Updated:  09 October, 2001

When we consider what effects there are of mass media and try to determine how to study them, we find its easy to make assumptions.  Early social scientists made some pretty basic assumptions about what they were studying. They assumed that all people received and perceived media messages the same way.  But when they started to notice that some people did not react as expected, they had to rethink what they were doing.  What were they studying? What exactly was communication anyway?  What was the process? 

Meyer and Anderson address this issue in their chapter on The Nature of Science.  We're going to cover the basics here.

Basic Requirements of Communication:

1. A base of common experience

2. A system with which to reference that base

3. A relationship which makes that process possible

Let's look at each of these individually.

1.    The Base of Common Experience

That base certainly includes such things as shared culture, shared experiences, and shared language.  That base provides the framework, the structure within which the human mind is able to work to understand ideas and information.

• The human mind has an innate need to organize and information and experience.

• We develop common methods of identification.  (Haven't you asked the question, "That a ____, isn't it?" You want some one else to confirm that your identification of ____ is correct.  Think how you teach a child to speak or learn a new language....It's a process of developing common methods of identifying ideas and items.

In order to understand how this works, you need to understand some key definitions and concepts:

Semiotics: (def) The study of signs; the process of creating and maintaining signs

• semiotics is a method of analysis, understanding

• used to help us understand the messages and texts in our society

Sign:  Something that stands for something else

• words, pictures, textures, odors, etc.

• sign = signifier + signified

  • signifier:  those symbols which make up a sign (images, sounds, etc.) and which stand for something else

  • signified:  the concept or thing represented by the signifier

Text: that which is made up of signs

• could be lots of different things

• printed material such as newspapers, books, billboards, etc.

• visual material such a movies, TV, photographs, paintings, costumes, makeup, lighting, etc.

• aural material such as a speech, song, musical rendition, etc.

2.  The System to Reference the Common Experience : A System of Signification

Having signs is not enough to make it all make sense.  There has to be some sort of system to tie it all together.  

Sign System:  A collection of signs within a system of signification that have a set of rules for governing the relationship among its signs.

• A sign system provides the rules for how a group of signs fit together

• There are lots of examples with which you are familiar:

  • If you've ever gone to a ballet with someone who had taken ballet lessons, you learned pretty quickly that they new the rules of ballet that you might not have known.  They would know if the dancer's leg extension was at the proper angle or 5 degrees too low.

  • Weddings have sign systems as well.  When a certain tune is played, everyone stands and the bride comes down the isle.  We don't expect the groom to show up in athletic shorts and t-shirt, and no, hot dogs and chips aren't exactly appropriate.

  • Football games have sign systems as well.  Whether the jersey is light or dark indicates whether the team is home or away.  Officials have specific hand signals to represent calls.   The lines on the field, the goal posts, score board, numbers, colors and logos on the players' uniforms -- all of these are signs that mean something in that sign system.

  • Television and cinematography have a sign system too.  A cut means a change of perspective, but fade to black means "the end."  Fade in from black means "the beginning" and a dissolve indicates a change of place or time. High pitch and rapid pace in music indicate suspense, but low, slower pitches indicate ominous circumstances.

Semiotic System:  A reality defining system.  Some call this a reality-producing system.  Language is the most important and thorough example here. 

• When a football official calls a penalty, he has just defined reality

• When the WTC disaster happened, we were all watching the television for images and words to help define that reality for us.  But those who actually visited ground zero said that what they saw on television didn't begin to reflect what they saw when they were at the site.

Meaning:  an active process which is negotiated, created and generate.  When we sit in class and I explain something to you, I ask if you understand, and you tell me what you understand and what you don't, and I give you more information, another example...etc.  You have all been in situations where we said something, someone took it the wrong way, and we said, "No! I didn't say that!"....The meaning has to be negotiated.

Some scholars make some basic assumptions about semiotics. I don't agree with all of these, but you should know what they are:

• Man is a symbol-using animal, and that's what makes him different from others  (This one is up for discussion.)

• Signs are arbitrary: There doesn't have to be a relationship between the sign and the thing it represents.

• There are no distinctions in nature unless humans make them.  This position makes language basic, arguing that language is necessary for the recognition, categorization and recording of concepts.  (This one is has some truth to it, but it isn't absolute.  This position originates from a post-modernist world view and that should be considered before this assumption is blindly accepted.)

• Meaning is socially constructed.   Signs are arbitrary, and thus, don't have fixed meaning.  Meaning is determined by the people who use them.  

HOW DOES SIGNIFICATION WORK? 

• It starts with the capability of the human mind to divide the on going flow of experience and information with which we come in contact every second of our lives.  That bombardment of information has to be divided up and and organized in some way in order for us to understanding.  

