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Context is crucial ! 
A Red Traffic Light
Our first illustration will borrow from the scenario of a street, where there is a traffic light. You look at it, and it is red. You look at the street where it is placed (the street being the traffic light's context!) and all cars have stopped at the sight of that red light. All looks normal, and you derive the most obvious meaning.
But let us change the context now!
We will now be looking at a similar traffic light, on a similar street. The light is similarly displaying red.
What we will change in this new context is that no cars have stopped! They are all moving ahead, despite the fact that the light is red! And there is, moreover, a traffic policeman waving "go" at the cars.
What meaning do we derive now, out of this second traffic light scene (context)?
I'd easily infer that that second traffic light is out of order! Wouldn't you?
Now you see: in both scenes all looks exactly the same, except for the fact that,
- in the first scene the cars have stopped whereas in the second they are all moving past, and
- in the second scene, there is, moreover, a policeman waving at the drivers (this policeman is missing from the first scene).
Scene one is the expected context for a red traffic light, whereas scene two is a possible unexpected context – i.e., it is not what we usually expect to see, when we think of a red traffic light.
When we come across something new, or something that we do not expect to see, this takes our brain out of 'automatic gear,' so to speak. For now, it is necessary that we process the new information contained in that out of the usual situation. We need to analyze the situation so we can make sense out of it.
This analysis typically takes as much contextual information (data) as possible into consideration, whether we realize it or not. In the second example, above, in addition to the traffic light, which is the center focus of our attention, the following elements certainly come into play: the street where the traffic light is located, along with whatever else is on that street – the cars, none of which are stopping, and the policeman, for sure.
And it is from taking that entire context into consideration that we are able to derive the following meaning for that second traffic light:
it is out of order!
We need not be a traffic Officer, nor an electrician, to know it! The context has sufficed to tell us so.
"Context" 
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