Understanding Media Semiotics

Media semiotics is a valuable method of focusing on the hidden meanings within media texts. This book offers students an in-depth guide to help them investigate and understand the media using semiotic theory. It assumes little previous knowledge of the field, avoiding jargon and explaining the issues step by step. The two basic features of the methods used are the historical study of media and their genre and the analysis of the meaning structures that such genres encode. Semiotic analysis is sometimes seen as complicated and difficult to understand; Marcel Danesi shows that on the contrary it can be readily understood and can greatly enrich students' understanding of media texts, from print media right through to the internet.

About the Author :
Marcel Danesi is Professor Emeritus of Semiotics and Linguistic Anthropology at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Review :
...students will find much to consider in this book and will find much useful information. The aim of the book is not so much to advance the cause of semiotic theory, however, as to provide the most fundamental level of understanding needed to be able to appreciate the cultural context in which media signs are encountered. Thus the section on television, for example, begins with a short introduction to the history of the medium which extends back to John Logie Baird. This book provides a comprehensive basic framework with which to understand semiotics: the study of signs and their uses in representation. It flows well and is written at the introductory level. The author proceeds from a historical perspective to modern application of semiotic theory in subjects such as ebooks, the Internet, and media convergence. Designed as a text, the book uses italics and bolding to highlight important points within each chapter and also includes a glossary as well as tables and figures where appropriate to enhance understanding. The paradox of mediation is perhaps the underlying theme for the book: "The same culture that is capable of producing a work of inestimable cinematic art, such as Amadeus, is also capable of producing American TV wrestling matches ...," (p. 201). Danesi introduces media and their historical development, while inseparably tying media to culture. Interestingly, the author does not use the term culture; instead he refers to "signifying order so as to highlight the fact that it constitutes a network of meaning structures," (p. 26). In short, Danesi takes the reader far beyond the Shannon and Weaver model of communication into a deeper understanding of meaning and attempts to improve the reader's linear as well as critical thinking skills. Danesi covers primary ideas and techniques of semiotic method and analysis, including signs, symbols, indexes, icons, referents, codes, texts, narratives, myth, metaphor, and the like. He expresses that wellknown semioticians such as Barthes and Baudrillard "have unintentionally 'politicized' semiotics far too much, rendering it little more than a convenient tool of social critics," (p. 33). This book, then, would seem to be the author's attempt to depoliticize semiotics. As such, he clearly attempts to explain the study, rather than offer his opinion. Danesi discusses semiotics in various media: print, audio, film, television, and computer, as well as the genre of advertising. Examples are primarily from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s which may or may not be relevant to traditional college students. The final chapter offers the author's personal reflection on the intertwined nature of media and culture. At just over 200 pages in paperback, Understanding Media Semiotics is an ideal introductory text.