LESSON FOUR: MEANING

In the previous blog post, I mentioned how you might decode an ad differently than I would have. This is because it is not the producer of the ad (or any other media) who decides the meaning. Meaning is decided by the viewer.

We all go through the process of socialization. Socialization is what we learn from the people around us and our environment. Socialization decided who we are, what we wear, and how things are supposed to be done. A child raised in family who value honesty and reinforce it daily is less likely to lie than child whose parents lie to him/her frequently.

Every viewer individually assigns meaning to media texts. The meaning a viewer assigns to a media text is less likely to be the exact same meaning the producer intended for it to be.

Different people assign different meaning to a text. Is there a dominant meaning? No one really knows! We can say that they are many possible meanings. Even within the same country or social group meaning will vary.

This idea can be really tried and tested with ads. Have you ever seen an ad that everyone thought was funny but you just didn’t get it? A great example here in the UAE is that many ads are imported from different countries. The Emirati viewer was not considered in the making of these ads, hence the meaning the Emirati assigned is more likely to be extremely different than the intended meaning.

Here are some western ads that were transplanted in the UAE media:

  Pizza Hut Dot Commercial dubbed in Arabic

             Pepsi commercial - In the Arabic version Amr Diab (Egyptian singer) played the role of the roman emperor while in the western version it was played by Enrique Iglesias

Questions to ask yourself:

- What was the meaning YOU assigned to each ad?

- Do you believe it is different from the meaning intended by PRODUCER of the ads?

- How might a WESTERN audience decode this ad differently?