In October 2015, Justin Bieber released “Sorry”. On the surface, it is a catchy dance-pop song about apologising to a partner. But it came out at a very specific moment. After a run of public controversies, including his arrest in Miami in 2014, Bieber was trying to rebuild his image with his album Purpose. So was “Sorry” just a love song, or a public apology? Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model helps explain why the answer depends on who is listening.
What is encoding/decoding?
Hall (1980) argued that media messages are not simply sent and received. Producers encode a message with a “preferred” meaning, but audiences decode it using their own experiences and values. He described three reading positions: a dominant reading, where the audience accepts the intended meaning; a negotiated reading, where they accept some of it but adapt it; and an oppositional reading, where they reject it.
Reading “Sorry”
The preferred meaning was encoded through a whole rebrand: a more mature sound, a softer public image, and even an apology during his Comedy Central Roast in 2015. Interestingly, Bieber does not appear in the music video at all. Instead, it features dancers in bright colours, which puts the focus on the song rather than on his reputation.
Many fans took the dominant reading: Bieber had grown up and was genuinely sorry. Others took a negotiated reading: they enjoyed the song as a fun pop track and accepted the “new Justin”, without fully forgetting his past. Some critics took an oppositional reading, seeing the whole Purpose era as a calculated PR strategy designed to win back the public and sell records.
Limitations of the model
Hall’s model is useful, but it was designed for television, where there is a clear producer and audience. On social media, audiences also become producers: dance covers, memes and reaction videos re-encode the original message for someone else. Morley’s (1980) audience research also showed that real readings are messier than three neat categories, and the “Sorry” case shows the same thing.
My own experience
Personally, I take the dominant reading. I believe “Sorry” was a sincere apology, and I think the whole Purpose album feels honest and full of effort. In my view, it really did help to turn his public image around. This shows how my own decoding matches the meaning Bieber wanted to encode, even though other audiences read the same song very differently.
Conclusion
“Sorry” shows that meaning is not fixed by the producer. The same song can be a love song, a personal apology or a marketing strategy, depending on who is decoding it.
References
- Hall, S. (1980) ‘Encoding/decoding’, in Hall, S., Hobson, D., Lowe, A. and Willis, P. (eds) Culture, Media, Language. London: Hutchinson, pp. 128–138.
- Morley, D. (1980) The ‘Nationwide’ Audience: Structure and Decoding. London: BFI.
