The Social Semiotics of Mass Communication

Klaus Bruhn Jensen Social semiotics has been around now for some time as a way of analyzing the way in which signification, meanings, and actions are configured within social contexts. From a social semiotic perspective, contexts are constituted by the communicative processes ta ing place in them, so that semiosis!!the process of signification in all its complexity!!becomes the main focus of research. Klaus Jensen"s boo is an attempt to lay the foundations for a methodologically rigorous social semiotics of the mass media. From Jensen"s perspective, what"s important in mass media research is not so much the meaning of media texts, nor the institutional conditions under which the media operate, but #the social and cultural practices that constitute $the% production, transmission, and reception $of media discourses%# &p. '(). *ltimately, what Jensen has in mind is research driven by a #minimalist concept of the politics of communication. +he ey issue may not be how to ensure the right to engage in dialogue, but how to develop the procedures for ending dialogue and transforming it into other forms of social action# &p. ,(-). From this position, what counts is not so much how mass media communication ta es place, but how it gets transformed into social action. .n order to gain some sort of analytical purchase on this issue, Jensen turns to /eirce"s semiotics as his base, and carefully wor s through a range of theoretical arguments in support of a social semiotics which emphasizes the pragmatic character of semiosis in different contexts of mass media reception. .n the first three chapters, Jensen develops /eirce"s semiotic model in terms of the familiar triad &sign 0ob1ect 0interpretant) leading to ceaseless semiosis as the condition of all communicative process. Jensen"s aim is to replace the dualism of the 2estern 3ogos tradition &mind 0 body4 form 0content4 signifier0signified) with a pragmatic realism which ta es as its ob1ect the way in which meaning and social action are inextricably intertwined. +hrough the ey concept of reflexivity borrowed from 5iddens, Jensen is able to redraft /eirce"s model so that it incorporates ceaseless semiosis into the institutional and structured contexts of everyday life, leading to a study of the #reception# of mass media content by audiences. +he use of /eirce helps legitimate the essentially scientific nature of Jensen"s pro1ect which see s nowledge of the #empirical audience#6 #there would appear to be no way around the empirical audience.... .f mass communication research is to contribute a criti7ue of media in the interest of their audiences, it must develop methodologies that engage audiences in the process of reflexivity about the social purposes of the mass media# &p. 89). +he Social Semiotics of :ass ;ommunication proposes a 7ualitative research program as an alternative to 7uantitative research into mass media. Jensen re1ects the reduction of social semiosis to essential types, roles, and functions found in 7uantitative research, and instead opts for a #thic # description of the polysemy of discourses in contexts of media reception &chap. (). <e develops a discourse analysis which #see s to establish the meaning of linguistic features in their discursive context, giving priority to measures of contextual meaning over measures of recurrence# &p. 88). +his places Jensen"s wor firmly in opposition to research which attempts to gain ob1ective nowledge of audiences, based on representativeness and generalizability of data. +he advantage of this 7ualitative approach is that it provides descriptive insight into the concrete processes of discursive practices as they are li ely to transform into social action in any given context, which accords with Jensen"s desire to develop a political dimension to reception studies. .n his re1ection of both 7uantitative research and text!based interpretation of media discourse, Jensen aligns himself with the television audience ethnography of :orley, Silverstone, 3ull, =adway, and others during the ,8(-s which sought to define the classed and gendered basis for television audienceship. <owever, Jensen avoids the fundamental wea ness of this cultural studies approach!!its lac of methodological reflexivity in analyzing data!!by proposing that data be

analyzed as a discursive construct, and not as a direct representation of audience sub1ectivity. +his #linguistic turn# is a promising move, foreshadowed in many criti7ues of television audience ethnography, but yet to be delivered in any empirical studies. *nfortunately Jensen also fails to deliver any extended research into audiences. <is only attempts in this boo are less than satisfying4 there are some interviews with groups of academics and university wor ers, and a rather curious case of misreading by an elderly woman which provides insight into one of the many theoretical conundrums raised by Jensen. >one of these excursions into the audience"s domain really satisfies the standards of methodological and theoretical rigour which is obtained everywhere else in his boo . But . should not insist that Jensen"s boo be something that it was not designed to be. Jensen is not #doing# media research, but attempting to clear the ground for such wor to ta e place. . have found some of his ideas insightful and challenging. For instance, /eirce"s notion of abductive reasoning is developed by Jensen in interesting ways which might 1ust prove useful for the discursive analysis of research data. .n 7ualitative research based on interviews and focus groups, the problem faced by audience researchers is6 what status does the data have with respect to the experience to which the information given by the research participants attests? @bduction is the commonsensical way in which people reconstitute the logic of events out of any information at hand. .t might well prove useful to analyze the processes of abduction which ta e place within a research setting, thereby see ing to find the ways in which research participants as well as researchers #recontextualize# themselves as audience members. +his ind of reflexive analysis is already done by ethnomethodology, and it is surprising that Jensen has ignored this line of sociological research. Averall, +he Social Semiotics of :ass ;ommunication is a challenging attempt to provide a theoretical basis for 7ualitative research into mass media audiences. +here are, however, some difficulties with Jensen"s approach. . found his syncretic treatment of issues, theories, and concepts a little too fragmenting and contradictory in places. .t was difficult to see how some of the many theoretical positions Jensen manages to cram into his boo , including =orty, <abermas, 5iddens, +hom, Bco, and 2ittgenstein to name a few, are in any way compatible. For instance, Jensen uses cognitive psychology at one point to underwrite discourse analysis of research data &chap. ,-). <owever, the pro1ect of cognitive psychology is to find a biological basis for the categories of meaning found in social use, thereby repressing the linguistic and discursive elements of its own underta ing. @s Jensen himself has argued, discourse analysis of the contexts of reception would need to avoid abstracting data into various essentialized categories4 otherwise, it ris s universalizing reception into a series of predictable behaviours and attitudes, thereby losing sight of the transformational processes within contexts of communication. @nother problem concerns the undeveloped relationship between the systematicity of semiosis!!its intertextual connectedness to all possible signs!!and social action. @fter considerable discussion of semiotic difference in ;hapter ,-, for instance, it is still not clear how Jensen gets beyond the study of sign systems in themselves &semiotics) to a study of the systematicity of signification as social action &social semiotics). >evertheless, Jensen"s boo offers a number of valuable theoretical and methodological tools for anyone wanting to develop ethnographic and 7ualitative research into media audiences, providing many useful ways forward, as well as many insights into the philosophical underpinnings of communication research as it relates to the media in social context.