Acta Universitatis Danubius. Communicatio, Vol 3, No 1 (2009)

Abstract

Media has become a very powerful cultural institution in the last past decades of the 20th century and inspired many critical studies in disciplines such as linguistics, semiotics, pragmatics, discourse studies and not least, in the field of mass communication itself. The first studies of media language focused on easily observable surface structures, such as the biased or partisan use of words in the description of Us and Them, especially along political and social lines, for instance in the representations of communists. The traditional approach on the analysis of the biased, stereotypical - sexist or racist images in the media, has taken into account both texts, as well as illustrations of photos. Semiotics found its way into media studies quite early, and thus brought some basic structural notions to the study of media discourse and a necessary component of a broader study of media images.