As it will be possible to observe, the confrontation between
semiotics and sociology in the study of journalism should take on
various shades of meaning. In the first place, it is not pertinent
to conceive a field of study as a battlefield in which different
disciplines confront each other. On the contrary, there are many
points in common between sociology and semiotics. In the second
place, we should recall that one of the classic counterviews is that
of quantitative content analysis, more characteristic of sociology,
versus qualitative semiotics analysis. This confrontation is not new
in the social sciences (Alvira, 1983). However, we should point out
that we find ourselves facing a false dichotomy. The two methods
are not incompatible, but rather complementary.
