ABSTRACT
In considering the process of how meaning is generated in communications I employ here two distinct modes of analysis (semiotics and sociology) to analyse two distinct types of constraints on the production of meaning. These are: (a) the internal structures and mechanisms of the text/message/ programme which invite certain readings and block others (and which can be elucidated through semiotics); and (b) the cultural background of the reader/recipient/viewer, which has to be studied sociologically. The interaction of these two constraining structures will define the parameters of a text’s meaning-thus avoiding the traps of either the notion that a text can be interpreted in an infinite number of (individual) ways or the formalist tendency to suppose that texts determine meaning absolutely.
