Encoding and Decoding in Samsung Galaxy Note 9 Official TV Commercial

1. Introduction
As humans, to communicate with other people we need language to express our ideas and
feelings. According to Owen (2005:7), Language can be defined as a socially shared code or
conventional system for representing concepts through the use of arbitrary symbols and rule-
governed combinations of those symbols. In each language has its own uniqueness and rules
in its grammar. As Chomsky stated, Chomsky identifies knowing a language with having a
mentally represented grammar. This grammar constitutes the native speaker’s competence in
that language, and on this view, the key to understanding what it means to know a language
is to understand the nature of such a grammar (Radford, Andrew, and friends, 2009: 2-3). So
in this case there is a study called linguistics. Linguistics can be broadly defined as the
scientific study of language or of particular languages (Becker, Annette, Bieswanger, Markus
2006: 2). There are several branches of linguistics, one of them is semiotic.
Semiotics is both a science, with its own corpus of findings and its theories, and a
technique for studying anything that produces signs (Sebeok, 2001: 5). So, the researcher can
say that in semiotic focused on everything that related with sign. According to Saussure the
sign is the whole that results from the association of the signifier with the signified (Chandler,
2007: 15). Signs can be everything and everywhere as long as we interpreted a thing as a sign,
for example, if we hear the sound of chickens crowing in the morning it means a sign that the
sun has risen, in this case, we interpret that the sound of the crowing chicken as a sign.
As mentioned before, signs can be anything such as sounds, acts, words, images, and so
on. So also with a commercial, where the commercial itself is created by combining many
elements in it such as images, sounds, words, etc. As we know, in this era many companies
are competing to make products that attract markets such as food, smartphones, electronic
devices, cosmetics, daily necessities and many more. To promote their products, the
company has many ways to get the response and interest of the society, such as through
billboards, magazines, and newspapers, but because this is the digital era the company also
utilizes technological advances such as television and social media.
Many previous researchers used commercial as the object in their research such as A
semiotic analysis on Coca Cola’s commercial advertisements by Bachtiar Rifa’i (2010), in
his research he used theories from Pierce, Roland Barthes, and Saussure. While Susan
Indrawati, she used the theory from Pierce in her research entitled Semiotic Analysis of
Canon Commercial advertisements (2014). Not only that, Fathiyah also conducted the
research using Pierce theory entitled A Semiotic Analysis on “Axe Monday” Perfume
Advertisement (2018). Since there are many researchers that used commercially as their
object, so the researcher is interested in conducting this research using commercial as the
object but with different theory which is the theory from Stuart Hall that is rarely used by
previous research. The commercial that the researcher used in this research is Samsung
Galaxy Note 9 commercial because the previous Samsung series products have been
released; many attract the attention of the society.
2. Statements of Problem
a. What is encoding and decoding in Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial?
b. How the society responds to the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial?
3. Theory
In Stuart Hall essay, he suggested model of mass communication. A televisual
text emerged as ‘meaningful’ discourse from processes of encoding and decoding. Each
of these processes involved ‘meaning structures’ which consisted of ‘frameworks of
knowledge’, ‘relations of production’ and ‘technical infrastructure’ (Chandler, 2007: 185).
The encoding/decoding theory is a theory of communication which suggests audiences
actively read media texts and don’t just accept them passively. They interpret the media
text according to their own cultural background and experiences
(http://www.mediaknite.org/encoding-decoding/)
4. Data Analysis
In this research, the researcher collects the data from the YouTube official
account of Samsung because it is easier for the researcher to analyze the commercial
rather than through television, in addition, YouTube is also one of the social media used
by Samsung Company in promoting their products. The researcher used a qualitative
method to analyze the data of this research. The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV
commercial was uploaded about 9 months ago.

 Encoding in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial

In making the commercial of Samsung Galaxy Note 9, the company used
some elements in it such as music, video, and words in order to attract the
attention of society. So in the data analysis of encoding the researcher divided into
3 parts. First is background music, and the second is the video, and the last is
words.
a. Background Music
In one-minute Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial used the
song by Labrinth, SIA, and Diplo entitled Thunderclouds as the music
background. Because the duration of the original song is more than three
minutes and the duration of this Samsung commercial is only one minute, so
in this commercial, Samsung just puts the first and a half of the fourth stanza
of the lyrics. The lyrics of the song used in the commercial as below
All I need is one
One more man is enough
Babe, you got it wrong
Please turn your fears into trust, to trust

You’re sayin’ those words like you hate me now (Wo-woah)

Our house is burning when you’re thunderclouds (Wo-woah)

But in the last lyrics in the commercial, there are word changes from the
original song the word ‘thunderclouds’ it should be ‘raisin’ hell’.
B. Video
Through the TV commercial, Samsung shows many visualizations which
might be the advantages of this Samsung product. To analyze the data the
researcher provide the screenshot of the commercial from YouTube. The pictures
as below.
(Picture 1)

(Picture 2)

(Picture 3)
From picture 1-3 the commercial shows, the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 looks like, which is
the shining blue phone.

