PSY427H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Consumerism, Media Literacy, Oligopoly
Document Summary
Psy427 chapter 2: media literacy in the digital age. The importance of media in contemporary society makes it imperative that audience members think critically about media content to better control their actions and not be controlled by media messages. Semiotics: the study of signs and symbols. Context plays a major role in the audience"s understanding of the signified, even when the signifier remains the same. In semiotics, sign does not simply refer to visual images but to words as well. Words could be considered a more complex form of sign. Once we learn what certain sounds mean (or what certain visual images mean), we take what we have learned as natural and accept it largely without question. Some scholars argue that semiotics is the heart of communication. Without a common understanding of what signs mean, whether they are visual or lingual, we would not be able to communicate.
