SLIDE 1IS146 - Spring 2005 Signs and Sign Systems Prof. Marc Davis & Prof. Peter Lyman UC Berkeley SIMS Tuesday and Thursday 2:00 pm – 3:30 pm Spring 2005 IS146: Foundations of New Media

SLIDE 2IS146 - Spring 2005 Lecture Overview Last Time: Semiology & Representation Today: Representation and Culture Next Time: Ethnography and Design

SLIDE 3IS146 - Spring 2005 Today’s Themes Reprise of Tuesday’s Class Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture” How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

SLIDE 4IS146 - Spring 2005 Today’s Themes Reprise of Tuesday’s Class Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture” How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

SLIDE 5IS146 - Spring 2005 Michael Reddy Reading Questions What is the “Conduit Metaphor”?

SLIDE 6IS146 - Spring 2005 Michael Reddy Reading Questions What is the Toolmakers Paradigm?

SLIDE 7IS146 - Spring 2005 Michael Reddy Reading Questions How are the Conduit Metaphor and the Toolmakers Paradigm different in their models of communication? What implications do the different models have for how we analyze and design New Media?

SLIDE 8IS146 - Spring 2005 What are the signifier, the signified, and the sign? What are the similarities and differences between linguistic signs and visual signs? John Fiske Reading Questions Signified Signifier “dog” dog

SLIDE 9IS146 - Spring 2005 Sign, Signified, Signifier –The linguistic sign is the unity of the signifier (a sound-image) and the signified (a concept) SaussureLinguistic Sign Concept Sound-Image

SLIDE 10IS146 - Spring 2005 The Linguistic Sign “dog” dog

SLIDE 11IS146 - Spring 2005 The Visual Sign “dog”

SLIDE 12IS146 - Spring 2005 The Visual Sign “dog”

SLIDE 13IS146 - Spring 2005 Arbitrariness of the Video Sign Theories of video denotation –Iconic (i.e., onomatopoetic) Video is a mechanical replication of what it represents –Arbitrary Video constructs an arbitrary relationship between signifier and signified –Motivated The relationship between the signifier and signified is motivated, but by what? –A “natural” analogy between video and the world? –By the conventions of cinematic language?

SLIDE 14IS146 - Spring 2005 John Fiske Reading Questions Paradigmatic Axis Syntagmatic Axis A C’’ C’ BCDE C’’’ What are the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes and how do they differ? How do they relate to New Media production and reception?

SLIDE 15IS146 - Spring 2005 Video Example

SLIDE 16IS146 - Spring 2005 Today’s Themes Reprise of Tuesday’s Class Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture” How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

SLIDE 17IS146 - Spring 2005 Three Theories of Meaning Reflective theory –Language reflects meanings which are already out there in the world of objects, people, and events Intentional theory –Language expresses actors’ personally intended meanings Constructivist theory –Meanings are constructed by social actors using shared symbolic practices and processes

SLIDE 18IS146 - Spring 2005 Culture and Communication Cultural analysis does not analyze communication starting with individuals trying to send and receive information, but looks at practices of representation –By practices of representation people use languages (signs and images) to produce and exchange meaning between members of a culture –Practices of representations include “shared meanings or shared conceptual maps” and “common language systems”

SLIDE 19IS146 - Spring 2005 Meaning and Representation How do different cultures classify the world (or develop differently conceptual models)? –Inuit words about snow and snowy weather –The language of traffic lights Do people in this room know expert languages/conceptual models that other people here are unlikely to know (or need)?

SLIDE 20IS146 - Spring 2005 Goffman’s Example Goffman describes communication as collaborative participation in dramaturgy –A kind of an improvisation drama, in which we have a sense of who people are, what their words mean, what their gestures mean –But words and nonverbal gestures are tools, which we validate (or not) through feedback (positive or negative) –Dramaturgy is the work of drama - roles, scenes, scripts

SLIDE 21IS146 - Spring 2005 Today’s Themes Reprise of Tuesday’s Class Culture: “Representation connects meaning and language to culture” How can semiology be applied to interpreting video and visual communications?

SLIDE 22IS146 - Spring 2005 Barthes: Two Orders of Signification The sign of language (first order of signification) becomes the signifier of myth (second order of signification)

SLIDE 23IS146 - Spring 2005 Myth as Second-Order Semiological System

SLIDE 24IS146 - Spring 2005 Roland Barthes and Myth

SLIDE 25IS146 - Spring 2005 Barthes: Two Orders of Signification First Order –Denotation Sign (i.e., the image of a car as a machine for transportation) Second Order –Connotation Cultural meanings (i.e., connotations of freedom, virility, security, etc.) –Myth System of cultural meanings (i.e., symbol of military-industrial consumer culture, the War on Terror, etc.)

