give them a meaning. In part, we give objects, people and
events meaning by the frameworks of interpretation which we bring to them.
In part, we give things meaning by how we use them, or integrate them into
our everyday practices. It is our use of a pile of bricks and mortar which
makes it a 'house'; and what we feel, think or say about it that makes a 'house'
a 'home' In part, we give things meaning by how we represent them -the
words we use about them, the stories we tell about them, the images of them
we produce, the emotions we associate with them, the ways we classify and
conceptualiztl them, the values we place on them. Culture, we may say. is
involved in all those practices which are not simply genetically programmed
into us -like the jerk of the knee when tapped- but which carry meaning
and value for us, which need to be meaningfully interpreted by others. or
which depend on meaning for their effective operation. Culture, in this sense.
permeates all of society. It is what distinguishes the 'human' element in social
life from what is simply bwlogically driven. Its study underlines the crucial
role of the symbolic domain at the very heart of social life.
Where is meaning produced? Our 'circuit of culture' suggests that. in fact,
meanings are produced at several different sites and circulated through
several different processus or practices (the cultural circuit). Meaning is what
gives us a sense of our own identity, of who we are and with whom we
'belong'- so it is tied up with questions of how culture is used to mark out
and maintain identity within and difference between groups (which is the
main focus of Woodward, ed. 1997). Meaning is constantly being produced
and exchanged in every personal and social interaction in which we take
part. In a sens.e, this is the most privileged, though often the most neglected,
site of culture and meaning. It IS also produced in a variety of different
media; especially, these days, in the modern mass media, the means of global
communication, by complex technologies, which circulate meanings between
different cultures on a scale and with a speed hitherto unknown in history.
(This is the focus of du Gay, ed., 1997.) Meaning is also produced whenever
we express ourselves in, make use of, consume or apptopriate cultural
'things'; that is, when we incorporate them in different ways into the everyday
rituals and practices of daily life and in this way give them value or
4 RH'KI S~NlAIION· CUL IUAAI Kl Pl{[Link] AND SIGNIFYING PAACfiGS

significance. Or when we weave narratives, stories- and fantasies- around

them. (This is the focus of Mackay, ed., 1997.) Meanings also regulate and
organize our conduct and practices -they help to set the rules, norms and
conventions by which social life is ordered and governed. They are also,
therefore, what those who wish to govern and regulate the conduct and ideas
of others seek to structure and shape. (This is the focus of Thompson, ed.,
1997.) In other words, the question of meaning arises in relation to all the
different moments or practices in our 'cultural circuit' -in the construction
of identity and the marking of rlifference, in production and consumption, as
well as in the regulation of social conduct. However. in all these instances,
and at all these different institutional sites, one of the privileged 'media'
through which meaning is produced and circulated is language.
So, in this book, where we take up in depth the first element in our 'circuit of
culture' we start with this question of meaning. language and representation.
Members of the same culture must share sets of concepts, images and ideas
which enable them to think and feel about the world, and thus to interpret
the world, in roughly similar ways. They must share, broadly speaking, the
same 'cultural codes' In this sense, thinking and feeling are themselves
'systems of representation', in which our concepts, images and emotions
'stand for' or represent, in our mental life, things which are or may be 'out
there' in the world. Similarly. in order to communicate these meanings to
other pE>opl<'. the participants to any meaningful exchange must also be able
to use the same linguistic codes- they must. in a very broad sense, 'speak the
same language' This does not mean that they must all, literally, speak
German or French or Chinese. Nor does it mean that they understand
perfectly what anyone who speaks the same language is saying. We mean
'lat1guage'lu~re in a much wider sense. Our partners must speak enough of
the same language to be able to 'translate' what 'you' say into what 'I'
understand. and vice versa. They must also be able to read visual images in
roughly similar ways. They must be familiar with broadly the same ways of
producing sounds to make what they would both recognizE' as 'music' They
must all interpret body language and fadal expressions in broadly similar
ways. And they must know how to translate their feelings and irleas into
these various languages. Meaning is a dialogue- always only pa1iially
understood, always au unequal exchange.
Why do we refer to all these different ways of producing and communicating
meaning as 'languages' or as 'working like languages'? How do languages
work'' The simple answer is that languages work through representation.
They are 'systems of representation' Essentially, we can say that all these
practices 'work like languages', not because they are all written or spoken
(they are not), but because they all use some element to stand for or represent
what we want to say, to express or communicate a thought, concept, idea or
feeling. Spoken language uses sounds, written language uses words, musical
language uses notes on a scale, the 'language of the body' uses physical
gesture. the fashion industry uses items of clothing, the language of facial
expression uses ways of arranging one's features, television uses digitally or
 INTRODUCTION 5

