Salience (semiotics)
Encyclopedia
Salience is the state or condition of being prominent. The Oxford English Dictionary
defines salience as "most noticeable or important." The concept is discussed in communication
, semiotics
, linguistics
, sociology
, psychology
, and political science
. It has been studied with respect to interpersonal communication
, persuasion
, politics
, and its influence on mass media
.
(the study of signs or symbolism), salience refers to the relative importance or prominence of a part of a sign
. The salience of a particular sign when considered in the context of others helps an individual to quickly rank large amounts of information by importance and thus give attention to that which is the most important. This process keeps an individual from being over whelmed with information overload
.
or phenomenon
, its properties and associations with other objects and/or phenomena. In the consciousness
of an individual, meaning is reflected in the form of sensory information, image
s and concept
s.” (Bedny & Karwowsky, 2004). It is either denotative
or connotative
but the sign system for transmitting meanings can be uncertain in its operation or conditions may disrupt the communication and prevent accurate meanings from being decoded.
Further, meaning is socially constructed and dynamic as the culture
evolves. This is problematic because an individual’s frame of reference and experience may produce some divergence from some of the prevailing social norms
. So the salience of data will be determined by both situational and emotional elements in a combination relatively unique to each individual. For example, a person with an interest in botany
may allocate greater salience to visual data involving plants, whereas a person trained as an architect
may scan buildings to identify features of interest. A person's world view
or Weltanschauung may predispose salience to data matching those views. Because people live for many years, responses become conventional. At a group or community level, the conventional levels of significance or salience are slowly embedded in the sign systems and culture, and they cannot arbitrarily be changed.
scholars have found that a number of different factors have a direct effect on the salience of attitude objects.
of that attitude
, and the level of consistency between attitude and behavior
.
can also be measured by the relevance
of an idea
to that person’s needs or aspirations (Showers). As ideals become more salient they become more accessible, the more accessible the attitude object is the stronger the attitude toward the object. As accessibility
increases, so does the likelihood of self interested voting
(Young).
, because policies are not only determined by what issues are important to people but also by how important they are. This involves examining what issues are ignored and which are made “important.” One research agenda that political scientists are concerned with understanding is “when and how salience and changes in salience matter for political action.”
There are three related understandings of salience.
which has been concerned with how the public salience of the issue is related to mass media
’s ranking of these issues in terms of frequency of coverage and news play. The main hypothesis
examined in this study is the ranking of certain issues by the media
, which, in time, becomes the public agenda. More importantly, this article searched at whether the perceived public salience of the federal budget deficit is significantly related “to the amount of public knowledge about the issue, direction of public opinion regarding one possible solution to the issue, the strength of that opinion and political behavior such as writing letters, signing petitions, voting, etc”. The result of this study concluded that “even though the federal deficit issue was one of the more salient to newspaper and voters during the 1988 election
, it (the federal budget deficit) was not as emotional or dramatic
as some of the other highly salient issues such as drug abuse
or environmental pollution. Thus it seemed likely that public opinion regarding a solution to the federal budget deficit might be rather evenly split and would likely be more stable during the month of interviewing than would opinion on some of the other more dramatic issues being emphasized in news media coverage and political advertisements”. In other words, issues that directly involve subjects, in this study, would conclude to be more salient than issues that do not involve them directly.(9)
In their study of family communication and intergroup relationships, “Group salience is an individual’s awareness of group memberships and respective group differences in an intergroup encounter (e.g., the salience of race in an interracial conversation).” (Harwood, Raman & Hewstone 2006) This study carefully examines the dynamics of intergroup relationships with respect to communication in a family context. Their study involved communicative aspects associated with age salience in the grandparent – grandchild relationship, the extent to which various dimension of communication predicts measures of salience, relational or inter-family proximity, and attitudes towards aging. According to Harwood, Raman and Hewstone, “Communication phenomena that were positively correlated with measures of age salience were negatively related to relational closeness. Only one communication measure (grandparents talking about the past) moderated the relationship between quality of contact with grandparent and attitudes toward older people. Specific communicative dimensions emerged that warrant further investigation in this and other intergroup contexts.” (Harwood, Raman & Hewstone 2006)
Salience also from an applied communicative perspective plays an important role in our Consumer
- Marketing
world. In Gianluigi Guido’s book, The Salience of Marketing Stimuli: an incongruity – salience hypothesis on consumer awareness, "salience triggered by an external physical stimuli, like all marketing stimuli are before being internalized by consumers - to explain and predict the conditions under which a marketing stimulus, is able to achieve its communication outcomes in term of processing and memory." (Guido, 2001) The book clearly defines the history of the definition of salience and the ambiguities of arriving at an accurate definition. It also utilizes various theories to best define salience in our marketing world. Of the many theories, Guido uses aspects of Incongruity theory, Schema
theory and an information processing model referred to as the In-salience hypothesis emphasizes the nature of prominence of salience.
