Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 1
Semiotics and Consumer Culture
Semiotics, the science of signs, has a long history. The “father of medicine,” Hippocrates (460-377 BC) was interested in signs and their relation to medical symptoms; after him philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle,
Saint Augustine and Locke also wrote about various aspects of signs. We may say that modern semiotics started with the work of two authors: Ferdinande de
Saussure (1857-1913), a linguist at the University of Geneva, who called his approach “semiology” and Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), a philosopher at
Harvard University, who called his science “semiotics.” Saussure’s book, Course in General Linguistics , published in 1915 is made of notes from his students that were collected and put together by Charles Bally and Albert
Sechehaye. Peirce produced an enormous body of writings on semiotic theory that have been extremely influential, and his term for the science of signs,
“semiotics,” is the one currently used by scholars in the field, whatever their orientation.
The root of both semiology and semiotics is the Greek word for sign, sēmeîon. In his
Course in General Linguistics, Saussure described what he meant by signs and explained their significance (1966:16):
Language is a system of signs that expresses ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing, the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of these systems.
A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 2 shall call it semiology (from Greek sēmeîon “sign.”). Semiology would show what constitutes a sign, what laws govern them.
Saussure explained that signs have two parts: a sound-image or signifier and a concept or signified ; it is important to recognize that the relation between the signifier and signified is arbitrary and based on convention. Thus, the meaning of signs can change over time. Saussure also suggested that signs can be studied synchronically, at a given point in time, and diachronically, as they evolve over time.
Saussure made another important point, namely that concepts are defined differentially. He explained that it is signs relative position that determines their meaning not their intrinsic value. No sign, then, has meaning in itself and its meaning is always a function of the relationship between that sign and other signs. In practical terms, what this means is that when dealing with concepts, because of the nature of language we tend to think in terms of polar oppositions such as cheap and expensive, rich and poor, happy and sad.
Peirce had a different approach to signs. He wrote that a sign “is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.”
( Collected Papers of C.S. Peirce, 1958.) He developed a typology that had three kinds of signs: icons, which signify by resemblance; indexes, which signify by causal connections, and symbols , which signify by convention and have to be learned. As he wrote:
Every sign is determined by its object, either first, by partaking of the characters of the object, when I call the sign an Icon; secondly, by being really and in its individual existence connected with the individual object, when I call the sign an Index; thirdly, by more or less approximate certainty that it will be interpreted as denoting the

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 3 object, in consequence of a habit (which term I uses as including a natural disposition), when I call the sign a Symbol.
(Quoted in J. Jay
Zeman, “Peirce’s Theory of Signs,” in T. Sebeok,
A Perfusion of
Signs. 1977:36).
For example, photographs are iconic; smoke which indicates fire is indexical; and flags and gestures are symbolic.
Semiotics is a globally important field of study and research, and important semioticians are found in England (Stuart Hall), Italy (Umberto Eco), France
(Roland Barthes, Claude Lévi-Strauss), Russia (Juri Lotman), Finland
(Kristian Bankov), Canada (Marshall McLuhan, Marcel Danesi), The United
States, (Thomas Sebeok) and numerous other countries. Many semioticians combine Saussurean semiology and Peircean semiotics in their work, especially in fields such as cultural studies.
Umberto Eco suggested in his book A Theory of Semiotics that signs are anything that can be used to substitute for something else. That something else doesn’t have to exist or be somewhere, he adds, which means that semiotics studies anything that can be used to lie, for if something cannot be used to lie, it can’t be used to tell the truth or communicate anything. Signs, then, have a double valence and people can and often do lie with signs—for example, women and men with brown or black hair who dye their hair blonde or women and men and women who cross dress.
Some semioticians, generally in academic institutions, focus their attention on semiotic theory and the historical development of semiotics, but others are more interested in applying semiotics, often in combination with other theories, to culture and society. What semiotics does is examine how people find meaning in various aspects of their everyday lives, in the media to

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 4 which they are exposed, and, when it comes to consumer societies, to messages from marketers and advertisers and from other aspects of commercial culture.
As we grow up we learn certain codes that tell us how to interpret signs of various kinds. A French marking theorist, Clotaire Rapaille, wrote a book, The Culture Code, that deals with the way children become “imprinted” by their culture as they grow up—that is, learn certain codes about all kinds of things--and on the way these imprints influence us, at the unconscious level.
Semiotics can be seen as a way of decoding the way cultures use signs to generate meanings and shape behavior.
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) was generally known as a media theorist, but his 1951 book The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial
Man, is really a semiotically informed study of American commercial culture.
McLuhan writes, in his preface, that he wished “to apply the method of art analysis to the critical evaluation of society.” (1957, vi) In the book he analyzes comic strips, the front pages of newspapers, and a number of advertisements for such products as Clark Grave Vaults, GE Lamps, RCA radios, Thor Automatic Gladirons the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance company, Squibb Cod Liver Oil, and Life Savers. He deconstructs these advertisements and explains how advertisers manipulate people and capitalize upon their basic values in an effort to sell products and services.
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was one of the most important semioticians of consumer culture. His book Mythologies, published in French in 1957 and in
English in 1972, offered a semiotically informed dissection of French media and commercial culture. As he wrote in the Preface to the 1970 edition
(1972:9):

