Signs and Sign Systems
IS146:
Foundations of New Media
Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman
UC Berkeley SIMS
Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm
Spring 2005
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 1
Lecture Overview
• Last Time:
• Today:
• Next Time:
IS146 - Spring 2005
Semiology & Representation
Representation and Culture
Ethnography and Design
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 2
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?
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 3
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?
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 4
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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John Fiske Reading Questions
• What are the signifier, the signified, and the
sign?
• What are the similarities and differences
between linguistic signs and visual signs?
Signified
“dog”
Signifier
dog
IS146 - Spring 2005
“dog”
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SaussureLinguistic Sign
• Sign, Signified, Signifier
– The linguistic sign is the unity of the signifier
(a sound-image) and the signified (a concept)
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
• What are the
paradigmatic and
syntagmatic axes and
how do they differ?
• How do they relate to
New Media production
and reception?
Paradigmatic Axis
C’’’
C’’
C’
A
B
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C
D
E
Syntagmatic
Axis
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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?
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 16
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
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 17
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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2005.01.27 - SLIDE 18
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
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 20
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?
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 21
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.)
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 25
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
IS146 - Spring 2005
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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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2005.01.27 - SLIDE 37
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)).
IS146 - Spring 2005
2005.01.27 - SLIDE 39
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?
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