Therefore, to define salience as appropriate as possible using the information, it would be apt to define it such that, salience is that intrinsic concept of the perceived or interpreted prominence of an attitude, and its manifestation on our choices.
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
defines salience as "most noticeable or important." The concept is discussed in communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
, linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, and political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
. It has been studied with respect to interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication
Interpersonal communication is usually defined by communication scholars in numerous ways, usually describing participants who are dependent upon one another. It...
, persuasion
Persuasion
Persuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding or bringing oneself or another toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic means.- Methods :...
, politics
Politics
Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...
, and its influence on mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
.
Semiotics
In semioticsSemiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
(the study of signs or symbolism), salience refers to the relative importance or prominence of a part of a sign
Sign (semiotics)
A sign is understood as a discrete unit of meaning in semiotics. It is defined as "something that stands for something, to someone in some capacity" It includes words, images, gestures, scents, tastes, textures, sounds – essentially all of the ways in which information can be...
. The salience of a particular sign when considered in the context of others helps an individual to quickly rank large amounts of information by importance and thus give attention to that which is the most important. This process keeps an individual from being over whelmed with information overload
Information overload
"Information overload" is a term popularized by Alvin Toffler in his bestselling 1970 book Future Shock. It refers to the difficulty a person can have understanding an issue and making decisions that can be caused by the presence of too much information...
.
Discussion
Meaning can be described as the “…system of mental representations of an objectObject (philosophy)
An object in philosophy is a technical term often used in contrast to the term subject. Consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject, which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts, and some object or objects that may or may not have real existence without...
or phenomenon
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...
, its properties and associations with other objects and/or phenomena. In the consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
of an individual, meaning is reflected in the form of sensory information, image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s and concept
Concept
The word concept is used in ordinary language as well as in almost all academic disciplines. Particularly in philosophy, psychology and cognitive sciences the term is much used and much discussed. WordNet defines concept: "conception, construct ". However, the meaning of the term concept is much...
s.” (Bedny & Karwowsky, 2004). It is either denotative
Denotation (semiotics)
In semiotics, denotation is the surface or literal meaning encoded to a signifier, and the definition most likely to appear in a dictionary.-Discussion :Drawing from the original word or definition proposed by Saussure , a sign has two parts:...
or connotative
Connotation (semiotics)
In semiotics, connotation arises when the denotative relationship between a signifier and its signified is inadequate to serve the needs of the community. A second level of meanings is termed connotative...
but the sign system for transmitting meanings can be uncertain in its operation or conditions may disrupt the communication and prevent accurate meanings from being decoded.
Further, meaning is socially constructed and dynamic as the culture
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
evolves. This is problematic because an individual’s frame of reference and experience may produce some divergence from some of the prevailing social norms
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
. So the salience of data will be determined by both situational and emotional elements in a combination relatively unique to each individual. For example, a person with an interest in botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
may allocate greater salience to visual data involving plants, whereas a person trained as an architect
Architect
An architect is a person trained in the planning, design and oversight of the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to offer or render services in connection with the design and construction of a building, or group of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the...
may scan buildings to identify features of interest. A person's world view
World view
A comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the entirety of the individual or society's knowledge and point-of-view, including natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and...
or Weltanschauung may predispose salience to data matching those views. Because people live for many years, responses become conventional. At a group or community level, the conventional levels of significance or salience are slowly embedded in the sign systems and culture, and they cannot arbitrarily be changed.
Communication studies
Salience is used as a measure of how prominent or relevant perception coincide with reality. Richard E. Vatz of Towson University claims that the struggle for salience (or agenda and meaning and spin) is the sine qua non of the creating of issues for chosen audiences.Axioms of salience
CommunicationCommunication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
scholars have found that a number of different factors have a direct effect on the salience of attitude objects.
Direct experience
Crano posits that one’s direct experience with an issue or attitude object increases the salience and consequently the potencyPotency
Potency may refer to:* Potency , a measure of the activity of a drug in a biological system* Virility* Potency is a measure of the differentiation potential of stem cells...
of that attitude
Attitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
, and the level of consistency between attitude and behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
.
- For example: Consider two people: one with emphysema, one without. Both of whom share a negative attitude toward cigarette smoking. The person with emphysema would have a stronger attitude than his counterpart, and consequently would show greater consistency between his relevant attitude and behavior. It is posited by Crano that the attitude toward smoking of the person with emphysema may be more salient due to his direct experience with the consequence of smoking.