SLIDE 26IS146 - Spring 2005 Foucault on Discourse Discourse combines what one says (language) and what one does (practice), but: –Conceptual systems are always produced, limiting what can be said or thought –Discourse prescribes certain ways of thinking, talking, and acting –Knowledge is put to work to regulate the conduct of others, especially their bodies Can anyone identify an example of discourse that limits talking, thinking, or acting in certain ways?

SLIDE 27IS146 - Spring 2005 Foucault on Power Locating production of knowledge within contextualization of historical relations of discourse, not in language –Example: sexuality the product of the history of sexual discourse (confessions, etc). Note current debate about Lincoln’s being gay –Example: punishment as the product of the history of the body as object of power –Example: systems of classification are product of discourse and construct hegemony

SLIDE 28IS146 - Spring 2005 iPod Print Ad

SLIDE 29IS146 - Spring 2005 iPod Billboard Ad

SLIDE 30IS146 - Spring 2005 Comedy Central’s “Redneck Weekend” Ad

SLIDE 31IS146 - Spring 2005 iPod Parody Ad: iPoop

SLIDE 32IS146 - Spring 2005 iPod Parody Ad: iGod

SLIDE 33IS146 - Spring 2005 iPod Parody Ad: iRaq

SLIDE 34IS146 - Spring 2005 Culture Jamming: iPod and iRaq Ads

SLIDE 35IS146 - Spring 2005 Ella Vivirito on Stuart Hall Stuart Hall discusses different ways of describing how meaning is formed through language and their connection to culture. Saussure takes a scientific approach, mapping the interactions between langue (the language system) and parole (the acts of speech, writing). The semiotic approach 'reads' meaning communicated within language. Barthes looks at particular texts, reading cultural meaning from visual representations such as artwork and ads. –Who or what are the most proactive agents of meaning production (words, combinations of words, advertisements/ pop culture, nationalisms, humans, etc.)? (i.e. Who produces 'truth'?) –Is language itself neutral? Is it merely a tool to be used by particular people in power?

SLIDE 36IS146 - Spring 2005 Ella Vivirito on Suart Hall Foucault takes a historical approach, contextualizing how language has been used as a tool by particular, powerful people at particular times; he describes this as discursive formation. How is discursive formation different from power?

SLIDE 37IS146 - Spring 2005 Ella Vivirito on Stuart Hall Foucault also discusses how the issue of the subject-- that what is being talked about must "submit to the dispositions of power/knowledge." Yet what representation may be about "is as much constructed around what you can't see as what you can." –In this perspective, how much agency does the subject have? –What, then, does knowledge tell us?

SLIDE 38IS146 - Spring 2005 Nick Reid on Stuart Hall While I was reading the section about Foucault and “discourse”, I found my self asking one question, “what is discourse?” and then I found my self qualifying the hell out of it. What counts as discourse? In verbal communication? Talking? Disabled Parties? In literary communication? Newspapers? Blogs? In visual communication? Paintings? Photographs? Movies? One situation that I thought of that I am still debating about is, if two people are video conferencing with one another, and neither say or do anything, except they both observe each other, is this “discourse”?

SLIDE 39IS146 - Spring 2005 Nick Reid on Stuart Hall How much does the medium in which communication is taking place affect the social codes, and the language used in that medium? I am especially interested in written languages where one does not have any context than the communicative signal (written word (not being able to smile over the telephone)).

SLIDE 40IS146 - Spring 2005 Readings for Next Time Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995, p –Discussion Questions Margaret Innocent Michael Quinn Patton. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods, London: Sage Publications Ltd, 2001, p –Discussion Questions Nisha Shah Robert Stuart Weiss. Learning from Strangers: The Art and Method of Qualitative Interview Studies, Free Press, 1995, p –Discussion Questions Claire Mittelman Tim Plowman. Ethnography and Critical Design Practice. In: Design Research: Methods and Perspectives, edited by Brenda Laurel, Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003, p –Discussion Questions Juia Unger

SLIDE 41IS146 - Spring 2005 Reading Questions Emerson –How to observe others as an ethnographer? The goal is to understand the others’ indigenous culture, which means how to they see the signs (sounds/concepts) that are important to them, and how do they establish common understandings? Patton –When you’re interviewing someone, how do you ask a question that makes sense to other people? Weiss –How does an interviewer help their subject to tell a story that makes sense? Plowman –How is it that ethnographic research results in better designed products and systems?