INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDIES
INTRODUCTION TOCOMMUNICATIONSTUDIESSecond editionJohn Fiske
First published in 1982 byMethuen & Co. LtdSecond edition published 1990by Routledge11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis GroupThis edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002. 1990 John FiskeAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced orutilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, nowknown or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in anyinformation storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe publishers.British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataFiske, JohnIntroduction to communication studies.—2nd ed—(Studies in culture and communication)1. Man. CommunicationI. Title II. Series001.51Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication DataFiske, JohnIntroduction to communication studies/John Fiske.—New ed.p. cm.—(Studies in culture and communication)Includes bibliographical references.I. Communication. 2. Semiotics. I. Title. II. Series,P90.F58 1990302.2–dc20 89–24187ISBN 0-203-13431-1 Master e-book ISBNISBN 0-203-17746-0 (Adobe eReader Format)ISBN 0-415-04672-6 (pbk) 2nd edition
To NATASHAfor everythingTo MATTHEW AND LUCYfor keeping quiet (well fairly)during the cold wet summer of 1980
CONTENTSList of platesAcknowledgementsGeneral editor’s prefaceAuthor’s noteINTRODUCTION WHAT IS COMMUNICATION?xxixiiixv11COMMUNICATION THEORYOriginsShannon and Weaver’s model (1949)Redundancy and entropyChannel, medium, codeFeedbackSuggestions for further work666101721222OTHER MODELSGerbner’s model (1956)Lasswell’s model (1948)Newcomb’s model (1953)Westley and MacLean’s model (1957)Jakobson’s model (1960)Models and modellingSuggestions for further work24243031323537383COMMUNICATION, MEANING, AND SIGNSSemiotics3940vii
CONTE NTSSigns and meaningCategories of signsConventionThe organization of signsSuggestions for further work41465356604CODESCodes: basic conceptsAnalogue and digital codesPresentational codesNon-verbal communicationElaborated and restricted codesBroadcast and narrowcast codesCodes and commonalityConvention and useArbitrary codes (or logical codes)Aesthetic codesSuggestions for further s for further work85858687919295986SEMIOTIC METHODS AND APPLICATIONS‘A Grief Ago’: poetic metaphorPasta: visual metaphorNotting Hill: realistic metonymSuggestions for further work1011011031041147STRUCTURALIST THEORY AND APPLICATIONSCategorization and binary oppositionsAnomalous categoriesStructured repetitionBoundary ritualsNature and cultureThe structure of mythThe structure of mass cultureApplication 1: ‘The Searchers’115116118118119121122124125viii
CONTENTSApplication 2: the ‘Weekly World News’Myth and social valuesSuggestions for further work1281321348EMPIRICAL METHODSEmpiricismContent analysisContent analysis and cultural valuesSemantic differentialUses and gratifications theoryAudience ethnographiesSuggestions for further work1351351361441451511561629IDEOLOGY AND MEANINGSSignification and cultureIdeologySigns: ideology: meaningsUnderstanding ideologyIdeological analysisResistancesSuggestions for further s191BibliographyFurther readingBooks recommended for additionalreading196196Index200197ix
3COMMUNICATION,MEANING, AND SIGNSThe models we have considered so far have all, in varying degrees,emphasized the process of communication. They assume basically thatcommunication is the transfer of a message from A to B. Consequently,their main concerns are with medium, channel, transmitter, receiver,noise, and feedback, for these are all terms relating to this process ofsending a message. We now turn our attention to a radically differentapproach to the study of communication. Here the emphasis is not somuch on communication as a process, but on communication as thegeneration of meaning. When I communicate with you, you understand,more or less accurately, what my message means. For communicationto take place I have to create a message out of signs. This messagestimulates you to create a meaning for yourself that relates in some wayto the meaning that I generated in my message in the first place. Themore we share the same codes, the more we use the same sign systems,the closer our two ‘meanings’ of the message will approximate to eachother.This places a different emphasis on the study of communication, andwe will have to familiarize ourselves with a new set of terms. These areterms like sign, signification, icons, index, denote, connote—all termswhich refer to various ways of creating meaning. So these models willdiffer from the ones just discussed in that they are not linear: they donot contain arrows indicating the flow of the message. They are structuralmodels, and any arrows indicate relationships between elements in thiscreation of meaning. These models do not assume a series of steps orstages through which a message passes: rather they concentrate onanalysing a structured set of relationships which enable a message tosignify something; in other words, they concentrate on what it is thatmakes marks on paper or sounds in the air into a message.39
INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDI ESSemioticsAt the centre of this concern is the sign. The study of signs and the waythey work is called semiotics or semiology, and this will provide thealternative focus in this book. Semiotics, as we will call it, has three mainareas of study:1. The sign itself. This consists of the study of different varieties ofsigns, of the different ways they have of conveying meaning, and ofthe way they relate to the people who use them. For signs are humanconstructs and can only be understood in terms of the uses peopleput them to.2. The codes or systems into which signs are organized. This studycovers the ways that a variety of codes have developed in order tomeet the needs of a society or culture, or to exploit the channels ofcommunication available for their transmission.3. The culture within which these codes and signs operate. This inturn is dependent upon the use of these codes and signs for its ownexistence and form.Semiotics, then, focuses its attention primarily on the text. The linear,process models give the text no more attention than any other stage inthe process: indeed, some of them pass it over almost without comment.This is one major difference between the two approaches. The other isthe status of the receiver. In semiotics, the receiver, or reader, is seen asplaying a more active role than in most of the process models (Gerbner’sis an exception). Semiotics prefers the term ‘reader’ (even of a photographof a painting) to ‘receiver’ because it implies both a greater degree ofactivity and also that reading is something we learn to do; it is thusdetermined by the cultural experience of the reader. The reader helps tocreate the meaning of the text by bringing to it his or her experience,attitudes, and emotions.In this chapter I wish to start by looking at some of the mainapproaches to this complex question of meaning. I shall then go on toconsider the role played by signs in generating this meaning, and tocategorize signs into different types according to their different ways ofperforming this function.40
COMMUNICATION, MEANING, AND S IGNSSigns and meaningBasic conceptsAll the models of meaning share a broadly similar form. Each is concernedwith three elements which must be involved in some way or other inany study of meaning. These are: (1) the sign, (2) that to which it refers,and (3) the users of the sign.A sign is something physical, perceivable by our senses; it refers tosomething other than itself; and it depends upon a recognition by itsusers that it is a sign. Take our earlier example: pulling my earlobe as asign to an auctioneer. In this case the sign refers to my bid, and this isrecognized as such by both the auctioneer and myself. Meaning isconveyed from me to the auctioneer: communication has taken place.In this chapter we shall study the two most influential models ofmeaning. The first is that of the philosopher and logician C.S.Peirce (wewill also look at the variant of Ogden and Richards), and the second isthat of the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure.Peirce (and Ogden and Richards) see the sign, that to which it refers,and its users as the three points of a triangle. Each is closely related tothe other two, and can be understood only in terms of the others. Saussuretakes a slightly different line. He says that the sign consists of its physicalform plus an associated mental concept, and that this concept is in itsturn an apprehension of external reality. The sign relates to reality onlythrough the concepts of the people who use it.Thus the word CAR (marks on paper or sounds in air) has a mentalconcept attached to it. Mine will be broadly the same as yours, thoughthere may be some individual differences. This shared concept thenrelates to a class of objects in reality. This is so straightforward as toseem obvious, but there can be problems. My wife and I, for example,frequently argue over whether something is blue or green. We share thesame language, we are looking at the same piece of external reality: thedifference lies in the concepts of blueness or greenness that link ourwords to that reality.Further implicationsC.S.PeircePeirce (1931–58) and Ogden and Richards (1923) arrived at verysimilar models of how signs signify. Both identified a triangular41
INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDI ESrelationship between the sign, the user, and external reality as anecessary model for studying meaning. Peirce, who is commonlyregarded as the founder of the American tradition of semiotics,explained his model simply:A sign is something which stands to somebody for something insome respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates inthe mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a moredeveloped sign. The sign which it creates I call the interpretant of thefirst sign. The sign stands for something, its object. (In Zeman, 1977)Figure 12 Peirce’s elements of meaningPeirce’s three terms can be modelled as in figure 12. The double-endedarrows emphasize that each term can be understood only in relation tothe others. A sign refers to something other than itself—the object, and isunderstood by somebody: that is, it has an effect in the mind of theuser—the interpretant. We must realize that the interpretant is not the userof the sign, but what Peirce calls elsewhere ‘the proper significate effect’:that is, it is a mental concept produced both by the sign and by the user’sexperience of the object. The interpretant of the word (sign) SCHOOLin any one context will be the result of the user’s experience of that word(s/he would not apply it to a technical college), and of his or her experienceof institutions called ‘schools’, the object. Thus it is not fixed, defined bya dictionary, but may vary within limits according to the experience ofthe user. The limits are set by social convention (in this case theconventions of the English language); the variation within them allowsfor the social and psychological differences between the users.One additional difference between the semiotic and the processmodels is relevant here. This is that the semiotic models make nodistinction between encoder and decoder. The interpretant is themental concept of the user of the sign, whether this user be speaker orlistener, writer or reader, painter or viewer. Decoding is as active andcreative as encoding.42
COMMUNICATION, MEANING, AND S IGNSOgden and Richards (1923)Ogden and Richards were British workers in this area who correspondedregularly with Peirce. They derived a very similar triangular model ofmeaning. Their referent corresponds closely to Peirce’s object, theirreference to his interpretant, and their symbol to his sign. In their model,referent and reference are directly connected; so too are symbol andreference. But the connection between symbol and referent is indirect orimputed. This shift away from the equilateral relationship of Peirce’smodel brings Ogden and Richards closer to Saussure (see below). He,too, relegated the relationship of the sign with external reality to one ofminimal importance. Like Saussure, Ogden and Richards put the symbolin the key position: our symbols direct and organize our thoughts orreferences; and our references organize our perception of reality. Symboland reference in Ogden and Richards are similar to the signifier andsignified in Saussure.Figure 13 Ogden and Richards’s elements of meaningSaussureIf the American logician and philosopher C.S.Peirce was one of thefounders of semiotics, the other was undoubtedly the Swiss linguistFerdinand de Saussure. Peirce’s concern as a philosopher was with ourunderstanding of our experience and of the world around us. It wasonly gradually that he came to realize the importance of semiotics, the actof signifying, in this. His interest was in meaning, which he found in thestructural relationship of signs, people, and objects.Saussure, as a linguist, was primarily interested in language. He wasmore concerned with the way signs (or, in his case, words) related toother signs than he was with the way they related to Peirce’s ‘object’. SoSaussure’s basic model differs in emphasis from Peirce’s. He focuses his43
INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDI ESattention much more directly on the sign itself. The sign, for Saussure,was a physical object with a meaning; or, to use his terms, a sign consistedof a signifier and a signified. The signifier is the sign’s image as we perceiveit—the marks on the paper or the sounds in the air; the signified is themental concept to which it refers. This mental concept is broadly commonto all members of the same culture who share the same language.We can see immediately similarities between Saussure’s signifier andPeirce’s sign, and Saussure’s signified and Peirce’s interpretant. Saussure,however, is less concerned than Peirce with the relationship of those twoelements with Peirce’s ‘object’ or external meaning. When Saussure doesturn to this he calls it signification but spends comparatively little time onit. So Saussure’s model may be visualized as in figure 14.Figure 14 Saussure’s elements of meaningFor illustration, I might make two marks on the paper, thus:OXThese might be the first two moves in a game of noughts and crosses (ortick-tack-toe), in which case they remain as mere marks on the paper. Orthey might be read as a word, in which case they become a sign composedof the signifier (their appearance) and the mental concept (oxness) whichwe have of this particular type of animal. The relationship between myconcept of oxness and the physical reality of oxen is ‘signification’: it ismy way of giving meaning to the world, of understanding it.I stress this, because it is important to remember that the signifiedsare as much a product of a particular culture as are the signifiers. It isobvious that words, the signifiers, change from language to language.But it is easy to fall into the fallacy of believing that the signifieds areuniversal and that translation is therefore a simple matter of substitutinga French word, say, for an English one—the ‘meaning’ is the same. Thisis not so. My mental concept of oxness must be very different from thatof an Indian farmer, and teaching me the sound of the Hindu word44
