The Continuation of a Way of Thinking: The Mysteries of Encoding and Decoding

Have you ever thought about whether the words you say to others mean the same to them as they do to you?

The transmission of information is like sound; by the time it passes through various mediums and reaches its destination, it often no longer sounds the way it originally did. For example, some advertisements I’ve seen——

I believe you’ve probably heard of ‘Alipay.’ It’s a Chinese online payment app that allows easy payments by simply scanning a QR code with your phone. Recently, they released an advertisement with a slogan meaning ‘Getting change is no longer a hassle in life.’ Translated into English, it seems perfectly normal, but in Chinese, it actually contains a pun. The term ‘找零’ (zhǎo líng) can mean both ‘getting change’ and ‘finding a submissive same-sex partner.’ They even ‘thoughtfully’ included an image of one gay man hugging another. Alipay intended to use a humorous joke to attract attention. It certainly did attract attention—but in another way, as it sparked backlash and criticism from consumers.

Clearly, Alipay’s joke went a bit too far. Relatively conservative Chinese people don’t appreciate jokes with a sexual undertone appearing in public spaces. This ad copy, which failed to consider the target audience, was a failed attempt by Alipay. Incorporating a sexual joke into the advertisement to emphasize the promoted benefit of ‘not needing to get change with electronic payments’ was Alipay’s act of ‘encoding.’ On the other hand, the audience’s focus on the sexual joke rather than the intended message of the ad represents their act of ‘decoding.’

In a paper published by the University of Birmingham in 1973, the author conceptualized ‘encoding’ as a label-like method of story construction. He argued that informational language must first be transformed into a narrative form before it can be communicated to the receiver.

For example, the violent elements in simple-structured American Western films: gunfights, brawls, ambushes, bank robberies, duels, or massacres. These elements cannot represent anything on their own but derive their meaning based on their relationship with other elements. The meaning of a single element is too broad, but when combined with others, it can be defined within a specific context, thereby implying the message the author most wants to convey.

Now, returning to Alipay’s failed advertisement—could there have been a way to salvage it (of course, before the ad was released)? I believe so. Alipay combined multiple elements to create this ad with a homosexual joke. A straightforward interpretation would be that the combination of these elements leans more towards ‘homosexuality’ than ‘the benefits of electronic payment.’ The simplest solution, of course, would be to reduce the elements emphasizing homosexuality and increase content related to electronic payment. For example, making the relationship between the two people in the image more ambiguous or removing the quotation marks in the slogan.

Although these are just basic adjustments, I believe they already bring about significant changes. A single blog post is not enough to fully explore this issue, but I believe this could be a good starting point.

Reference:

《Encoding and Decoding in the television discourse》——Hall , Stuart (1973) Encoding and Decoding in the television discourse. Discussion Paper. University of Birmingham, Birmingham.