Communication Games: The Semiotic Foundation of Culture

Eduardo Neiva

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2007

Communication Games

The Semiotic Foundation of Culture

Eduardo Neiva

Volume 5 in the series Approaches to Applied Semiotics [AAS]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110897753

Overview
Contents

About this book

Communication Games is a new and radical interpretation of the relationship between culture and communication. It explores the idea that culture and communication studies should be seen predominantly in relation to struggles and conflicts within the social arena.

It criticizes the conventional heritage of the social sciences and humanities. Culture and communication are conceived not merely as means of integrating social actors, but as semiotic ways of providing fitness indicators that allow for the resolution of competition between individuals.

From the perspective of Peircean semiotics and the Darwinian understanding of life processes, Communication Games redefines culture in terms of Darwin's notion of sexual selection. Moving on from the realization that sexual selection creates individual organisms with conflicting interests, Communication Games emphasizes the contribution of game theory to semiotics and communication studies.

The book demonstrates how cooperation and shared conventions eventually emerge, and how conflicts are resolved through the display of costly and inflated signs. It is from these inflated signs and the escalation of excessive messages that cultures gain a certain degree of stability. Communication Games proposes a new way of understanding culture, communication, and semiotic exchange in terms of game theory.

Author / Editor information

Eduardo Neiva, University of Alabama, Birmingham, USA.

Reviews

Over the past twenty years the insights of semiotics have inspired and guided research across the whole spectrum of the humanities - from anthropology to queer theory, from literary history to film studies, from philosophy to art history. Yet with time the imbalances and fault lines within the original core of semiotic theory have also emerged, or half emerged. Neiva names and defines a set of problems that semiotics must finally resolve - before the whole engine runs out of steam. A daring, inventive, passionately original book, this is essential reading for everyone concerned with culture, signs, meanings, subjects.

Norman Bryson

Blending social history with evolutionary biology, Eduardo Neiva shows how sexual selection impacts cultural practice through complex communicative exchange. Debunking conventional explanations of cultural development, the author employs a massive body of evidence ranging from the bloody battlegrounds of ancient conflict to the technologically-driven terrain of contemporary life to fashion an intriguing argument.

James Lull, San Jose State University

Topics

i-vi Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	i
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Foreword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part 1. Canonical games
Chapter 1. Conflict Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Chapter 2. Coordination Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
Chapter 3. Contract Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Part 2. Ancestral games
Chapter 4. Origin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Chapter 5. Sex, signals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	145
Part 3. Individual games
Chapter 6. Strategies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Chapter 7. Players Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
Afterword Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	297

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Libraries and Researchers in the fields of Semiotics, Communication, and Culture
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 306
Keywords: Communication studies; semiotics; game theory

eBook

Published: December 22, 2011
ISBN: 9783110897753

Hardcover

Published: May 18, 2007
ISBN: 9783110190465