Per Aage Brandt
What is semiotics?
Semiotics is the study f signs, their forms of expression and contents. So what is a sign? Maybe the best definition is the one that just states that signs in the non-metaphorical sense are phenomena produced intention
ally b humans and taken by humans to show the intention of the producer, and its content.
S is a complex, linguistic and gestural sign. The speaker-signer shows to the
listener-observer by performing it, namely by his grammatically organized words and his accompanying movements of fingers, hand, arm, trunc and face (especially his eye movements), that he wants to direct his addressee's attention to an item present to his mind. This item - here apparently including a bird - is then the content of his sign; the content of the sign is the part of what is present to the speaker - signer's mind that he wants the listener-observer's mind to also attend to. That part is expressed by S, which is therefore considered to be its expression.
If S only uses pictures, that is, photographs, drawings, and the like, or
gestures that 'draw' the contours of things in the air, in order to refer to things, events and
their circumstances, then these pictorial references to the content make S only consist of icons, or iconical subsigns. If S also uses imitations of facial expressions of affective and cognitive states of mind, or imitations of yawning, snoring, coughing etc. it includes indexical subsigns, meaning it has a direct relationship to the sign. Such signs, indices, are intentional versions of spontatneous bodily reactions that are not signs (but that are often called 'signs' metaphorically: "Fever is a sign of illness").
Furthermore, S can include gestures of politness, paramusical sounds like claps, clicks, cmall jingle-like songs, whistling, etc. to indicate modes of addressing the other; such subsigns
In Britain and Europe, neo-Marxist approaches were common amongst media theorists from the late '60s until around the early '80s, and Marxist influences, though less dominant, remain widespread. So it is important to be aware of key Marxist concepts in analysing the mass media. However, there is no single Marxist school of thought, and the jargon often seems impenetrable to the uninitiated. These notes are intended to provide a guide to some key concepts.
Marxist theorists tend to emphasize the role of the mass media in the reproduction of the status quo, in contrast to liberal pluralists who emphasize the role of the media in promoting freedom of speech.
A central feature of Marxist theory is the 'materialist' stance that social being determines consciousness. According to this stance, ideological positions are a function of class positions, and the dominant ideology in society is the ideology of its dominant class. This is in contrast to the 'idealist' stance that grants priority to consciousness (as in Hegelian philosophy). Marxists differ with regard to this issue: some interpret the relationship between social being and consciousness as one of direct determination; others stress a dialectical relationship.
n fundamentalist Marxism, ideology is 'false consciousness', which results from the emulation of the dominant ideology by those whose interests it does not reflect. From this perspective the mass media disseminate the dominant ideology: the values of the class which owns and controls the media. According to adherents of Marxist political economy the mass media conceal the economic basis of class struggle; 'ideology becomes the route through which struggle is obliterated rather than the site of struggle'