Self-Interest
The concept called vested interest by Crano is called self-interest by Sears (1997). It seems that "self-interest" is the more widely recognized term. Self-interest involves either perceived or actual personal consequences. That is, Crano (1997) argues that vested interest involves perceived personal consequences (p. 490), while Sears (1997, a critique of Crano) counter-argues that Crano's survey experiments define it objectively. Crano argues that vested interest should have a moderating effect on attitudes. Sears argues that, actually, evidence for this is conflicting: The survey literature has rarely found significant effects of self-interest, while the experimental literature finds significant effects. The literature is concerned with salience only marginally; it is actually about strength of attitudes (i.e. how well they correlate with behavior). It is about salience inasmuch as anything "strong" is "salient".Needs and aspirations
The salience (prominence) of an attitudeAttitude (psychology)
An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object...
can also be measured by the relevance
Relevance
-Introduction:The concept of relevance is studied in many different fields, including cognitive sciences, logic and library and information science. Most fundamentally, however, it is studied in epistemology...
of an idea
Idea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
to that person’s needs or aspirations (Showers). As ideals become more salient they become more accessible, the more accessible the attitude object is the stronger the attitude toward the object. As accessibility
Accessibility
Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product, device, service, or environment is available to as many people as possible. Accessibility can be viewed as the "ability to access" and benefit from some system or entity...
increases, so does the likelihood of self interested voting
Voting
Voting is a method for a group such as a meeting or an electorate to make a decision or express an opinion—often following discussions, debates, or election campaigns. It is often found in democracies and republics.- Reasons for voting :...
(Young).
- For example: In times of elections, issue relevant events are the focus of attention. Therefore, candidates, due to their aspiration for a certain political position are interest driven toward the salient events since they are favorable to their party.
Policy making
Political scientists agree that salience is relatively important in examining political policyPolicy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
, because policies are not only determined by what issues are important to people but also by how important they are. This involves examining what issues are ignored and which are made “important.” One research agenda that political scientists are concerned with understanding is “when and how salience and changes in salience matter for political action.”
There are three related understandings of salience.
- The first ("classical") interpretation considers salience to be independent of the “status quoStatus quoStatu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
” and politicians’ ideal policies and programs. Although it says salience is independent of ideals, it does not say that salience is independent of preferences. This means, where there is a change in salience there is also a change in preferences. Often a player or policymaker’s ideals may not be known but their preferences are usually revealed in their party’s manifestos. Often policymakers cannot achieve their ideals but rather must choose between the offers on the table. They may prefer one over the other and this is where salience affects a party or a politician’s position on an issue. - The second ("valenceValence (psychology)Valence, as used in psychology, especially in discussing emotions, means the intrinsic attractiveness or aversiveness of an event, object, or situation. However, the term is also used to characterize and categorize specific emotions. For example, the emotions popularly referred to as "negative",...
") interpretation proposes that for certain issues salience is a very important factor. In other words, when there is a general consensus of principlePrincipleA principle is a law or rule that has to be, or usually is to be followed, or can be desirably followed, or is an inevitable consequence of something, such as the laws observed in nature or the way that a system is constructed...
s, the relative salience of various issues amongst the public determines the policy position of policy makers. This is due to constraints in policy making, where ideals are often induced, which policy makers view as the tradeoff space. For example, although “ideally” they may like to see low unemploymentUnemploymentUnemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
and low inflationInflationIn economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
, they are usually constrained to pick a position on the “tradeoff” line. Thus, their ideal has been induced due to constraints. In these situations salience and policy position are almost interchangeable, because their “induced ideal” is their “favored allocation.” In the classical interpretation, salience would be used to describe the different levels of preference between positions on policies. - The third (“price”) interpretation assumes that salience is not separate from ideals, as the classical view states, but that it is also not the same as ideals, as the valence view claims. This interpretation assumes that although a group of players, sharing benevolent preferences, all dissatisfied with the status quoStatus quoStatu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
, may still value different aspects differently when considering policy change. The price interpretation is favored over the other two for three reasons. First, it is more applicable. Unlike, the classical view, the price interpretation can be applied to a more wide-ranging set of situations. Second, the Price interpretation uses both the classical point of view and ideals in its evaluation of salience. Not only do you need to know a player’s weighted preferences but also their connection to their ideal point and the status quoStatus quoStatu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
. Therefore a change in salience can reflect a change in ideal point, status quoStatus quoStatu quo, a commonly used form of the original Latin "statu quo" – literally "the state in which" – is a Latin term meaning the current or existing state of affairs. To maintain the status quo is to keep the things the way they presently are...
