Stuart Hall developed encoding/decoding theory to explain how audiences receive media messages differently based on their own experiences and viewpoints. Encoding refers to how media producers develop messages, while decoding is how audiences interpret and make meaning from those messages. Hall argued that the intended meaning is not fixed, as audiences can decode messages in preferred, negotiated, or oppositional ways depending on their sociological factors. Examples like Disney princess films often elicit a preferred reading where the audience agrees with the producer's encoding, while the Teletubbies television show decoding led to some oppositional readings that disagreed with the initial encoding.