Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

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Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler 'identity' is highlighted in the context of the internet, where the 'subject' need have no necessary connection to a supposed referent (a specific individual in the material world); gender, sexual orientation, age, ethnicity or any other demographic marker may be shifted at will (subject to the social competence required to sustain such a virtual identity). According to theorists of textual positioning, understanding the meaning of a text involves taking on an appropriate ideological identity. In order to make sense of the signs in a text the reader is obliged to adopt a 'subject-position' in relation to it. For instance, to understand an advertisement we would have to adopt the identity of a consumer who desired the advertised product. Some theorists argue that this position already exists within the structure and codes of the text. 'Narratives or images always imply or construct a position or positions from which they are to be read or viewed' (Johnson 1996, 101). What Colin MacCabe famously called the 'classic realist text' is orchestrated to effect closure: contradictions are suppressed and the reader is encouraged to adopt a position from which everything seems 'obvious' (MacCabe 1974). This stance assumes both that a text is homogeneous and that it has only one meaning - that which was intended by its makers - whereas contemporary theorists contend that there may be several alternative (even contradictory) subject-positions from which a text may make sense. Whilst these may sometimes be anticipated by the author, they are not necessarily built into the text itself. Not every reader is the 'ideal reader' envisaged by the producer(s) of the text. The phrase, 'the positioning of the subject' implies a 'necessary "subjection" to the text' (Johnson 1996, 101) and is thus problematic since there is always some freedom of interpretation. We may for instance choose to regard a poorly-translated set of instructions for assembling flat-pack furniture as a text constructed purely for our amusement. The notion that the human subject is 'constituted' (constructed) by pre-given structures is a general feature of structuralism. It constitutes a radical opposition to the liberal humanist (or 'bourgeois') stance which presents society as 'consisting of "free" individuals whose social determination results from their pre-given essences like "talented", "efficient", "lazy", "profligate", etc.' (Coward & Ellis 1977, 2). The French neo-Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser (1918-1990) was the first ideological theorist to give prominence to the notion of the subject. For him, ideology was a system of representations of reality offering individuals certain subject positions which they could occupy. He famously declared that 'what is represented in ideology is... not the system of real relations which govern the existence of individuals, but the imaginary relation of these individuals to the real relations in which they live' (Althusser 1971, 155). He outlined the ideological mechanism of interpellation: Ideology '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 interpellation or hailing, and which can be imagined along the lines of the most commonplace police (or other) hailing: 'Hey, you there!' 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) The Althusserian concept of interpellation is used by Marxist media theorists to explain the political function of mass media texts. According to this view, the subject (viewer, listener, reader) is constituted by the text, and the power of the mass media resides in their ability to position the subject
Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler in such a way that their representations are taken to be reflections of everyday reality. Such structuralist framings of positioning reflect a stance of textual determinism which has been challenged by contemporary social semioticians who tend to emphasise the 'polysemic' nature of texts (their plurality of meanings) together with the diversity of their use and interpretation by different audiences ('multiaccentuality'). However, a distinction may be appropriate here between message and code. Whilst resistance at the level of the message is always possible, resistance at the level of the code is generally much more difficult when the code is a dominant one. The familiarity of the codes in 'realist' texts (especially photographic and filmic texts) leads us to routinely 'suspend our disbelief' in the form (even if not necessarily in the manifest content). Recognition of the familiar (in the guise of the 'natural') repeatedly confirms our conventional ways of 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... All the viewer need do is fall into place as subject' (Nichols 1981, 38). Falling into place in a realist text is a pleasurable experience which few would wish to disrupt with reflective analysis (which would throw the security of our sense of self into question). Thus we freely submit to the ideological processes which construct our sense of ourselves as free-thinking individuals. A primary textual code involved in the construction of the subject is that of genre. Genres are ostensibly 'neutral', functioning to make form (the conventions of the genre) more 'transparent' to those familiar with the genre, foregrounding the distinctive content of individual texts. Certainly genre provides an important frame of reference which helps readers to identify, select and interpret texts (as well as helping writers to compose economically within the medium). However, a genre can also be seen as embodying certain values and ideological assumptions and as seeking to establish a particular worldview. Changes in genre conventions may both reflect and help to shape the dominant ideological climate of the time. Some Marxist commentators see genre as an instrument of social control which reproduces the dominant ideology. Within this perspective, the genre is seen as positioning the audience in order to naturalize the reassuringly conservative ideologies which are typically embedded in the text. Certainly, genres are far from being ideologically neutral. Different genres produce different positionings of the subject which are reflected in their modes of address. Tony Thwaites and his colleagues note that in many television crime dramas in the tradition of The Saint, Hart to Hart, and Murder, She Wrote, Genteel or well-to-do private investigators work for the wealthy, solving crimes committed by characters whose social traits and behaviour patterns often type them as members of a 'criminal class'... The villains receive their just rewards not so much because they break the law, but because they are entirely distinct from the law-abiding bourgeoisie. This TV genre thus reproduces a hegemonic ideology about the individual in a class society. (Thwaites et al. 1994, 158). Thus, over and above the specific 'content' of the individual text, generic frameworks can be seen as involved in the construction of their readers. Saussure emphasized that the language system is a 'given' which precedes its users and is beyond human control. Developing this stance, post-Saussurean structuralist theorists have argued that contrary to the notion that semiotic systems are instrumental tools which are fully subject to the control of 'the individual', the subject is constructed by the semiotic system of language, ideology, and myth. Such structural determinism and autonomy is reflected, for instance, in Lévi-Strauss's
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Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

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