However, Stuart Hall criticizes the model of mass communications research and introduces three hypothetical positions of decoding. The first is the dominant-hegemonic position, where the viewer decodes the message in terms of the codes legitimated by the encoding process and the dominant cultural order. The second is the negotiated position, a contradictory position where the viewer has the potential to adopt and oppose the dominant televisual codes. The third is the oppositional position where the viewer recognizes the dominant televisual codes and opposes them.

Stuart Hall, one of the scholars in mass communications research proposed a revised model of communication. According to him, communication is systematically distorted. Meaning is not simply fixed or determined by the sender, the message is never transparent, and the audience is not a passive recipient of meaning. Distortion is built into the system here, rather than being a ‘failure’ of the producer or viewer.

Meanwhile, Stuart Hall, one of the scholars in mass communications research introduces a positivist and empirical model of communication, where its concern is with the influence of the media on society, which is measured through empirical studies of individual behaviour. The new model aims to know how to influence audiences more effectively through media.

However, Stuart Hall criticizes the model of mass communications research and states that communication is systematically distorted. He introduces an alternative model to the ‘sender-message-receiver’ model of communications based on Marx’s theory of commodity production. Hall replaces the linearity of traditional models of communication with a circuit. In the circuit, the ‘sender’ has become a ‘producer’ and the ‘receiver’ a ‘consumer’.