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1981
Volume 24, Issue 2
  • ISSN: 1539-7785
  • E-ISSN: 2048-0717

Abstract

The symbolic communication and language characteristic of the human species provides us with tools for thought, and its survival value is evidenced by the fact that speech appears to be universal to all human societies. The invention of writing conferred many additional advantages but led to the misconception that meaning is located in the message or text and not in the communicators. From a behaviourist approach based on Pavlov and others, meaning can be understood as a response to a stimulus. The distinction between symbol and signal is therefore not due to the inherent characteristics of the signs themselves but rather a product of the response elicited by them, or what in general semantics is referred to as the semantic reaction. Insofar as meaning resides within the communicators, and therefore remains subjective, it is the medium that constitutes the only objective part of the message, hence the basic media ecology notion, as articulated by McLuhan, that the medium is the message.

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2025-09-13
2026-04-11

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/content/journals/10.1386/eme_00247_1
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  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): Korzybski; McLuhan; Pavlov; semantic reaction; signal; stimulus–response; symbol
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