COMMUNICATION, MEANING, AND S IGNS(signifier) for ox does not get me any nearer to sharing his concept of‘oxness’. The signification of an ox is as culture-specific as is the linguisticform of the signifier in each language.Sign and systemThe deceptively simple question is ‘What is an ox?’, or, to put it morelinguistically or semiotically, ‘What do we mean by the sign ox?’ ForSaussure the question can be answered only in the light of what we donot mean by that sign.This is a new approach to the question of how signs signify. Thesimilarity between Saussure and Peirce here is that they both seek meaningin structural relationships, but Saussure considers a new relationship—that between the sign and other signs in the same system: that is, therelationship between a sign and other signs that it could conceivably be,but is not. Thus the meaning of the sign man is determined by how it isdifferentiated from other signs. So man can mean not animal or not humanor not boy or not master.When Chanel chose the French star Catherine Deneuve to give theirperfume an image of a particular kind of sophisticated traditional Frenchchic, she became a sign in a system. And the meaning of CatherineDeneuve-as-sign was determined by other beautiful stars-as-signs thatshe was not. She was not Susan Hampshire (too English); she was notTwiggy (too young, trendy, changeably fashionable); she was not BrigitteBardot (too unsophisticatedly sexy); and so on.According to this model of meaning, the signifieds are the mentalconcepts we use to divide reality up and categorize it so that we canunderstand it. The boundaries between one category and another areartificial, not natural, for nature is all of a piece. There is no line betweenman and boy until we draw one, and scientists are constantly trying todefine more accurately the boundary between humans and other animals.So signifieds are made by people, determined by the culture or subcultureto which they belong. They are part of the linguistic or semiotic systemthat members of that culture use to communicate with each other.So, then, the area of reality or experience to which any one signifiedrefers, that is the signification of the sign, is determined not by the natureof that reality/experience, but by the boundaries of the related signifiedsin the system. Meaning is therefore better defined by the relationships ofone sign to another than by the relationship of that sign to an externalreality. This relationship of the sign to others in its system is what Saussurecalls value. And for Saussure value is what primarily determines meaning.45
INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION STUDI ESSemiotics and meaningSemiotics sees communication as the generation of meaning in messages—whether by the encoder or the decoder. Meaning is not an absolute,static concept to be found neatly parcelled up in the message. Meaningis an active process: semioticians use verbs like create, generate, ornegotiate to refer to this process. Negotiation is perhaps the most usefulin that it implies the to-and-fro, the give-and-take between person andmessage. Meaning is the result of the dynamic interaction between sign,interpretant, and object: it is historically located and may well changewith time. It may even be useful to drop the term ‘meaning’ and usePeirce’s far more active term ‘semiosis’—the act of signifying.Categories of signsBasic conceptsPeirce and Saussure both tried to explain the different ways in whichsigns convey meaning. Peirce produced three categories of sign, each ofwhich showed a different relationship between the sign and its object, orthat to which it refers.In an icon the sign resembles its object in some way; it looks or soundslike it. In an index there is a direct link between a sign and its object: thetwo are actually connected. In a symbol there is no connection orresemblance between sign and object: a symbol communicates onlybecause people agree that it shall stand for what it does. A photograph isan icon, smoke is an index of fire, and a word is a symbol.Saussure was not concerned with indexes. Indeed, as a linguist, hewas really concerned only with symbols, for words are symbols. But hisfollowers have recognized that the physical form of the sign (whichSaussure called the signifier) and its associated mental concept (thesignified) can be related in an iconic or an arbitrary way. In an iconicrelationship, the s
Introduction to communication studies.—2nd ed— (Studies in culture and communication) 1. Man. Communication I. Title II. Series 001.51 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data Fiske, John Introduction to communication studies/John Fiske.—New ed. p. cm.—(Studies in culture and communication) Includes bibliographical references.
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