, or their weighted preferences. Third, this interpretation can be used to determine the elements stand in importance or worth. For example, players may organize and focus their time and energy into options with the biggest pay off. “That is they may look to see where they get the greatest ‘bang for their buck.’” (8)
Public opinion
A particular study that researched salience and public opinion examined most of the agenda-setting research since the United States presidential election, 1968United States presidential election, 1968
The United States presidential election of 1968 was the 46th quadrennial United States presidential election. Coming four years after Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson won in a historic landslide, it saw Johnson forced out of the race and Republican Richard Nixon elected...
which has been concerned with how the public salience of the issue is related to mass media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
’s ranking of these issues in terms of frequency of coverage and news play. The main hypothesis
Hypothesis
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
examined in this study is the ranking of certain issues by the media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, which, in time, becomes the public agenda. More importantly, this article searched at whether the perceived public salience of the federal budget deficit is significantly related “to the amount of public knowledge about the issue, direction of public opinion regarding one possible solution to the issue, the strength of that opinion and political behavior such as writing letters, signing petitions, voting, etc”. The result of this study concluded that “even though the federal deficit issue was one of the more salient to newspaper and voters during the 1988 election
Election
An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy operates since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the...
, it (the federal budget deficit) was not as emotional or dramatic
Dramatic
Dramatic may refer to:* Drama, a literary form involving parts for actors* Dramatic, a voice type classification in European classical music, describing a specific vocal weight and range at the lower end of a given voice part...
as some of the other highly salient issues such as drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
or environmental pollution. Thus it seemed likely that public opinion regarding a solution to the federal budget deficit might be rather evenly split and would likely be more stable during the month of interviewing than would opinion on some of the other more dramatic issues being emphasized in news media coverage and political advertisements”. In other words, issues that directly involve subjects, in this study, would conclude to be more salient than issues that do not involve them directly.(9)
Marketing stimuli
Although salience is a stimulus response, is it a stimulus quality or an absolute quality? (Guido, 2001) Salience plays an important role in intergroup communication. According to Harwood, Raman and Hewstone, “Group salience is a key variable both in influencing quality of intergroup contact and in moderating the effects of intergroup contact on prejudicial attitudes.”In their study of family communication and intergroup relationships, “Group salience is an individual’s awareness of group memberships and respective group differences in an intergroup encounter (e.g., the salience of race in an interracial conversation).” (Harwood, Raman & Hewstone 2006) This study carefully examines the dynamics of intergroup relationships with respect to communication in a family context. Their study involved communicative aspects associated with age salience in the grandparent – grandchild relationship, the extent to which various dimension of communication predicts measures of salience, relational or inter-family proximity, and attitudes towards aging. According to Harwood, Raman and Hewstone, “Communication phenomena that were positively correlated with measures of age salience were negatively related to relational closeness. Only one communication measure (grandparents talking about the past) moderated the relationship between quality of contact with grandparent and attitudes toward older people. Specific communicative dimensions emerged that warrant further investigation in this and other intergroup contexts.” (Harwood, Raman & Hewstone 2006)
Salience also from an applied communicative perspective plays an important role in our Consumer
Consumer
Consumer is a broad label for any individuals or households that use goods generated within the economy. The concept of a consumer occurs in different contexts, so that the usage and significance of the term may vary.-Economics and marketing:...
- Marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
world. In Gianluigi Guido’s book, The Salience of Marketing Stimuli: an incongruity – salience hypothesis on consumer awareness, "salience triggered by an external physical stimuli, like all marketing stimuli are before being internalized by consumers - to explain and predict the conditions under which a marketing stimulus, is able to achieve its communication outcomes in term of processing and memory." (Guido, 2001) The book clearly defines the history of the definition of salience and the ambiguities of arriving at an accurate definition. It also utilizes various theories to best define salience in our marketing world. Of the many theories, Guido uses aspects of Incongruity theory, Schema
Schema (psychology)
A schema , in psychology and cognitive science, describes any of several concepts including:* An organized pattern of thought or behavior.* A structured cluster of pre-conceived ideas....
theory and an information processing model referred to as the In-salience hypothesis emphasizes the nature of prominence of salience.
- "This model is part of wider Dichotic theory of salience, according to which a stimulus is salient either when it is incongruent in a certain context to a perceiver's schema, or when it is congruent in a certain context to a perceiver's goal. According to the four propositions of the model, in-salient stimuli are better recalled, affect both attention and interpretation, and are moderated by the degree of perceivers' comprehension (i.e., activation, accessibility, and availability of schemata), and involvement (i.e., personal relevance of the stimuli). Results of two empirical studies on print advertisements show that in-salient ad messages have the strongest impact in triggering ad processing which, in turn, leads to consumer awareness." (Guido, 2001 pg 1)
Therefore, to define salience as appropriate as possible using the information, it would be apt to define it such that, salience is that intrinsic concept of the perceived or interpreted prominence of an attitude, and its manifestation on our choices.