  • We ask the questions, "Where does this fit?" "With what is this associated?" "How does this affect me?"    

  • In this process we identify the information and name the ideas and concepts.  

  • If we are to understand and get along with each other, we must have COMMON methods of identifying and naming experiences and concepts.  

  • Language is how we do that.

• Signification operates on a sociological scale :  People in cultures agree to use the same signs to name things.

  • The semiotic contract (or agreement to use the same signs) is held on a broad scale-- we're born into it

  • Results in a semiotic community

  • Meaning occurs within a specific time and place within a semiotic community

  • But meaning occurs within individuals 

    • at a specific time

    • in a specific place

    • under specific conditions

• We come to recognize conventions

  • Conventions are all types of signs governed by specific rules which may be spoken or unspoken

  • These could be such things as grammar, etiquette, societal norms, or video conventions (zoom, dissolve, etc.)

  • Conventions come in two types:

    • Formal conventions: These are the ones written down, that everyone understands. ("Ain't got no.." or No dead air in a broadcast)

    • Informal conventions: These may not be codified, but we know about them.  (The lady in white vs. the woman in red...")  There are many more informal conventions than formal ones.  

Example:  Since I haven't used a Star Trek example yet, here goes.  In Next Generation there are couple of episodes where conventions are particularly significant.  In "Enterprise from the Past" viewers know immediately that something is wrong when the lighting on the bridge changes drastically and we see that all the crew people are armed.  In "Future Imperfect" we recognize that Dr. Crusher's hair has changed, Will Riker has gray streaks in his hair. Those things are explained, but Will Riker gets a clue to what really is going on because he picks up on conventions that the Romulans miss.... Frequently smart characters in good plots recognize a ruse or deception because the "bad guys" don't understand the conventions well enough.

• Meaning is a sense-making act, not a delivered commodity (What does that mean?)

  • Meaning is dependent upon signification.  (Why?)

    • Without it, how could we remember?

    • How would we hold on to thoughts or names from time to time?

  • What is meaning?

  • It's not the dictionary definition of something. It's more than that.  How would you define it?

  •     Anderson and Meyer write that the meaning of a word imbeds the sign in a person's on-going experience.  "Your meaning becomes known only in the interaction between us." 

• Words carry multiple meanings:

  • connotative:  those meanings which are implied

  • denotative: those meanings which are concrete and obvious

  REMEMBER: Signification Frees Us From the Here and Now 

  What does this mean?

  • Why do you have a high school year book?

  • Why do you want notes for this class?

  • Do you have a scrapbook?

  • Do you keep a photo album?

  All of these things use signs and symbols to help you remember the here and now and carry it with you into the future. I have made a habit of taking lots of pictures, and I even record my grandmother every time I visit.  I try to get her to tell me about our family so that information won't be lost when she goes on to the Lord.  She has journals which were made by her grandfather, my great-great grandfather James Robinson, who began them when he was 16 years old, shortly after the Civil War....There are scribbles in it made by my great-grandmother when she was five.....record of the day my grandmother was born.

  Without signification, we could not have civilization....And it's not just signs that are important for the development of a civilized culture, it's the type of signs a civilization develops.  Why?  Because a sign's meaning is locked into the conditions of its' presentation (For those of you who have had 310, remember Postman?).  

  TYPES OF SIGNS: 

  ICON:  Resembles the actual object

  • onomatopoeia makes language iconic

  • "Flight of the Bumble Bee" is iconic because the music sounds like a bee buzzing

  • A graphic representation of a manor woman on a restroom door is an icon

  INDEX: A sign which implies its meaning

  • smoke means fire

  • siren or flashing light means emergency

  • symptom means disease

  SYMBOL: Bears no relations to the object or concept it represents

  • Most words are symbols and are arbitrary

  • Green means "go"

  • Symbol must be learned, unlike icon or index which can be figured out

  Think about people trying to communicate when they don't know a language-- They use sign language, draw pictures.  They use icons and indexes when they can't use symbols.

Codes:  Systems which link signs together in a way which reflects  the specific ways a culture or community interprets its values. 

Example:  Consider a news story about banning a particular book from an elementary school library. There are two spokes persons.

• One is a Peter Jennings look-a-like (well-dressed, well-spoken, handsome)

• The other is overweight, dumpy, in jeans that hang under a big belly and a too short t-shirt. This person needs a shave, a haircut and doesn't use good English.

Viewers will look at the codes communicated by each of these individuals and draw very specific conclusions about their credibility and merit of each man's argument.  It's likely that no matter what argument the second man makes, he will have little credibility because the non-verbal, visual codes he communicates undercuts his message.

