I think it is us, the audience/consumers, who have control of the meaning in advertising. Because everyone has their own opinion based on their gender, race, cultural background, and etc., people interpret adverts in many different ways, hence having a control of how the advert is perceived as. However, we can’t disregard the impact advertisers have on us because of the fact that they can utilize both visual and lexical elements that allude to certain meanings. For example, advertisers can make use of the camera angle, composition, and written texts to convince us into thinking what they want us to think without directly pointing at the idea. 

Some may also believe that the government has control of the meaning in advertising because they are capable of censoring things that they do not want the public to see. However, I think that the government also works in favor of the public (us) because we have the power to vote out or elect almost everyone working for the government. This essentially shows that the government listens to the majority’s opinion, meaning that the adverts are controlled by the majority of the public. Certain beliefs or ideas that the “minorities” have will still be expressed in adverts, but because advertisers’ sole purpose is to sell their products to greater number of people, companies will eventually create meanings that satisfy the majority of the public. Furthermore, the government is capable of establishing laws that can prohibit the expression of certain meanings in adverts in order to appeal to the majority as well.

Lastly, the meaning that the companies pursue to express is limited to the culture of the society. This is because of the fact that certain cultures restrict the expression of a particular message or meaning that does not conform to the general belief of the culture.

An example of how all aforementioned aspects affect the meaning is this: the restriction of the adverts promoting Japanese products in Korea, as well as the growing number of adverts criticizing Japan (due to their ongoing conflicts) create a meaning that Japan is an awful country among Koreans, which shows that consumers, advertisers, politics, and culture all have some control of the meaning in advertising.