Meaning relations among signs are systemic, not individual and private
Evidence
Our only quarrel here is with the notion of “subjective capacity,” as if the denotative reference of the televisual sign is an objective process, but the connotational and connective level is an individualized and private matter. Quite the opposite seems to us to be the case. The televisual process takes “objective” (i.e., systemic) responsibility precisely for the relations which disparate signs contract with one another, and thus continually delimits and prescribes into what “awareness of one’s total environment” these items are arranged. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 803
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- XREF: Challenges ‘subjective capacity’ accounts of reading — connects to structuralist and later poststructuralist debates about the subject of meaning.