DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca Representation: Meanings and Symbols Digital Culture and Sociology

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca Representation and meaning, mostly following Stuart Hall Symbols, by Johan Fornäs + Storying Cyberspace, by David Bell about today break part 1 part 2

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca how all texts work together... HALL frame FORNÄS in-depth discussion BELL applied theory Representation Codes Systems Symbols Semiotics Examples Communication+ exercises

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca representation Definition: it is the production of meaning through language Properties: * it connects meaning and language to culture * it allows us to refer to the world Requirements: * systems of representation (“conceptual maps” that we share with others) * shared language for exchages a process

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca what it this? sign Not exactly real, right? 2-dimensional, stylized... Visual signs, even if close resemblance, need to be interpreted. Even more difficult with spoken language: SHEEP, FÅR

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca codes Set up the correlation between our conceptual system and our language system Meaning not in things but result of this practice Cultural agreement Children learn it and become cultural subjects Certain cultural relativism (ex. snow)

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca theories of representation 1.Reflective. Meaning lies in the real world and language is a mirror. Mimesis. (what about fiction?) 2.Intentional. Speaker imposes meaning through language. (all private?) 3.Constructionist. Things don’t mean, we construct meaning through representational systems. (Hall, Fornäs, Bell)

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca a representational system: traffic -Colours’ meaning is arbitrary -Sequence and position also important - Meaning is relational: “depends on the relation between a sign and a concept, which is fixed by a code”

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca saussure  Language is a system of signs Signifier: form Signified: concept sign related points: -union signifier-signified not fixed (i.e. Black) -importance of sign relations -language has two parts: langue and parole -problems: no pragmatics, too formal, not about how we construct relationship

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca from linguistics to semiotics Mythologies, Barthes. Ex. “The World of Wrestling”, what does it mean? From signifier to signified to myth Lévi-Strauss. Primitive people in Brazil. What messages do their practices tell about their culture? Foucault: Discourse as larger units than texts, (i.e. Sexuality). Appear historically and change. Power, the Body. Subject as produced within discourse.

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca what does this mean? Advert for laptops: -Signifier -Signified -Myth (cultural themes) -Power structures -The Subject / Identity?

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca

symbols Symbolic communication as the core of culture (and therefore cultural studies) Offers a detailed academic discussion of the term culture. A prefered one: “Culture is the aspect of human interaction that concerns how meaning is created by the use of symbols, involving various modes of style production and communicative action”. (135) Johan Fornäs

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca symbol aspects 1.Materiality 2.Form-relations, system, structure 3.Meaning, references to some external phenomena or other cultural phenomena 4.Pragmatics, symbols in use. Johan Fornäs

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca culture dimensions 1.Psychological. Individual minds and senses 2.Social. Communication between groups and societies 3.Objective. Material objects They are all joint together by a shared symbolic order. Johan Fornäs

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca main points He explores the concept of communication and its relation to culture Why are media such an important object of study for us + how they deal with communication An examination of the idea of popular culture Differences between text, work and discourse “All cultural work is embedded in discourse, but individual work or signifying practices may be more or less (explicitly) discursive.” (154) Johan Fornäs

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca framing the chapter He looks at representation: stories we tell about cyberspace What do these stories mean? Barlovian cyberspace: “a way of naming and describing the ways we experience computers and the Internet, in recognition that our experiences sit at the intersection of material and symbolic understandings”. (28) David Bell

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca cyberspace stories Material (Computer, Internet, VR, political economy, social characteristics of cyberspace) Symbolic (cyberpunk, pop culture / mainstream) It is interesting how the stories blend together and the themes can concur, we will make an experiment in our exercise. David Bell

DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca complementary bibliography  BARTHES, R The Elements of Semiology. London: Cape.  BARTHES, R Mythologies. London: Cape.  FOUCAULT, M The Archaeology of Knowledge. London, Tavistock.  FOUCAULT, M Power/Knowledge. Brighton: Harvester.  HALL, S. (ed) Representation. Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. London: Sage.  SAUSSURE, F Course in General Linguistics. London: Peter Owen. Note: The David Bell text has its own bibliography and URL recommendations in the last page, the Fornäs text examines a great amount of theorists as you can see in the notes, please approach me if you need precise information about any of them.