Codes serve two functions:

1.    They help us see the view of a society a person has.  (If I go to a meeting with President Potts, but I'm dressed in jeans and an old t-shirt and I haven't brushed my hair, I am showing the degree of respect I hold for him or for his office.  That's why some people are concerned about casual dress in church; they believe it shows a lack of respect for God and the worship service.)

2.    They simultaneously help determine what that view will be. (By looking at what I'm wearing, the participants in a meeting can tell what my view of them, the meeting and myself is.  We all know that we feel "better" when we know we're wearing something that looks good on us....Or we might feel really irritated if we have a bad hair day or huge breakout on our chin.)

The languages we use doesn't come to us free of value or ideology.

• It reflects our culture

• We have specialized language to do that...(grease monkey vs. mechanic; quack vs. sawbones vs. doctor vs. physician vs. surgeon; cop vs. fuzz vs. police officer vs. the law, etc.) 

There are all types of codes:

• language

• interpersonal

• public speaking

• literal 

• media

• musical 

• color

Factors that influence meaning:

• Connotation: 

  • sign + emotion of the user 

  • sign + values of culture

• Metaphor: a figure or speech or other symbol that associates one thing with another. ("A house divided against itself...")

• Values: Those things which the society believes is important

• Ideology: The underlying world view of the culture; this is the final goal or product of deconstructive criticism

• Myth: The stories used to transmit these values and ideology; each culture has its own.

3.   A relationship which makes that process possible

The relationship formed is very important to the success of communication:

• Communication is a "two-way" street

  • Must understand what's going on

  • People have to agree to participate

  • They try to find common meaning

  • They have to understand what's going on in the context of that common meaning

A VALID ACT OF COMMUNICATION IS TO MUTUALLY ESTABLISH A COMMON MEANING!

• Intent to Communicate:  establish relationship; communicates (those participating in the relationship) are identified.  Does it have to be verbal communication?

• Means of Accomplishment:  That may be speech, written work, visual information, music, etc. It is important to note that many of the ways we communicate are out of our control.  We don't get to determine the forms that are used, because they are determined by the society.

• Mutual Accomplishment: Does the audience "get it?"  Remember, that just because you present a message, that doesn't mean the audience will understand it.

• Sensible Performance: We know what's going on because of where we are and what we're doing. If you paint your face purple and gold and go to  UNA championship game, that's one thing.  If you show up in class looking like that, we're all going to interpret it differently.  It's one thing to wear a swimsuit at the beach, but entirely different to wear it to class in the dead of winter. Think of some other examples....

  • That context is creates what is called an interpretive frame.  

  • We see and understand everything through that frame, so it highly impacts the way we perceive any message

  • Mediated communication is also affected by context and interpretive frame.  Watching Independence Day in 2000, is one thing, but watching it after September 11th, 2001, is very different. The context and the interpretive frame has changed.  Now it is no longer just a sci fi movie with awesome special effects.....We've seen something very real that looked a lot like that, and it's not just entertainment any more.

  Meyer and Anderson spend considerable time in their first chapter discussion how we interpret messages and then derive meaning from them.

  THE INTERPRETIVE PROCESS OF MEANING

  A semantic frame is formed by the interactions of the people communicating, the context, the content of the communication.  This interaction processes is called a performance because the people involved are actively doing something to understand and interpret meaning.

  Meanings are not delivered but are constructed within a semantic frame in which the content appears and is a part.

  Now what does that mean?  (Take some time before you go on to write out in your own words what you think it DOES mean?)

  Let's look at this process and the components of it:

   

• Communicants:  These are the people or organizations communicating.

  • They exist in a relationship

  • That relationship includes the people, their background, their culture, their experiences and their similarities

Let's look at another Star Trek  example.  Those of us who watched the premier of Enterprise and have watched Star Trek for years have a deeper relationship with the program from the very start.  Some of us have watched four previous series and seven movies...That's a lot of history.  We know the characters, the plots, the technology, and now with this new series, we're going to learn the back story.  But in order to appreciate the back story AS back story, you have to know what came later.  We do.  So you see, our enjoyment and understanding of the show will be deeper than someone who just tuned in to see their very first Star Trek episode ever.

• Content: This is really important to those of us in media.  We make content! We distribute content! But Meyer and Anderson point out meaning is limited by content. 

What does that mean?  (Be sure you can address that issue.)

• It means that there may be lots of interpretations available from a particular text, but there are even more things it can't mean.

