logical processes has also been the goal of the traditional fields of rhetoric (e.g., Baird, 1964; Gregg, 1984); persuasion ( Petty & Cacioppo, 1986; Reardon, 1981); and content-analytic strategies, including Lass- well's venture into quantitative semantics ( Lasswell et al., 1949). A number of theories of representation are referred to and built on, most notably cognitive theories of semantic processes (e.g., Johnson-Laird, 1983), discourse analysis (e.g., Van Dijk, 1988; Van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983), film theory (e.g., Bordwell & Thompson, 1986; Metz, 1974), and some of the more reader-oriented or systematically Peircean 5 represen- tatives of semiotic theory ( Eco, 1976; Sebeok, 1986).
FIVE GOALS OF A THEORY OF POLITICAL ADVERTISING
The structural analysis of political ads is a first step toward advancing five principal goals of a theory of political advertising:
1.
to precisely analyze the semantic and syntactic structures of specific political ads (a linguistics [semiotics] of the political ad);
2.
to relate structural properties of ads to viewers' mental models of the meaning generated by the ads (a psycholinguistics [psy- chosemiotics] of political advertising);
3.
to determine generalizable patterns for groups of ads, for exam- ple, those of a candidate, an election, negative ads in general, or ads for various types of offices, such as congressman, senator, or president (a sociolinguistics [sociosemiotics] of political adver- tising);
4.
to specify generalizable properties of political advertising as a genre (a stylistics and formal criticism of the political ad) 6 ; and
5.
to analyze the role of political advertising in the use, distribu- tion, and construction of political ideology (the cultural study of political advertising).
Peircean refers to the work of the American philosopher and semiotician, Charles Peirce. Peirce's work can be interpreted as presenting a neo-Kantian or psychological approach to signification. Peirce was a colleague of the famous American psychologist, William James, and he once conducted some perception experiments. Semioticians who tend to adopt a Peircean perspective are more inclined to discuss signification as a psychological process, or at the very least a process occurring in what Peirce referred to as a "quasi-mind." A quasi-mind could also be a form of artificial intelligence.
At this point, the study of codes begins to overlap with the analysis of discourses. It can be argued that codes are in some ways ossified discourses.
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Publication Information: Book Title: Television and Political Advertising. Volume: 2. Contributors: Frank Biocca - editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Publication Year: 1991. Page Number: 8.
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