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 5
This book has a double theoretical framework: on the one hand, an ideological critique bearing on the language of so-called mass culture; on the other, a first attempt to analyze semiologically the mechanics of this language.
I had just read Saussure and as a result acquired the conviction that by treating
“collective representations” as sign-systems, one might hope to go further than the pious show of unmasking them and account in detail for the mystification which transforms petit-bourgeois culture into a universal nature.
In his book Barthes offered semiotic analysis of topics such as soap powders and detergents, margarine, toys, wine and milk, plastic and the new Citroen.
His point was to show how semiotics, in combination with Marxist theory, could explain how these products were being presented to the French public and the mystifications and hidden ideologies found in these presentations. The second half of the book dealt with myth, including his analysis of myth as a semiological system. Mythologies is considered one of the classic examples of the semiotic analyses of consumer cultures. Barthes wrote many books in the course of his career and was enormously influential in literary studies and applied semiotic analysis.
An American semiotician, Marshall Blonsky, titled his book American Mythologies, which suggests that his book would do for
American what Barthes’ Mythologies did for France. Blonsky’s book is highly self-reflexive, but it does deal with a number of aspects of consumer culture, such as clothing, food, automobiles, and advertising.
All of these books apply semiotic theory to understand how marketers and advertisers shape demand and influence decision-making by consumers. One of the more important ways advertising works is by creating brands. Brands are the way manufacturers differentiate their products from those of

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 6 competing products, and branding involves everything from the design of products, the creation of logos for them, and the advertising campaigns used to bring these products to the attention of the public.
Saussure wrote that in language there are only differences. The same applies to products, and branding is the way that the manufacturers of products attempt to differentiate themselves from other products. Brands enable consumers who identify with certain brands to have a sense of security about the products they purchase and brands also help confer a sense of identity in people. Semiotics tells us that we are always sending messages to others and receiving messages from them. One of the ways we send messages about ourselves involves the brands we use—brands of clothing, eyeglasses, watches, handbags, and so on, that are advertised and help confer value on these products and help give us our identities. Semiotically speaking our identities can be seen, in large measure, as the sum of our logos and brands.
Many upscale brands have distinctive logos that they put on products such as sunglasses, handbags, and watches so others can recognize that we are using that particular brand of that product. Technically speaking, these brand logos are symbols, for we have to learn what they mean. We learn to identify brands and distinguish between brands by advertising, which is approximately a three hundred billion dollar industry in the United States. A French scholar, Henri
Lefebvre, has pointed out that everything we purchase is given its value, in our minds, by the advertising to which we are exposed, and it is advertising that offers us all the ultimate happiness—that of being consumers in consumer cultures.
What advertising does, semiotically speaking, is use figurative language such as metaphor, which is based on analogy, and metonymy, which

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 7 is based on association, to influence our thinking and our emotions.
Advertising also uses and images, along with language, in print advertisements and narratives in commercials to attract our attention, appeal to our desires, and sell us things. We learn to interpret these commercials by constant exposure to them, from our earliest years. Growing up in a consumer culture, we learn to differentiate between different brands of products by their price and styles. Advertisers use sports stars, movie stars and celebrities to sell expensive up-market products being. A French scholar, René Girard, uses the concept “mimetic desire” to explain how these endorsements work. In essence, he argues, we imitate the desire of those who endorse the products.
Another factor at work in consumer cultures involves auras. When we purchase an upscale name brand pair of eyeglasses or an expensive wristwatch, for example, we are purchasing in large measure the auras of designers and companies. The German media theorist Walter Benjamin suggested that works of art contain “auras” from their creators, and we can say the same thing about designer eyeglasses, and pocketbooks and all other designer products. There are also many “knock offs,” imitations of certain name brand objects that we can purchase at just a fraction of the cost, but since they are not authentic they do not carry the auras of their designers.
Many people do not care about having originals and content themselves with knock-offs because in postmodern societies, such as we find in the western world since the Sixties, many people aren’t concerned with authenticity.
Semiotically speaking, people using knock-offs are lying with signs—that is appropriating the signs of the expensive originals in imitations that look like the originals.

