KCB101: Week 2, 2013

Dr Stephen Harrington

Housekeeping

•Blackboard "Collaborate" tutorials, Wednesdays, 9-10:30am. Starting tomorrow.

•Assessment details and CRA sheet now available online.

Communication and/as Culture

•"Communication as the production and exchange of meanings" (Fiske, 1990: 2).

•The 'Semiotic' approach

'Semiotics'•Understanding and analysing communication through the use of signs.

• “A sign can be thought of as the smallest unit of communication within a language system. It can be a word, a photograph, a sound, an image on a screen, a musical note, a gesture, an item of clothing. To be a sign it must have a physical form, it must refer to something other than itself, and it must be recognised as doing this by other users of the sign system.” (Turner 1990: p.17)

• It “is anything that stands for something else in the production of meaning.” (Hartley, 2011: p.233)

Exercise 1

•Think about the signs you are displaying right now...

•Write a list!

•Share your list with the other people in your group.

Exercise 2

•Think about the signs displayed by the following people....

•What are they communicating?

•What meaning do you take away from each one?

THIS GUY!!!!