electronically produced dots on a screen, traffic hghts use red, green and
amber- to 'say something' These elements- sounds, words, notes, gestures,
expressions, clothes - are part of our natural and material world; but their
importance for language is not what they are but what they do, their function.
They construct meaning and transmit it. They signify. They don't have any
clear meaning in themselves. Rather. they are the vehicles or media which
carlJ1 meaning because they operate as symbols. which stand for or represent
(i.e. symbolize) the meanings we wish to communicate. To use another
metaphor, they function as signs. Signs stand for or represent our concepts,
ideas and feelings in such a way as to enable others to 'read', decode or
interpret their meaning in roughly the same way that we do.
Language, in this sense, is a signifying practice. Any representational system
which functions in this way can be thought of as working, broadly speaking.
according to the principles of representation through language. Thus
photography is a representational system, using images on light-sensitive
paper to communicate photographic meaning about a particular person.
event or scene. Exhibition or display in a museum or gallery can also be
thought of as 'like a language', since it uses objects on display to produce
certain meanings about the subject-matter of the exhibition. Music is 'like a
languagu' in so far as it uses musical notes to communicate feelings and
ideas, even if tlmse are Vtlry abstract, and do not refer in any obvious way to
the 'real world' (Music has been called 'the must noise conveying the least
information'.) But turning up at football matches with banners and slogans,
with faces and bodies painted in certain colours or inscribed with certain
symbols, can also be thought of as 'like a language'- in so far as it is a
symbolic practice which gives meaning or Hxpwssion to the idea of belonging
to a national [Link], or Jdenlificalion with one's local community. It is part
of the languag1~ of national identity, a discourse of national bclongingness.
Representation, here, is clusuly hed up with both identity and knowledge.
Indeed, it is difficult to know what 'being English', or indeed French,
German, South African or Japanese, means outside of all thP ways in which
our ideas and images of national identity or national cultmes have be
represented. Without these 'signifying' systems, we could not take on such
identities (or indeed reject them) and consequently could not build up or
sustain that common 'life-world' which we call a culture.
So it is through culture and language in this se11se that the production and
circulation of muaning takes place. The conventional view used to be that
'things' ex1st in the material and natural world; that their material or natural
characteristics are what determines or constitutes them: and that they have a
perfectly clear meaning, outside of how they are represented. Representation,
in this view, is a process of secondary importance, which enters into the field
only after things have been fully formed and their meaning constituted. But
since the 'cultural turn' in the human and social sciences. meaning is thought
to be produced- constructed- rather than simply 'found' Consequently, in
what has come to be called a 'social constmctionist approach'. representation
is conceived as entering into the very constitution of things; and thus culture
6 R�l'R�Sf NI A IION. CULi UMI RE l'R[SI NI Al IONS AND SIGNIFYING PRAC 1 ICI.�

is conceptualized as a primary or 'constitutive' process, as important as the

economic or material 'base' in shaping social subjects and historical events -
nut merely a reflection of the world after the event.
'Language' therefore provides one general model of how culture and
representation work, tispecially in what has come to be known as the semiotic
approach- semiotics being the study or 'science of signs' and their general
role as vehicles of meaning in culture. In more recent years, this
preoccupation with meaning has taken a different turn, being more
concemed, not with the detail of how 'language' works, but with the broader
role of discourse in culture. Discourses are ways of referring to or
constructing knowledge about a particular topic of practice: a cluster (or
formation) of ideas, images and practices, which provide ways of talking
about, forms of knowledge and conduct associated with, a particular topic,
social activity or institutional site in society. These discursive fo1matio11s, as
they are known, define what is and is not appropriate in our formulation of,
and out· practices in relation to, a particular subject or site of social activity;
what knowledge is considered useful. relevant and 'true' in that context; and
what sorts of persons 01· 'subjects· embody its characteristics. 'Discursive' has
become the general term used to refer tu any approach in which meaning,
representation and culture are considered to be constitutive.
There are some similarities, but also some major differences, between the
semiotic and the disl.'ursive approaches, which are developed in the chapters
which follow. One important difference is that the semiotic approach is
:oncerned with the hoiv of representation, with how language produces
meaning - what has been called its 'poetics'; whereas the discul'Sive approach
is more concerned with the effects and co11seque11ces of representation - its
'politics' It examines not only how language and representation produce
meaning. but how the knowledge which a particular discourse produces
connects with power, regulates conduct. makes up or constructs identities
and subjectivities. and defines the way certain things are represented,
thought about, practised and studied. The emphasis in the discursive
approach is always on the historical specificity of a particular form or
'regime' of representation: not on 'language' as a general concern, but on
specific languages or meanings. and how they are deployed at particular
times. in particular places. It points us towards greater historical specificity -
the way representational practices operate in concrete historical situations,
in actual practice.
The general use of language and discourse as models of how culture, meaning
and representation work. and the 'discursive turn' in the social and cultural
sciences which has followed, is one of the most significant shifts of direction
in our knowledge of society which has occurred in recent years. The
discussion around these two versions of 'constructionism'. - the semiotic and
discursive approaches - is threaded through and developed in the six
chapters which follow. The 'discursive tum' has not, of course, gone
uncontested.
 IN I RODUC TION 9

