diff --git a/IPython/zmq/iostream.py b/IPython/zmq/iostream.py
index 7fa896c..76c9d6e 100644
--- a/IPython/zmq/iostream.py
+++ b/IPython/zmq/iostream.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from io import StringIO
 
 from session import extract_header, Message
 
-from IPython.utils import io, text, encoding
+from IPython.utils import io, text
 
 #-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Globals
@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ class OutStream(object):
     topic=None
 
     def __init__(self, session, pub_socket, name):
+        self.encoding = 'UTF-8'
         self.session = session
         self.pub_socket = pub_socket
         self.name = name
@@ -69,9 +70,8 @@ class OutStream(object):
         else:
             # Make sure that we're handling unicode
             if not isinstance(string, unicode):
-                enc = encoding.DEFAULT_ENCODING
-                string = string.decode(enc, 'replace')
-            
+                string = string.decode(self.encoding, 'replace')
+
             self._buffer.write(string)
             current_time = time.time()
             if self._start <= 0: