The Stuart Hall article titled "Encoding/Decoding" dealt a lot with the underlying meanings in messages. Spoken, written, televised, and many other kinds of messages can mean different things to different people, even depending on the culture of the people processing the message.
One part of the article discussed the way television and movies portray certain non-white races. The "Injuns" who are always violent savages. The "Mammies" who are always plump, stern (and yet loving) black women. These stereotypes were created long ago, and the media doesn't usually use them outright, but there are still subtle hints. If the media continues to portray these and other races this way, will people always think of these certain races as what they are on TV or in movies? Does it even matter how non-racist people are? Will they still go along with what the media is telling them?
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