Decoding Desire: From Kirk and Spock to K/S
Woledge, Elizabeth
Woledge, Elizabeth
Advisors
Editors
Other Contributors
Affiliation
EPub Date
Publication Date
2005-08
Submitted Date
Collections
Other Titles
Abstract
This paper uses the example of 'slash fiction' (fan fiction which appropriates media heroes to form homoerotic pairings) to offer an investigation which broadens the concept of decoding. Slash fiction provides a particularly suitable starting point for considering the decoding process, as it is one of the few cases in which we have the evidence of decoding readily available for analysis in the form of fanzines. Many academics have considered Kirk and Spock's relationship as it was represented in Star Trek and the homoerotic 'K/S' fiction which it inspired, however no one has effectively considered the interpretive processes which connect them. The author questions the implicit belief that K/S fiction is an 'oppositional' decoding of Star Trek and demonstrate its more negotiated nature through a detailed consideration of the decoding process. To this end the author borrows an idea of David Morley's who has suggested that 'Hall's original model [of decoding] tends to blur together questions of recognition, comprehension, interpretation and response' (Morley 1994, 21). This paper will take up Morley's four process model of decoding and answer Jenkins' call for a closer analysis of the links between audience reception and texts (Jenkins 1996, 275).
Citation
Social Semiotics, 2005, 15(2), pp. 235-250
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Journal
Social Semiotics
Research Unit
DOI
10.1080/10350330500154857
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Type
Article
Language
en
Description
This article is not available through ChesterRep.
Series/Report no.
ISSN
1035-0330
EISSN
1470-1219