Nepochopená setkání: sémiotika a sociální věda o médiích

The main goal of this mostly theoretical and polemic paper is to discuss common mistakesconnected to misinterpreted theories of signs in selected theoretical researches in the discourse of Czechmedia studies. I argue that many theoretical concepts in this discourse are built upon confusions caused bythe reading of secondary literature while ignoring the primary texts written by the founders of semiotics. Theguiding principles of these mistakes, which are described in the article, have mostly two forms: i) the formof reducing Peirce’s complex semiotic theory to the triplet (popularized by Jakobson) of alleged similarity(in the case of sign–icon), causality (in the case of the sign–index) and convention (sign–symbol); and ii)the form of interpretation of Saussure’s purely mental sign as something which has in itself “materialityof sound” (ergo the signifier is something physical). I would like to show that the original conceptionsof semiotics and semiology have nothing to do with these wild misreadings of secondary sources that,moreover, cannot be crossbred, which brings problems into the theoretical frames of research.