B9029 - Semiotics of Media (1) (LM)

Learning outcomes

At the end of the module, students will have the expertise and will have learned the semiotic tools to analyze the mass media products.

Course contents

The course introduces the main theories and tools of media semiotic analysis and applies them to the transformations currently reshaping the contemporary media ecosystem. An initial series of lectures will examine and discuss a number of key concepts: media and mass communication, the culture industry, capitalism and the production of desire, culture and counterculture, literacy, digital mediation, platformization, datafication, post-truth, and disinformation.

Drawing on the work of Umberto Eco, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Mark Fisher, and Evgeny Morozov, as well as on recent developments in the semiotics of digital mediation, the course will reconstruct the transition from the twentieth-century mass-media system to an environment in which the production, circulation, and interpretation of content are increasingly organized by platforms. Particular attention will be devoted to the relationship between media, capitalism, and digital transformation: capitalism’s capacity to incorporate forms of criticism and counterculture; the progressive transformation of recipients into content producers and distributors; the role of data and algorithms in determining relevance; and the changing nature of authority, trust, and regimes of truth.

The course will also explore the changing position of the recipient. Eco’s reflections on semiological guerrilla warfare will be reconsidered in light of a communication system in which divergent decoding no longer constitutes only a form of resistance to centralized media but has become an ordinary condition of digital communication. Within this framework, the course will examine the crisis of traditional forms of information mediation, the multiplication of sources, the production and circulation of fake news, the formation of interpretive communities, and the growing importance of personal experience and trust in the contemporary construction of truth.

Alongside the theoretical lectures, students will learn to apply the tools of semiotic analysis to media texts, practices, and dispositifs. The course will employ categories including code, enunciation, narrative, representation, stereotype, intertextuality, and mediation, focusing not only on the content conveyed but also on the forms through which it is produced, selected, organized, and circulated.

These tools will be applied to the analysis of real-world cases related to the platformization of mass media, including transformations in audiovisual production and distribution, streaming platforms, search engines, newsfeeds, social media, recommendation systems, political communication, the algorithmic production of visibility, and emerging forms of AI-based mediation. The aim is to enable students to identify and describe the processes through which platforms do not merely distribute content but also organize access to meaning, construct publics, shape interpretation, and redefine the conditions of mass communication.

Readings/Bibliography

Bibliography

• Deleuze, G., and Guattari, F. (2009 [1972]). “The Civilized Capitalist Machine.” In Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem and H.R. Lane. New York: Penguin Classics, pp. 222–239.

• Eco, U. (1986). “Towards a Semiological Guerrilla Warfare.” In Faith in Fakes: Essays. Trans. W. Weaver. London: Secker & Warburg, pp. 135–144.

From Apocalypse Postponed

• Eco, U. (1994). “Apocalyptic and Integrated Intellectuals: Mass Communications and Theories of Mass Culture.” In R. Lumley (ed.), Apocalypse Postponed: Essays by Umberto Eco. Bloomington–London: Indiana University Press–British Film Institute, pp. 17–35.
• Eco, U. (1994). “The Future of Literacy.” In R. Lumley (ed.), Apocalypse Postponed: Essays by Umberto Eco. Bloomington–London: Indiana University Press–British Film Institute, pp. 64–74.
• Eco, U. (1994). “Does Counter-culture Exist?” In R. Lumley (ed.), Apocalypse Postponed: Essays by Umberto Eco. Trans. J. Condie. Bloomington–London: Indiana University Press–British Film Institute, pp. 115–128.
  

----

• Fisher, M. (2009). “It’s Easier to Imagine the End of the World than the End of Capitalism.” In Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester: Zero Books, pp. 1–11.
• Fisher, M. (2018 [2013]). “Exiting the Vampire Castle.” In D. Ambrose (ed.), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher (2004–2016). London: Repeater Books, pp. 737–746.
  
  
• Morozov, E. (2012). “The Death of the Cyberflâneur.” The New York Times, 5 February. https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-death-of-the-cyberflaneur.html
• Morozov, E. (2014). “The Rise of Data and the Death of Politics.” The Observer, 20 July. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/20/rise-of-data-death-of-politics-evgeny-morozov-algorithmic-regulation
  

• Paolucci, C. (2023). Pre-Truth: Fake News, Semiological Guerrilla Warfare, and Some Other Media and Communication “Revolutions”. Media and Communication, 11(2), 101-108. https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v11i2.6628
• Paolucci, C., Martinelli, P., Bacaro, M. (2023). Can we really free ourselves from stereotypes? A semiotic point of view on clichés and disability studies. SEMIOTICA, 253(0), 1-34 [10.1515/sem-2022-0034].
  

• Tamm, M. (2025). “Semiotics of Digital Mediation”, in M. Ojamaa, E. Sütiste & K. Kroó (eds.), Dialogues with Peeter Torop: Festschrift in Honour of Peeter Torop’s 75th Birthday, Tartu Semiotics Library 25, Tartu: University of Tartu Press, pp. 420–434.

Teaching methods

The course will combine lectures with seminar-based activities designed to encourage active participation and collective discussion. Before selected classes, students will be asked to read an academic essay or watch a film in advance. These materials will then be discussed in class and examined through the theoretical concepts and analytical tools introduced during the course. Seminar sessions will allow students to compare interpretations, formulate critical questions, and apply semiotic analysis to specific media texts and case studies.

Assessment methods

Assessment will take the form of an oral examination based on the topics addressed during the course and the required readings. The examination will assess students’ knowledge of the main theoretical concepts, their ability to establish connections between different authors and perspectives, and their capacity to apply the tools of semiotic analysis to media texts, practices, and real-world cases. Particular attention will be paid to the ability to formulate an autonomous and critically argued interpretation, as well as to the appropriate use of the discipline’s specific terminology.

The final grade will be awarded on a scale of 30, with 18/30 as the minimum passing grade. Grades will be assigned according to the following criteria:

• Preparation limited to a very small number of topics addressed during the course; analytical skills emerging only with the guidance of the instructor; use of generally correct language: 18–19/30.
• Preparation covering a limited number of topics addressed during the course; capacity for autonomous analysis limited to primarily executive tasks; use of correct language: 20–24/30.
• Preparation covering a broad range of topics addressed during the course; ability to make autonomous choices in critical analysis; command of the discipline’s specific terminology: 25–29/30.
• Substantially comprehensive preparation on the topics addressed during the course; ability to make autonomous choices in critical analysis and to establish relevant connections; full command of the discipline’s specific terminology; well-developed argumentative and self-reflective skills: 30–30 cum laude.

Teaching tools

The course will make use of the audiovisual and digital technologies available in the classroom to access online resources and examine different mass communication platforms during lectures and seminar activities. Websites, search engines, social media, streaming services, news platforms, and other digital environments will be used to present and analyse media texts, interfaces, circulation practices, and processes of algorithmic mediation. Slides, audiovisual materials, academic texts, and any additional resources required for the course will be made available through the University’s online teaching platform.

Office hours

See the website of Paolo Martinelli