Sociology of Media (2) Approaches to Media Analysis II:

Semiotics (7.11.2007)

The System Model of Communication

SENDER >> MESSAGE >> RECEIVER

Outline• How to media messages become meaningful?

• What do we mean by ‘representation’?

• signification

• Representation

• Sign, Signifier, Signified and Referent

• Langue and Parole

• Denotation/Connotation

• Encoding/Decoding

• Intertextuality

• Genre

• Narrative

• Myth

• Discourse

• The Subject

Signification• Semiology = “the science of science’.

• Meaning = sense + articulation

• Articulation = explication + association

• Sense ‘comes before’ meaning

• Signification = the attribution of meaning

Beavis and Butthead• BEAVIS: ‘Tattoos are cool, I wish I was born with

a tattoo’• BUTTHEAD: ‘ You’re not born with tattoos dumb-

ass, you get them when you join the navy.’

Beavis and Butthead ‘do’ America

• Killing• Having Sex With• Touring

The doubling of the performative and representative creates ambivalence.

Stuart Hall on Representation• Three types of understanding representation:

– Reflective

– Intentional

– Constructionist

• to describe or depict• To stand in for (symbolize)• Speaking for (in politics)

Two systems of Representation• Mental concepts - Signified• Language - Signifier

• “It is the link between concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the ‘real’ world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events” (Hall, 17).

• Sign = Signifier + Signified

C.S. Peirce

• Icon (highly motivated, not abstract)

• Index (intermediation: cause & effect)

• Symbol (arbitrary, abstract)

De Saussure

• Langue – (e.g. as in grammar) – official system of language, relationship between signifiers

• Parole – (as in semantics, pragmatics) – ‘language-in-use’, relationship between signifiers and signifieds.

Barthes• Denotation• Connotation• Linguistic Message

– Anchorage– Relay

Example: GO WEST

• What does ‘Go West’ signify

• - look at – (a) words, – (b) images; – (c) sound

Go West

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39KZ2afBtLU

Hall: Encoding/DecodingProgramme

as meaningful discourse

Encoding DecodingMeaning Meaning

structures 1 structures 2

Frameworks Frameworksof Knowledge of Knowledge

Relations of Relations ofProduction Production

Technical Technical Infrastructure Infrastructure

Intertextuality

• Texts relate to other texts• Bringing in different voices• Reported speech• Direct speech• Indirect speech• M.M. Bakhtin• V.N. Volosinov• J. Kristeva• J. Derrida

Genre

Fairclough:

• 1. activity type

• 2. Embedded sequence

• 3. emergent forms

• Primary and secondary genres

Genre

• Dayan and Katz: newsgenres

1. Contest

2. Conquest

3. Coronation

Narrative Analysis

• Structures (Todorov):

• 1. Initial Equilibrium• 2. Turbulence• 3. Disequilibrium• 4. Intervention• 5. Restored

Equilibrium

• Functions (Lewis):• 1. Enigma• 2. Suspense• 3. Closure

Theoretical spin-offs

• Myth: naturalizing what is arbitrary (cultural, historical)

• Discourse: Power + Knowledge: constitutes the conditions under which particular utterances become meaningful

• The Subject: OF versus IN representation