• If I say "The car is blue," we don't know what model or year of car it is, we don't know what shade of blue it is, we don't know what options it has, or even if it will run. Those things must be interpreted.  But there are even more things that can't be interpreted from that statement:  It's not a truck, a battleship or a tinker toy; it's not red, purple or black; it's not a cow; it's not a liquid; it's not hungry; etc......

• Analysts must be careful to identify ALL of the content;

  • that's fairly easy with the written word

  • it's more difficult with non-verbal elements like attitude, emotion, self-worth, color, etc.

  • in mass media there are technical elements which have to be analyzed as well. 

• The Performance: This is an essential element of the text.  If this doesn't work, the rest won't.

• The Context:  The cultural and specific circumstances in which the text is communicated.

  • Original Trek was presented at a time when humans had not yet set foot on the moon; it was hopeful, encouraging and unlike previous representations of the future, it was very positive. In the context of the cold war, it was refreshing to watch a show which gave us a future to which we could look forward, one in which we didn't blow ourselves up.  The show was cutting edge, and serious, despite budget limitations.

  • Each new ST series reflected the context and cultural ideals of the decade in which it was created, and examinations of individual episodes illustrate specific differences.  For example in the first series, a women was not allowed to have a command position because it was feared audiences "wouldn't buy it."  But by 1993, Voyager's  captain was a very able woman, Kathryn Janeway.  So the cultural and institutional contexts had changed.

Remember,

Signification: (Def ) "a cognitive act involving the creation of a concept transcending experience and referencing that concept with a sign." (Meyer and Anderson)

Meaning: (Def) "The product of interpretive performances by which the sign(s) are made sensible in some ongoing action."  The meaning of the message is the creation of the interpreter who can create it because he/she had had lots of practice in making sense of signs of the past.

Sensemaking: (def) "Is a performance that involves a directed and connected series of acts...."

• It is NOT automatic! (We choose to do it or not to do it. --Did you ever choose not to understand what your mom wanted you to do around the house on that sunny Saturday afternoon?)

• It is historicized.  

  • When the sense-making takes place is very important.

  • It is affected by what's going on around and who is there at the time.

• It is improvisational: 

  • There's room for flexibility of interpretation; it's open to change

  • The power here is with the receiver, not the content

• It empowers the sense-maker:

  • It provides understanding

  • It provides the proper course of action...

The natural attitude is that meaning is pretty much constructed the same way by all who encounter a particular communication.  Our whole educational system is constructed that way.  But if you did the VARK questionnaire, or you've read any of Cynthia Tobias' books (The Way We Work), you know that we all learn in very different ways.  What works for one person, may not work for another.

But that leads to a key question.  If we're all interpreting all of these cultural messages on our own, why isn't their chaos?  How is it that we agree on anything?  There are some good answers to that legitimate question:

• We are all well-practiced.  We've been doing it for our whole lives, and we've learned what works and what doesn't.  If I ask for a Quarter Pounder, and someone hands me a Fillet-O-Fish, I let them know right away that's not what I wanted.  We do that same sort of thing with all of our communication.

• We are well supervised.  Our culture and its socializing agents make sure we get it right.  When you're two and you think it's funny to call that chair a "shmoo," your mom, your older brother, your grammy and the kid next door ALL point out that you're wrong!  It's not a shmoo, it's a chair!  And they'll keep after you until you get it "right"!   In a sense, that's what we're doing in this process.  I'm sharing information with you and keeping after you until you get it right......

• Some texts are more closed than open, and so we're more likely to draw the same meaning from them.

But what about those texts that are more open than closed?   We continue to process them as long as we live. It's a process of defining and refining our understanding of the concepts they hold.  

Example:  

• The sentence, "Pass the salt." is a pretty closed text.

• On the other hand, the movie, Age of Innocence, is all about the misunderstanding of societal conventions in social texts such as dress, manners, and conversation.  (It's a great movie with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis)

  Extra Credit Option:  5 points extra credit if you watch it and write two pages on the film's focus on semiotics.

As we consider all of these processes, certain characteristics about meaning become apparent:

• Meanings are EMERGENT: We continue to define and refine them as we live.  That only makes good sense.  We would hope that we would learn something as we add decades to our lives.  Anderson and Meyer put it this way, "meaning doesn't end with our first understanding...."

  • Meanings emerge after they are initially produced.  (Ever have someone say something to you, but you don't catch their real meaning until very later?)

  • So with regard to communication, the question becomes

    • when did it begin?

    • when did it end?

    • with mediated communication (communication we receive through various media such as TV, Film, music, etc.) this is very important

      • Does my Star Trek viewing experience begin or end with the beginning or ending of a specific episode? Is my viewing experience of Enterprise limited to the 60 minute period the show is on the air, or did it actually begin in 1966 when I watch that first episode?

