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Semiotics
Lecture Modes of Address
Modes of Address
Definition: Ways parts of a text or utterances are formed which
decide the relationship between the sender / creator of texts
(Addresser) and receiver/reader of texts texts (Addressee)
refers to 'how media texts 'speak to' an audience
media texts always address somebody they seek to engage their
audiences in the
practice of reading or viewing devices used may be direct or
indirect,devices used may be direct or indirect,
obvious and subtle
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Through language: words used to decide on the relationship
eg.
Let us now look at more detail what we meant by social action is
semiotic and that all semiotic action is social
vsNow look at more detail what is meant by
social action is semiotic
Through visual: visual element used to determine the kind of
relationship
Signs and modes of address
Pierce (1931):A sign addresses somebody.
Sign addresses us in a particular code Genre semiotic code in
which readers are Genre semiotic code in which readers are
considered as ideal readers through the use of modes of
address
Ideal to read text in the way it is created specifically (for
certain readers)
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audience identity is written into texts in a number of ways
variations in tone, pace, language etc.
reflect the producers notions of who the paudience is
modes of address will vary depending on the media form and the
perceived audience
the more specialised the target audience, the more distinctive
the mode of address
Genre Categorised texts based on conventions of
forms and content which are shared by texts of a particular
genre
F f l f t i t t f th Focus on formal features in texts of the
same genre which share codes and use particular modes of addressEg
of genre: formal letters, horror movies,
scientific reports, musical theater
Genre?Formal features? Content?
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Modes of address
Influence by three interrelated factors:
Contexts of texts; eg conventions of genre
Social context; eg social composition of receiver/reader
Technological constraints; media features usedeg synchronous
interpersonal communication
- internet chat system (text only)- telephone (utterances
only)
Modes of address
Differ in their directness, their formality and their narrative
point-of-view their narrative point-of-view
Points-of-view
third-person narration omniscient narrator
-intrusive-self-effacing-self-effacing
selective point-of-view of character(s) first-person narration:
narrated directly by a
character
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Directness
Directness (Tolson, 1996) you addressed directly gaze involves
power involves power Direct mode of adddressexamples:Newsreaders,
weather forecasters
Gaze (Kress & van leeuwen) The spectator's gaze: spectator
viewing the text
The Intra-diegetic gaze: in a text, a character gazes upon an
object or another character in the text.
The Extra-diegetic gaze: a textual character consciously
addresses (looks at) the viewer, e.g. in dramaturgy, an aside to
the audience; in cinema, acknowledgement of the fourth wall, the
viewer.
The camera's gaze: is the film director's gaze.
The editorial gaze: emphasizes a textual aspect, e.g. a
photograph, its cropping and caption direct the reader(s) to a
specific person, place, or object in the text.
the indirect gaze: the spectator initiates viewing the subject,
who is unaware of being viewed
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Directness
Directness
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Directness
Formality/Social distance (Kress dan van Leeuwen, 1996)
IntimatePersonalSocialPublic or impersonal
Formality/Social distance
Language intimate : not explicit, dependent upon non-
verbal personal: some explicitness, slightly less
dependent upon non verbaldependent upon non-verbal social: more
explicit, partly dependent upon non-
verbal public/impersonal: very explicit, not dependent
upon non-verbal
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Formality/social distance
Visual intimate: face /head -- personal: shoulder and head --
social: waist and above-- public/impersonal: whole figure
Shot size
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Directness and formality
Example
Typical modes of address Film
Impersonal; audience rarely acknowledged. Spectator placed in
privileged position of often
knowing more than the characters. Audience addressed indirectly
through narrative
viewpointviewpoint Plots usually resolved Little sense of
author/producer outside credits. Audience invited in to experience
another world.
Television
personal, direct address to viewer who is acknowledged.
works to attract our attention because viewing can be casual
texts such as News, soaps, sitcoms refuse resolution (are
continuous).
Viewers assumed to be members of a family. As a national
audience More specialist audiences also addressed
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Radio
most personal/intimate, regional/local - variations in accent ,
tone and
delivery. distinctive audiencesdistinctive audiences attempts to
construct dialogue with audience
(phone ins). Access (your station). Use of jingles to establish
stations sense of
identity.
Magazines
direct address through text and images, front page important in
establishing identity. can appeal to different aspects of
personality visual appeal important visual appeal important.
Newspapers
Broadsheets - impersonal , formal , detached. Subdued tone, non
participatory and less direct
Tabloids - loud ,personal, more direct , use of pparticipatory
gestures
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Textual codes and modes of address Textual codes construct
possible reading
positions for the addresser and addressee 'the functions of
address' - in terms of the
construction of such subjects and of jrelationships between
them
expressive function: the construction of an addresser (authorial
persona);
conative function: the construction of an addressee (ideal
reader);
phatic function: the construction of a relationship between
these two
(Thwaites et al. 1994, 14-15)
Codes (Fiske)
Narrowcast - limited audience Broadcast - shared by members of a
mass
audience Bernstein callsBernstein calls
narrowcast codes as elaborated codes broadcast codes as
restricted codes
Interpellation (Althusser)
Althusser gave prominence to the notion of the subject - human
subject is 'constituted' (constructed) by pre-given structures
a specific mode of address aimed at positioning receivers so
that they accept their place in areceivers so that they accept
their place in a discourse
media texts position receivers to accept the position being
offered, rendering subjects vulnerable to dominant ideologies
understanding the meaning of a text involves taking on an
appropriate ideological identity
explain the political function of mass media texts
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Interpellation - AlthusserIdeology 'acts' or 'functions' in such
a way that it 'recruits' subjects among the individuals (it
recruits them all) or 'transforms' the individuals into subjects
(it transforms them all) by that very precise operation which I
have called interpellationor hailing, and which can be imagined
along the lines of the most commonplace police (or other) hailing:
'Hey, you there!' p p ( ) g y, y
Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes place
in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere
one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a
subject. Why? Because he has recognized that the hail was 'really'
addressed to him, and that 'it was really him who was hailed' (and
not someone else).
(Althusser 1971: 174)
Interpellation Marxist media theorists the subject (viewer,
listener, reader) is constituted by
the text the power of the mass media resides in their ability
to
position the subject in such a way that their representations
are taken to be reflections ofrepresentations are taken to be
reflections of everyday reality
reflect a stance of textual determinism but actually texts have
a polysemic nature (plurality
of meanings) together with the diversity of their use and
interpretation by different audiences ('multiaccentuality').
Interpellation
The familiarity of the codes) leads us to routinely 'suspend our
disbelief' in the form
Recognition of the familiar (in the guise of the 'natural')
repeatedly confirms our conventional ways of seeing and thus
reinforces our sense of self whilstof seeing and thus reinforces
our sense of self whilst at the same time invisibly contributing to
its construction.
'When we say "I see (what the image means)" this act
simultaneously installs us in a place of knowledge and slips us
into place as subject to this meaning.
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Discussion question
1. Discuss the two visual texts given in terms of its genre,
receiver of the text, directness and formality.