COMN 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Semiotics, Post-Structuralism, Discourse Analysis

• School: York University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMN 1000
• Professor: George Georgopoulos

Document Summary

This chapter examines a number of different theories and perspectives on media content. The study of the creation and interpretation of media content is the study of representation, or, as the semioticians would classify it, signification. Such study examines how symbols, such as the words and ideas contained in language, are constructed and used to interpret the world of objects, events, persons, and representation in general. The study of representation involves understanding the nature of polysemy, intertextuality, and grounded indeterminate systems. Several approaches to media content are considered in the chapter: literary criticism; structuralism, semiotics, and post-structuralism; discourse analysis; critical political economy; content analysis; and genre/media form analysis. Each has particular strengths and focuses upon various forces playing on content. The media are an integral element of our society, bound through the interpenetration of media content and lived reality.