Quotations and Signs

The reading for decoding/encoding had the potential to be very interesting to me as I enjoy breaking down communications and looking at it as a system however the reading's abundant technical terms and overuse of quotations made it a lot harder to get all the way through than I expected. That aside, I did enjoy the breakdown of the sign and how when placed in different settings or used in different ways the sign begins to take on new dimensions. The article discusses how different a sweater can be viewed when looking at it from different points like the fashion culture, a fall setting etc. It's the ability to change the way our messages are received by adding dimensions to our signs that makes me enjoy media and advertising in particular so much. Just by changing the background, the targeted audience, or even your tone of voice or color of a picture you can completely affect the way a product or in the case of this reading, a sign, is perceived.