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 8
What we call style, in fashion and in other areas of life, can be seen, from a semiotic perspective, as the construction of a collection of signs by which we present ourselves to others and which others interpret, in an attempt to understand to “read” us, to learn more about us. Generally speaking, people adopt a style, in which, our dress codes tell us, our garments and accessories go together. That is, people wear certain kinds of clothing and objects that don’t clash and they don’t mix styles, unless they wish to do so for ulterior purposes, such as to attract attention or make some kind of a statement.
We learn about style from watching movie stars and celebrities, reading certain magazines and looking at the advertisements in them, and observing other people.
Our sense of style covers most of our purchases, for there are usually large numbers of competing products, whether it is mattresses, furniture, automobiles, clothing, or anything else. The question that semioticians ask themselves is this: why is it, with a given amount of money to spend, a person chooses one brand of product rather than another.
From our observations and from the advertising to which we are exposed, if we can afford to purchase what we want, we decide upon everything from our hairstyles, eyeglass styles, sunglass styles, watch styles, kinds of clothing to wear, and styles of shoes. We also communicate by our facial expressions and body language. We have to be careful that the styles we adopt are suitable for our status, the roles we play, and the places in which we find ourselves. Most people are not aware of the science of semiotics, but when it comes to functioning in consumer cultures, where there are all kinds of choices available to people, they are all, though they do not realize it, practicing semioticians.

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 9
When we talk about consumer culture, we are mostly talking about material culture, which can be defined as relatively simple objects showing human workmanship. If you can photograph something, and it isn’t too complex, it is part of material culture. Semiotics, in conjunction with other disciplines, is the most important means of determining the meaning these objects have for people and the role they play in society. That is because the objects are all indicators of our taste and socio-economic status, among other things. Generally speaking, we do not purchase these objects on the basis of need or price but on the basis of aesthetics and their cultural meanings.
There is a question about what motivates people in their purchases— is it an individual matter, based on their personalities and taste or is it something else? A British social anthropologist, Mary Douglas, has argued that there are four mutually antagonistic “lifestyles” found in modern society—hierarchists (elitists), individualists, enclavists (egalitarians) and isolates (fatalists)—and it is our membership in one of these lifestyles that shapes our consumer behavior. As she writes in her article “In Defence of
Shopping,” culture determines our taste and what we purchase when we go shopping in not the expression of individual wants but is tied to our membership in one of the four lifestyles.
“Cultural alignment,” she writes, “is the strongest predictor of preferences in a wide variety of fields.” (1997:23). She adds “Shopping is agonistic, a struggle to define not what one is but what one is not.” (1997, 30).
This passage is similar to Saussure’s dictum that “concepts are purely differential and defined not by their positive content but negatively by their relation with the other terms of the system. Their most precise characteristic is in being what the others are not.” (1966:117).

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 10
What Douglas suggests is that consumer culture is based on the desire people have to define themselves by differentiating themselves from members of other lifestyles, which means that shopping is, in effect, a semiotic enterprise. Consumption is not, Douglas argues, strictly a matter of individual choice but is tied to our lifestyles and the unconscious imperatives generated by these lifestyles.
Google lists 11,000,000 websites for “consumer culture,” slightly more than 3,000,000 websites for “semiotics,” and 55,000 websites for
“semiotics and consumer culture.” Sage publishes the Journal of Consumer
Culture and the semiotics of consumer culture is also dealt with in numerous books and journals dealing with semiotics, advertising and marketing, There are 32,000 books listed on Amazon.com for semiotics and 17,800 for consumer culture. It is evident that semiotics and consumer culture are subjects of considerable interest.
We may conclude, then, that semiotics provides us with an important tool for understanding many different aspects of consumer behavior, which explains why so many marketing and advertising agencies are interested in applying it as best they can and why so many scholars in areas such as marketing, advertising, and cultural studies are using it to better understand consumer culture.

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 11
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland. (1972)
Mythologies.
New York: Hill and Wang.
Barthes, Roland. (1982).
Empire of Signs.
New York: Hill and Wang.
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in The Age of Mechanical
Reproduction,” in Mast, Gerald and Marshall Cohen. Eds.
Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Berger, Arthur Asa. (1999)
Signs in Contemporary Culture: An Introduction to Semiotics. 2 nd edition.
.
Salem, WI: Sheffield.
Berger, Arthur Asa. (2005)
Shop ‘Til You Drop: Consumer Behavior and American Culture.
Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Blonsky, Marshall. (1992)
American Mythologies.
New York: Oxford University Press.

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 12
Danesi, Marcel. (2002)
Understanding Media Semiotics.
London: Arnold.
Douglas, Mary. “In Defence of Shopping,” in
Falk, Pasi and Colin Campbell. (1997)
The Shopping Experience.
London: Sage.
Eco, Umberto.
A Theory of Semiotics.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Holdbrook, Morris B. and Elizabeth C. Hirschman. (1993)
The Semiotics of Consumption: Interpreting Symbolic Behavior in Popular
Culture and Works of Art.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
Johansen, Jorgen Dines and Sven Erik Larsen. (2002)
Signs in Use: An Introduction to Semiotics.
London: Routledge.
McLuhan, Marshall. (1951)
The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man.
Boston: Beacon Press.

Arthur Asa Berger: Semiotics and Consumer Culture 13
Peirce, C. S. (1958)
The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce. Vols. 1-6. edited by
Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, 1931-5; Vols. 7-8 edited by
A.W. Burks, 1958. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. (1966)
Course in General Linguistics.
New York: McGraw-Hill.