Encoding-Decoding

Encoding and decoding have been key concepts in communication for over fifty years, in keeping with the idea that language is a → code that needs to be cracked, and that the way it is received is as significant as the way that it is conceived. The connections of → linguistics to communication more generally have frequently deployed a message model: a sentence is given → meaning by the person uttering it, then interpreted and given new meaning by the person hearing it (Gleason 1961). Encoding‐decoding has been used to explain different styles of learning, via numerous studies of dyslexia, for example (Pernet et al. 2009; → Learning and Communication), and to transcend linguistics by focusing on the affect of encoders as they speak or gesture (Pell et al. 2009; → Gestures and Kinesics). Its most prominent place, however, is in media and → cultural studies, where it has been used to integrate the analysis of texts, producers, technologies, and audiences by thinking of them as coeval participants in the making of meaning (→ Speech Codes Theory)