Media semiotics : an introduction / Jonathan Bignell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bignell, Jonathan.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Mass media--Semiotics.

Mass media.

Physical Description:

xiv, 241 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Manchester ; New York : Manchester University Press ; New York : Distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave, 2002.

Summary:

Media Semiotics is a lucid investigation of the critical approach in contemporary media studies. Using examples such as Big Brother and Billy Elliot, Jonathan Bignell steps easily from basic concepts to more complex theories, while devoting chapters to specific media forms. New material in this second edition includes sections on men's style magazines, docusoaps and 'reality TV', digital interactive television, and mobile phone text messaging. This study begins by explaining the concept of the sign and the ideological roles of media in contemporary culture. The book then scrutinises advertisements, glossy magazines, daily newspapers, TV programmes, recent films and interactive media, with each chapter containing close analyses of particular examples. Key strands in critical theory which are allied to semiotics, such as ideology and psychoanalytic theory are explored. Media semiotics moves on to discuss the challenges to established semiotic methods posed by audience studies and postmodernism, and considers 'new media', including computer games, the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Contents:

1 Signs and myths 5

The Semiotic Point of View 5

Sign Systems 8

Components of the Sign 11

Sequences of Linguistic Signs 13

Visual Signs 14

Connotation and Myth 16

Mythologies of Wrestling 17

Myth and Social Meanings 20

Myth and Ideology 24

2 Advertisements 28

The Advertising Business 29

Analysing Advertising 30

The Semiotic Critique of Ads 32

Ideology in Ads 34

The Ideology of Ads 36

Problems in the Ideological Analysis of Ads 37

Volkswagen Golf Estate 39

The VW Golf Estate Ad's Contexts and Readers 43

Wonderbra 46

The Wonderbra Ad's Contexts and Readers 50

3 Magazines 55

The Magazine Business 56

Myths of Gender Identity 59

The Reading Subject 63

Address and Identity 66

Masculine and Feminine 'Worlds' 71

The Limits of the Imaginary 75

4 Newspapers 79

The Newspaper Business 80

News Value 82

News Discourse 88

Headlines and Graphics 92

Photographs in the News 94

Newspaper Readers 99

5 Television news 105

News in the Television Schedule 106

Defining Television News 110

Mythic Meanings in Television News 112

The Structure of Television News 116

Myth and Ideology in Television News 121

Making Sense of Television news 124

Global News 126

6 Television realisms 131

Contexts of Non-Fiction Television 133

Codes of Television Realism 136

Television and Society 139

Dramatising the Real 144

Viewer Involvement 148

7 Television fictions 155

Audiences for Television Fiction 156

Codes of Television Fiction 158

Fiction and Ideology 161

Postmodernism and Television 168

Television Audiences 172

8 Cinema 179

The Film Business 180

Cinema Spectatorship 183

The Gendered Spectator 186

Film Signs and Codes 190

Film Narrative 195

Film Genre 199

Cinema Audiences 202

9 Interactive media 207

Mobile Communications 207

Interactive Television 211

Computer Games 216

The Internet and World Wide Web 219.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [228]-237) and index.

ISBN:

0719062055

OCLC:

48943879