June 12, 2026
The Exchange, University of Birmingham
Call for Papers
More than 50 years after Stuart Hall authored his discussion paper, ‘Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse’ (1973), the model he proposed remains a touchstone for media and communications scholars. Yet the media under discussion today is rarely television and, as Hall observed, his model ‘suggests an approach; it opens up new questions. It maps the terrain. But it’s a model which has to be worked with and developed and changed’ (Cruz & Lewis, 1989).
‘Decoding Hall’ is a one-day symposium celebrating the launch of Hall’s digital archive–drawing on papers held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham–while also inviting reflection on the contemporary relevance of Hall’s model. As Hall’s paper archive is transformed via digital mediation, how might we use ‘Encoding and Decoding’ to map our current digital terrain? Or to approach generative AI technologies critically? How might we have to develop and change Hall’s model? What work must we as scholars do and what insights might emerge?
Image: The Open University, CC BY-SA 4.0
This CFP invites contributions that engage with Hall’s work and contemporary media and technology, addressing:
- specific media and technologies: such as AI, social media, or datasets
- topics including: racialised data, global politics, algorithmic bias, or ideology in the production, consumption, representation, and regulation of new media
- methods and approaches, including: digitising and mediating Black archives; using critical data, ethics, critical code, or cultural AI approaches; or the application of cultural studies approaches to the analysis of new media, technologies and practices.
- critical-creative responses to Hall’s digital archive or model (including its own digital mediations).
Please send a short abstract (200-300 words) outlining your proposed contribution, along with your name and any affiliation to Katy Parsons (k.parsons@bham.ac.uk) by 20 March 2026. We welcome formal papers, demos, posters, and non-traditional formats; we hope to produce a collection of work resulting from the day.
The symposium is hosted by the Stuart Hall Archive Project at the University of Birmingham, UK. Any questions, please contact Katy Parsons or Rebecca Roach (r.roach@bham.ac.uk).