Bridging the gap

When reading Saussure, I was particularly interested in the relationship between sound patterns (signals) and concepts. How does my psychological impression of a sound (say for instance, the word 'Freedom') differ from someone who whose idea of freedom is completely different? Furthermore, what role does media (and in the USA, the government) play in influencing our psychological impressions (and thus, the concept itself), especially with a word as loaded as 'Freedom'. I find it interesting that that the relationship between the signal and concept are so incredibly personal (for they define how we view the world), yet from culturally similar individuals, the relationship between a signal and a concept can overlap so greatly. This obviously begs the question of the role of culture, and to which degree it influences that gap between hearing and conceptualizing our environments.