Follow up to Encoding and Decoding

After taking a drive all the way from Orlando FL to Boston MA my boyfriend and I have had a lot of billboards to look at and radio commercials to decipher. The billboard that I remember most was when we were sitting in traffic in the Bronx, it was a billboard for a mattress company. The billboard said something comical about needing sleep and I just looked at it and thought to myself that yes people do need sleep. Well, my boyfriend laughed and asked me if I understood the irony of that billboard and then he explained that we are in the city that never sleeps and there shouldn't be any need for a mattress company. That's just one example of all the different ways that you can look at a billboard and come to different conclusions. I would suggest getting opinions from friends about billboards, commercials, etc. to help you and them understand media on a deeper level.