The book uses a wide range of examples from different r:ultural nrndia and
discourses, mainly conctintrating on visual language These examples are a
key part of your work on the book- they are not simply 'illustrative·
Representation can only be properly analysed in relation to the actual
concrete forms which meaning assume.. in the concrete practices of
signifying, 'reading' and interpretation; and these require analysis of the
actual signs, symbols, figures, images, narratives. words and sounds - the
material forms - in which symbolic meaning is circulated. The examples
provide an opportunity to prachse these skills of analysis and to apply them
to many other similar instances which snrround us in daily cultural life.
It is worth emphasizing that there is no single or 'correct' answer to the
question, 'What doe8 this image mean'?' or 'What is this ad saying?' Since
there is no law which r:an guaranteu that things will have 'one. lruo meaning'
or that meanings won't change over time, work in this area in bound to be
interpretative - a debate between, not who is 'right' and who is 'wrung', but
between equally plausible, though sometimes competing and contested,
meanings and interpretations The best way to 'settle' such contested
readings is to look again at the concrete example and to try to justify one's
'reading' in detail in relation to the actuul practices and forms of signification
used, and what meanings they seem to you to be producing.
One soon discovers that meaning is not straightforward or transparent, and
does not survive intact the passage through representation. It is a slippery
customer, changing and shifting with context, usage and historical
circumstances. It is therefore never finally fixed. It is always putting off or
'deferring' its rendezvous with Absolute Truth. It is always being negotiated
I0 REt'R~SEN fA liON: CUll UR/l-1 RFPRlSFN fA riONS AND SIGNirYING PRAcrl

and inflected, to resonate with new situations. It is often contested, and

sometimes bitterly fought over. There are always different circuits of meaning
circulating in any culture at the same time. overlapping discursive
formations, from which we draw to create meaning or lo express what we
think.
Moreover, we do not have a straightforward, rational or instrumental
relationship to meanings. They mobilize powerful feelings and emotions, of
both a positive and negative kind. We feel their cont~adictory pull, their
ambivalence. They sometimes call our very identities into question. We
stmgglt> over them becausl' they matter- and these are contests from which
serious consequences can flow. They define what is 'normal', who belongs-
and therefore, who is excluded. They are deeply inscribed in relations of
power. Think of how profoundly our lives are shaped, depending on which
meanings of male/female, black/white, rich/poor, gay/straight, young/old,
citizen/alien, are in play in which circumstances. Meanings are often
organized into sharply opposed binaries or opposites. However, these
binaries arc constantly being undermined, as representations interact with
one another. substituting for each other, displacing one another along an
unending chain. Our material interests and our bodies can be called to
account. and differently implicated, depending on how meaning is given and
taken, constmcted and interpreted in different situations. But equally
engagud are our fears and fantasies. the sentiments of desire and revulsion, of
ambh'alence and aggression. The more we look into this process of
repmsentation. the more complex it becomes to describe adequately or
explain- wlnch is why the various chapters enlist a variety of theories and
:oncepts, to hfll p us unlock its secrets.
The embodying of concepts. ideas and emotions in a symbolic form which
l:an he transmitted and meaningfully interpreted is what we mean by
·thP. practices of representation· Meaning must enter the domain of these
practices, if it is lo drculate effectively within a culture. And it cannot be
considert>d to have completed its 'passage' around the cultural circuit until it
has been ·c[ecndt'd' or intelligibly received at another point in the chain.
Languagn, thtm. is thP. propurty of neither the sender nor the receiver of
meanings. It is the shared cull ural 'space' in which the production of
meaning through language - that is. representation - takes place. The
receiver of messages and meamngs is not a passive screen on which the
original meaning is accurately and transparently projected. The 'taking of
meaning' is as much a signifying practice as the 'putting into meaning'
Speaker and hearer or wnter and reader arc active participants in a process
which -since they often exchange roles - rs always double-sided, always
mteractive. Representation functions less like the model of a one-way
transmitter and more like the model of a dialogue- it is, as they say, dialogic.
What sustains this 'dialogue' is the presence of shared cultural codes, which
cannot guarantee that meanings will remain stable forever- though
attempting to fix meaning is exactly why power intervenes in discourse. But,
even when power is circulating through meaning and knowledge, the codes
 INTI<.ODUC liON II

only work if they are to some degree shared, at least to the extent that they
make effective 'translation' between 'speakers' possible. We should perhaps
learn to think of meaning less in terms of 'accuracy' and 'truth' and more in
terms of effective exchange- a process of translation. which facilitates
cultural communication while always recognizing the persistence of
difference and power between different 'speakers' within the same
cultural circuit.

ou GAY, P. (ed.) (1\197) Production of Culture/Cultures of Production, London,

Sage/The Open University [Book 4 in this series).
UU l~AY, P., HALL,,., JANES, •. , MACKAY, II.
and NE , K. (1997) Doing Cultural
Studies: the st01y of the Sony Walkman, London, Sago/The Open University
(Book 1 in this series).
s. (ed.) (1977) Representation: cultural representations and signifving
llAI.L,
practices, London, Sage/The Open Umversity (Book 2 in this series).
MACKAY, 11. (eel.) (1997) Consumption and Eve1yday Life. London. Sage/The
Open University (Book 5 in this series).
THOMPSON, K.(ed.) (1997) Media and Cultural Regulation, London, Sage/ThP
Open University (Book 6 in this series).
WOODWARD, K. [ed.) (1997) Identity and Difference, London, Sage/The Open
University (Book 3 in this series).