      • Years ago I took a car load of elementary school boys to see the movie Cool Runnings.  One of the characters, who was bald, was called Yul Brenner.  I understood the humor in that, but the boys had no idea of who the real Yul Brenner was.  So did I begin to experience Cool Runnings when I was 10 and saw The King and I  for the very first time?

• Meanings are PROLIFIC: (or we are prolific at making them

  • Every time we communicate an idea or concept, we add meanings to them

  • But that also means that we can CHOOSE not to add meanings, or to avoid new meanings....

    • "Hi, how are you?" "Fine...."  It doesn't mean we really are, and doesn't mean the other person really cares...We opt out.

    • The choice and the difference is why prolificacy of meaning is important

• Meanings are Available to Everyone: 

  • Meanings may be available to all, but not every meaning is available to every person

  • Because we are different, be may not 'pick up' on some available meanings

  • Meanings are result of our own individual experience and perspective

  • Since we can't have another person's perspective, our meaning will be somewhat different than each other person's.

Another useful to examine communication and meaning is to compare the characteristics of conversation and the characteristics of mediated communication.

The characteristics of conversation:

• Intentional production: you know what you're doing and you mean to do it all

• Referenced reception: the listener has to invest something...attention, cortical energy, something, to interpret and reference all we know about language, cultural information,  etc. -- in order to understand and participate.

• Mutual participation:  agree to participate, understand event and share meanings:

  • To what degree do we decide to participate?

    • A little?

    • A moderate amount?

    • A whole lot?

    Think of some examples you can use here....

• Reciprocal supervision of interpretation

  • The parties involved in the communication participate in what's going on

  • That is an important skill in good communication

  • Sometimes we even get a third person to mediate or supervise if we're having trouble doing managing the communication

The characteristics of mediated communication:

• Separation systems of production and reception

  • Nothing the receivers do impacts the production of the mediated communication they receive; they don't have impact on the production of the text itself

• There is no system of mutual participation

  • Viewers don't have any production responsibilities

  • They can't discuss meaning with the creators of the show (unless there's an active chat set up on the web site)

  • There are no expectations that viewers will understand the show at a certain level of expertise; viewers may not even pay attention; they might not even watch the show

• No matter what meanings the audience constructs, the communication will go on as planned. 

So Meyer and Anderson say that media may deliver a commodity, but they can't deliver meaning.

• Media deliver the content, but the meaning is constructed by the audience (not the program).

• If meaning is negotiated, but audiences can't "negotiate" with the creators of the text, then the content alone cannot deliver the meaning.

• Therefore, the receiver will determine meaning within the cultural context of the content, situation and personal experience.

It is for that reason that Meyer and Anderson believe accommodation theory is so important:

• Accommodation theory incorporates study of context and situation as well as personal experience to the assessment of media effects.  It looks at how we use media, how it changes us, how we deal with it, etc.

• Accommodation effects have specific characteristics

  • Meanings are imbedded: They may be there for everyone to see, but they are also embedded into the cultural, social, and contextual situations.  Meaning is an action which results from another action.

  • Meanings are emergent: We get different meanings from the same text, as we examine them different times. (Think about the book, Alice in Wonderland.  When you read it as a child, you derived one meaning. When you read it again when you're older, you get additional and deeper meaning.  And even as we think about a film or book after we've enjoyed it, we may get additional meanings the longer we contemplate it.

  • Prolificacy: Meanings come back again and again.  We refer back to it and it generates new thought, new meaning.

Meanings is not delivered in the communication process, rather it is constructed within the process. There are three potentially different sites of meaning construction:

• the producer

• in the conventions of the content

• interpretations of the receiver

Content is not synonymous with meaning: it is the raw material from which meaning comes.

• immediate meanings: the ones you get right away

• emergent meanings: the ones which come later

Mediated communication is even more complicated, because there is more complex interaction.  Not only do we interact with the text, but there is the process of USING it.  We have to read, watch television, listen to music,  and we have to do those things in the context of daily life which can be distracting, frustrating or exhausting.  The meanings of mediated texts become embedded in those daily activities....

• I turn on Today in the morning to

  • hear the first news of the day

  • find out what to wear

  • help me wake up

  • find out about news story I heard the day before

  • because I like Matt and Katie

  • etc.

• I come home and watch Oprah because I'm tired, I like her...

How I derive meaning from those programs will be determined by how relaxed I am, how tired I am, how much I care about the topics discussed, what else is going on (did the dryer buzzer go off, the cats knock something off a table, or some one's hollering "Mom!")

Copyright, 2001

Dr. Janet McMullen

jmcmulle@unanov.una.edu