(Picture 4)
(Picture 5)
After showing what will the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 looks like, the commercial shows
the top of the phone with the image of signal, battery, and clock in the corner of the
phone. And also it is combined with the background of the afternoon and night sky with
the changes of the time as shown in the pictures above.

(Picture 6)

(Picture 7)
For the next, it shows the phone with the SD card out of the phone with 512GB written
on it and then re-enters the phone as shown in picture 6, and in picture 7 it shows a lot of
pictures on gallery.
(Picture 8)

(Picture 9)
In picture 8 and 9 there is a yellow pen and it can use to write on the screen of the
Samsung Galaxy Note 9.

(Picture 10)
(Picture 11)
Not only that, the commercial also shows the shape of the camera of the phone as seen in
the picture 10 and 11

(Picture 12)

(Picture 13)

(Picture 14)
From picture 12-14 it shows the picture part of the city with the buildings, river, and one
building as the center or focuses with the day and night sky.
(Picture 15)

(Picture 16)
Both pictures 15 and 16 show a meal in the center of the display but different image
brightness.

(Picture 17)
Picture 17 is the last image shown in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 commercial, it shows
the game ‘Fortnite’.
C. Supporting words
Not only images and songs, in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 commercial
also display words to describe existing images as seen in the pictures above.
There are many words used to describe in every image shown and it will be
mentioned below.
‘Meet the new super powerful Note’
‘All the power you never knew existed’ (picture 1)
 ‘in one phone’ (picture 2)
‘How powerful exactly?’ (picture 3)
‘All day battery powerful’ (picture 5)
‘1 terabyte ready with expandable memory’ (picture 6)
‘The power to store more’
‘Delete less’ (picture 7)
‘All new powerful S pen’ (picture 8)
‘A powerful intelligent camera’ (picture 10)
‘That adapts like the human eye’ (picture 11)
‘With dual aperture for brilliant shots’
‘Day or night’ (picture 13 and 14)
‘Automatically optimised’ (picture 15 and 16)
‘The power to play Fortnite with cutting-edge speed’ (picture 17)
‘More power than you need until you need it’
‘The new super powerful note’
‘Samsung Galaxy Note 9’

 Decoding in the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial

Decoding of the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial taken
from the perspective of the researcher because the researcher is a social media
user of YouTube and also part of the society. From what researchers have
observed about these advertisements, Samsung trying to attract the attention of the
public by displaying many elements in it such as using LSD's songs as
background music where this can be an attraction itself especially for SIA's fans,
then further highlighting the specifications that unpredictable by the society
before, this can be seen from the phrase 'all the power you never knew existed’ at
the beginning of the commercial and the phrase more power than you need until
you need it' at the end of the commercial. Features that are being superiority by
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 product are such as battery that is strong and durable,
this can be seen from the video that shows the change in time in the phone and the
day and night sky that is the background, and then the large memory, so users
don't need to worry and don't need to delete the photos that have been saved, not
only that Samsung also prioritizes camera specifications that produce good
images both at day and at night and can automatically adjust the light conditions
when photos are taken, and also on this Samsung Galaxy Note 9, the company
also makes new and different pens from the previous series. This commercial also
tries to attract the attention of gamers by displaying the Fornite game to support
the specification. From the specifications and superiority, researchers concluded
that the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 is targeting the market for the upper middle class
because of the advertising can be predicted that the price will not be cheap.
 Society’s responds to the Samsung Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial
In this research, beside analyze encoding and decoding in the Samsung
Galaxy Note 9 official TV commercial the researcher also want to know how the
response of the society towards the commercial. So, to find the answer, the
researcher looking for it through the comment column on YouTube. Below, the
researcher will provide some samples of comments taken from YouTube.
Through the pictures above shows that the SIA’s song as the music background of
the commercial successfully attracts the attention. But there are also many
comments that compare between Samsung and Apple but still, most of them are
on the side of Samsung. It can be seen from the picture below.
Besides many positive comments but there are also comments that are a little
offensive about prices that are considered expensive as shown in the picture
below.

After reading the comments that consist of approximately two thousand seven
hundred comments and put some of them for the samples, the researcher can
conclude that the commercial is successful in attracting the attention of society
and it can be seen that there are many kinds of comments but in general most of
them are positive comments.
References
Becker, Annette, Bieswanger, Markus. 2006. Introduction to English Linguistics.
Germany: UTB
Chandler, Daniel. 2007. Semiotics The Basics Second Edition. New York: Rouledge
https://genius.com/Lsd-thunderclouds-lyrics
http://www.mediaknite.org/encoding-decoding/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTKn3VHcMc8
Owens, Robert E. 2005. Language Development. Boston: Pearson
Radford, Andrew, and friends. 2009. Linguistics an Introduction Second Edition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Sebeok, Thomas A. 2001. Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics Second Edition. Canada:
University Of Toronto Press