Communication in social semiotic perspectives is a social practice that carries out by members of a society within a social context. Different individuals have different living histories . The histories is of the texts and meaning making that we have experienced in our lives. Intertexuality exists in the meaning making process which involves circulation and exchanging of meaning. However, according to Schirato & Yell (1996), picking the right material to suit the right audience is necessary. It is because awareness of an individual in relation to certain text or sign is depending on cultural literacy in a situational context.
Burger King's Ice-cream Design Banned!!!
For instance, the issues of design on design on Burger King’s ice-cream lid. The design on the lid apparently looks like the word “Allah” in Arabic. For Burger King or non-Muslim, they might take the design which it solely picture ice-cream sign only. But, for Muslims, they feel offended and are very sensitive towards the design because it portrays the name of God.
Picture's source: http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/35Besides that, recently, there is an issue about a teacher in Sichuan Province wrote in his blog about the true feeling and experience escape from the earthquake that happened recently. He wrote in his blog that he quickly run when he realize that the earthquake is going to hit without even thinking to rescue his students at the moment. Moreover, he also said in his blog that his action is reasonable because if he was to rescue anyone it will be his own son. It is nothing wrong to protect himself first. In this case, he is being selfish but alive.
After it is published on the blog, as a teacher who did such selfish action, he was criticized and by all the peoples in China who ever read his blog or knew about it. As a result, he was get fired by the school headmaster due to the peoples’ pressure. The issues here is the teacher must not publish such a sensitive content in his blog because there are many peoples out there living in the same place with him lost their families members in the earthquake tragedy. Maybe for a western people who read the blog, they feel fine but for Chinese people, they are feeling offended because this incidents was happening on them.
Audience is reading based on their schemata where meaning making process is different, base on individual culture background and their experiences. Putnis & Petelin (1996, p.230) has incidates that schema theory suggested that readers interact with texts and construct their meaning by calling on their framework of prior knowledge and background experience of objects, situation, events, action – their schemata.
References:
1."Allah" ice-cream banned by Burger King, Pickled Politics, viewed 15 November 2009, <http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/35>
2.Schirato,T & Yell, S 1996, Communication and cultural literacy: an introduction, Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W.
3.Putnis, P. & Petelin, R. 1996, Professional communication : principles and applications, Prentice Hall, Sydney.
4.Yahoo News, viewed 15 November 2009, <http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/080527/4/100ah.html>
No comments:
Post a Comment