The '''encoding/decoding model of communication''' was first developed by cultural studies scholar [[Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)|Stuart Hall]] in 1973. Stuart Hall pronouncedtitled the study as 'Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse.' Hall's essay offers a theoretical approach of how media messages are produced, disseminated, and interpreted.<ref name="Encoding and Decoding">{{cite web |last1=Hall |first1=Stuart |title=Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse |url=https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-artslaw/history/cccs/stencilled-occasional-papers/1to8and11to24and38to48/SOP07.pdf |website=University of Birmingham |access-date=27 October 2019}}</ref> Hall proposed that audience members can play an active role in decoding messages as they rely on their own [[Social environment|social contexts]] and capability of changing messages through [[collective action]].
Thus, Encodingencoding/Decodingdecoding is the translation needed for a message to be easily understood. When you decode a message, you extract the meaning of that message in ways to simplify it. Decoding has both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication: Decoding behavior without using words, such as displays nonof non-verbal communication. There are many examples, such asincluding observing body language and its associated emotions. For example, e.g. monitoring signs when someone is upset, angry, or stressed where they use excessive hand/arm movements, crying, and even silence. Moreover, there are times when an individual can send a message across to someone, the message can be interpreted differently from person to person. Decoding is all about understanding others, based on the information given throughout the message being received. Whether there is a large audience or exchanging a message to one person, decoding is the process of obtaining, absorbing and sometimes utilizing information that was given throughout a verbal or non-verbal message.
For example, sinceSince advertisements can have multiple layers of meaning, they can be decoded in various ways and can mean something different to different people.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Aidan|last1=Kelly|first2=Katrina|last2=Lawlor|first3=Stephanie|last3=O'Donohoe|chapter=Chapter 8: Encoding Advertisements: The Creative Perspective|title=The Advertising and Consumer Culture Reader|editor1-first=Joseph|editor1-last=Turow|editor2-first=Matthew P.|editor2-last=McAllister|publisher=[[Routledge]]|___location=Hoboken, New Jersey|date=2009|isbn=978-0415963305|pages=133–49}}</ref>
{{quote|1="The level of connotation of the visual [[Sign (semiotics)|sign]], of its [[Contextualization (sociolinguistics)|contextual]] reference and positioning in different discursive fields of meaning and association, is the point where already coded signs intersect with the deep [[semantic]] codes of a culture and take on additional more active [[ideological]] dimensions."|2=Stuart Hall |3=1980, "Encoding/decoding."<ref name="Encoding and Decoding"/>}}
