Paul Cobley ist Reader für Kommunikationswissenschaften an der London Metropolitan University und beschäftigt sich primär mit Semiotik. Seine Forschung konzentriert sich auf die kulturellen Auswirkungen der Biosemiotik, insbesondere durch die Brille der Modellierung von Systemtheorien. Als produktiver Autor und Herausgeber hat Cobley zahlreiche Bücher verfasst, die sich mit Kommunikationstheorie, Semiotik und Medienwissenschaften befassen. Seine Arbeit zielt darauf ab, die komplexen Zusammenhänge zwischen Zeichen, menschlicher Kommunikation und der weiteren biologischen Welt zu beleuchten.
Provides a comprehensive introduction to all the important recent developments in the media from constitutions to policy and practice. Describes the diversity of the media as a series of separate and distinct industries and practices; explores the issues which directly infringe on the different media- audience feedback, belief about effects, broadcast policy and different traditions of organising, studying and funding; and examines the presentations that actually appear in the media and how the media presents different facets of the real world
This collection of readings is designed to provide easy access to Communication Theory. Many of the essays in the Reader have previously been difficult to obtain and many have appeared in contexts where their relevance for communications, media and cultural studies was not immediately apparent. The Reader presents the most important work which has shaped the field as it stands today. The articles are grouped in subject sections, with an editor's introduction, indications of further reading together with a glossary and comprehensive bibliography.
Peirce's (1906) proposal that the universe as a whole, even if it does not consist exclusively of signs, is yet everywhere perfused with signs, is a thesis that better than any other sums up the life and work of Thomas A. Sebeok, „inventor“ of semiotics as we know it today. Semiotics - the doctrine of signs - has a long and intriguing history that extends back well beyond the last century, two and a half millennia to Hippocrates of Cos. It ranges through the teachings of Augustine, Scholastic philosophy, the work of Peirce and Saussure. Yet a fully-fledged doctrine of signs, with many horizons for the future, was the result of Sebeok's work in the twentieth century. The massive influence of this work, as well as Sebeok's convening of semiotic projects and encouragement of a huge number of researchers globally, which, in turn, set in train countless research projects, is difficult to document and has not been assessed until now. This volume, using the testimonies of key witnesses and participants in the semiotic project, offers a picture of how Sebeok, through his development of knowledge of endosemiotics, phytosemiotics, biosemiotics and sociosemiotics, enabled semiotics in general to redraw the boundaries of science and the humanities as well as nature and culture.
Why study signs? This perennial question of philosophy is answered in the 20th century by the science of semiotics. An animal's cry, poetry, the medical symptom, media messages, language disorders, architecture, marketing, body language-- all these, and more, fall within the sphere of semiotics. Introducing Semiotics outlines the development of sign study from its classical precursors to contemporary post-structuralism. Through Paul Cobley's incisive text and Litza Jansz's brilliant illustrations, this seminal introduction identifies the key semioticians and their work and explains the simple concepts behind difficult terms. For anybody who wishes to know why signs are crucial to human existence and how we can begin to study systems of signification, this book is the place to start. It is the perfect companion volume to Introducing Barthes.
