2005.01.27 - SLIDE 1IS146 - Spring 2005

Signs and Sign Systems

Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman

UC Berkeley SIMS

Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm

Spring 2005

IS146:

Foundations of New Media

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Lecture Overview

• Last Time: Semiology & Representation

• Today: Representation and Culture

• Next Time: Ethnography and Design

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Today’s Themes

• Reprise of Tuesday’s Class

• Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture”

• How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

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Today’s Themes

• Reprise of Tuesday’s Class

• Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture”

• How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

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Michael Reddy Reading Questions

• What is the “Conduit Metaphor”?

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Michael Reddy Reading Questions

• What is the Toolmakers Paradigm?

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Michael Reddy Reading Questions

• How are the Conduit Metaphor and the Toolmakers Paradigm different in their models of communication?

• What implications do the different models have for how we analyze and design New Media?

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• What are the signifier, the signified, and the sign?• What are the similarities and differences between

linguistic signs and visual signs?

John Fiske Reading Questions

Signified

Signifier

“dog”“dog”

dog

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• Sign, Signified, Signifier – The linguistic sign is the unity of the signifier

(a sound-image) and the signified (a concept)

SaussureLinguistic Sign

Concept

Sound-Image

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The Linguistic Sign

“dog”

dog

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The Visual Sign

“dog”

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The Visual Sign

“dog”

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Arbitrariness of the Video Sign

• Theories of video denotation– Iconic (i.e., onomatopoetic)

• Video is a mechanical replication of what it represents

– Arbitrary• Video constructs an arbitrary relationship between

signifier and signified

– Motivated• The relationship between the signifier and signified

is motivated, but by what?– A “natural” analogy between video and the world?– By the conventions of cinematic language?

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John Fiske Reading Questions

Paradigmatic Axis

Syntagmatic Axis

A

C’’

C’

B C D E

C’’’

• What are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes and how do they differ?

• How do they relate to New Media production and reception?

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Video Example

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Today’s Themes

• Reprise of Tuesday’s Class

• Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture”

• How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

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Three Theories of Meaning

• Reflective theory– Language reflects meanings which are

already out there in the world of objects, people, and events

• Intentional theory– Language expresses actors’ personally

intended meanings

• Constructivist theory– Meanings are constructed by social actors

using shared symbolic practices and processes

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Culture and Communication

• Cultural analysis does not analyze communication starting with individuals trying to send and receive information, but looks at practices of representation– By practices of representation people use

languages (signs and images) to produce and exchange meaning between members of a culture

– Practices of representations include “shared meanings or shared conceptual maps” and “common language systems”

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Meaning and Representation

• How do different cultures classify the world (or develop differently conceptual models)?– Inuit words about snow and snowy weather– The language of traffic lights

• Do people in this room know expert languages/conceptual models that other people here are unlikely to know (or need)?

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Goffman’s Example

• Goffman describes communication as collaborative participation in dramaturgy– A kind of an improvisation drama, in which we

have a sense of who people are, what their words mean, what their gestures mean

– But words and nonverbal gestures are tools, which we validate (or not) through feedback (positive or negative)

– Dramaturgy is the work of drama - roles, scenes, scripts

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Today’s Themes

• Reprise of Tuesday’s Class

• Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture”

• How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

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Barthes: Two Orders of Signification

• The sign of language (first order of signification) becomes the signifier of myth (second order of signification)

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Myth as Second-Order Semiological System

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Roland Barthes and Myth

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Barthes: Two Orders of Signification

• First Order– Denotation

• Sign (i.e., the image of a car as a machine for transportation)

• Second Order– Connotation

• Cultural meanings (i.e., connotations of freedom, virility, security, etc.)

– Myth• System of cultural meanings (i.e., symbol of military-industrial

consumer culture, the War on Terror, etc.)

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Foucault on Discourse

• Discourse combines what one says (language) and what one does (practice), but:– Conceptual systems are always produced, limiting

what can be said or thought– Discourse prescribes certain ways of thinking, talking,

and acting– Knowledge is put to work to regulate the conduct of

others, especially their bodies

• Can anyone identify an example of discourse that limits talking, thinking, or acting in certain ways?

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Foucault on Power

• Locating production of knowledge within contextualization of historical relations of discourse, not in language– Example: sexuality the product of the history

of sexual discourse (confessions, etc). Note current debate about Lincoln’s being gay

– Example: punishment as the product of the history of the body as object of power

– Example: systems of classification are product of discourse and construct hegemony

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iPod Print Ad

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iPod Billboard Ad

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Comedy Central’s “Redneck Weekend” Ad

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iPod Parody Ad: iPoop

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iPod Parody Ad: iGod

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iPod Parody Ad: iRaq

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Culture Jamming: iPod and iRaq Ads

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Ella Vivirito on Stuart Hall

• Stuart Hall discusses different ways of describing how meaning is formed through language and their connection to culture. Saussure takes a scientific approach, mapping the interactions between langue (the language system) and parole (the acts of speech, writing). The semiotic approach 'reads' meaning communicated within language. Barthes looks at particular texts, reading cultural meaning from visual representations such as artwork and ads. – Who or what are the most proactive agents of meaning

production (words, combinations of words, advertisements/ pop culture, nationalisms, humans, etc.)? (i.e. Who produces 'truth'?)

– Is language itself neutral? Is it merely a tool to be used by particular people in power?

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Ella Vivirito on Suart Hall

• Foucault takes a historical approach, contextualizing how language has been used as a tool by particular, powerful people at particular times; he describes this as discursive formation.  How is discursive formation different from power?

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Ella Vivirito on Stuart Hall

• Foucault also discusses how the issue of the subject-- that what is being talked about must "submit to the dispositions of power/knowledge." Yet what representation may be about "is as much constructed around what you can't see as what you can." – In this perspective, how much agency does

the subject have? – What, then, does knowledge tell us?

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Nick Reid on Stuart Hall

• While I was reading the section about Foucault and “discourse”, I found my self asking one question, “what is discourse?” and then I found my self qualifying the hell out of it.

• What counts as discourse?• In verbal communication? Talking? Disabled Parties?• In literary communication? Newspapers? Blogs?• In visual communication? Paintings? Photographs?

Movies?• One situation that I thought of that I am still debating about

is, if two people are video conferencing with one another, and neither say or do anything, except they both observe each other, is this “discourse”?

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Nick Reid on Stuart Hall

• How much does the medium in which communication is taking place affect the social codes, and the language used in that medium?

• I am especially interested in written languages where one does not have any context than the communicative signal (written word (not being able to smile over the telephone)).

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Readings for Next Time

• Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, p. 1-11. – Discussion Questions

• Margaret Innocent• Michael Quinn Patton. Qualitative Research and Evaluation

Methods, London: Sage Publications Ltd, 2001, p. 348-360. – Discussion Questions

• Nisha Shah• Robert Stuart Weiss. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method

of Qualitative Interview Studies, Free Press, 1995, p. 61-80. – Discussion Questions

• Claire Mittelman• Tim Plowman. Ethnography and Critical Design Practice. In: Design

Research: Methods and Perspectives, edited by Brenda Laurel, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003, p. 30-38. – Discussion Questions

• Juia Unger

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Reading Questions

• Emerson– How to observe others as an ethnographer? The goal is to

understand the others’ indigenous culture, which means how to they see the signs (sounds/concepts) that are important to them, and how do they establish common understandings?

• Patton– When you’re interviewing someone, how do you ask a question

that makes sense to other people?

• Weiss– How does an interviewer help their subject to tell a story that

makes sense?

• Plowman– How is it that ethnographic research results in better designed

products and systems?