Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Peppa Pig and Friends

Semiotic Remarks Over Meaning-Making of Some Cartoons Targeted to the Early-Childhood in the Italian Television

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Cite this article

Abstract

This paper presents the first results of an ongoing semiotic research over TV series targeted to early childhood in Italy. In particular, it focuses on discussing and explaining the great success of the animated series Peppa Pig aired in Italy on the thematic channel Rai YoYo, by comparing it with other series available in the same channel, in the period of its first launch (years 2014–2015). Most of the programs taken into account refers to animals with the purpose of using them as a mean to speak about manhood, in a simplified and appealing way. Nothing new. Fairy tales have always been filled with animals to mean vices and virtues of the humans. Aim of the paper is to reveal the complexity of such reference to animals in Peppa Pig’s stories. This goal will be achieved by comparing it to another series which references to pigs (Olivia the piglet) aired simultaneously in the same Italian network. Moreover, this paper will consider other animals embodying the bouquet of meaning proposals offered by Rai YoYo: a dog (La Pimpa) and some shapeless creatures known as Barbapapas. As a conclusion of such enquire a synthetic model which positions each of the series analyzed will be presented.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Notes

  1. For a reconstruction of the first years of the production, see [26].

  2. It is what in Semiotics is known as semi-symbolism. Semi-symbolic systems are meaningful systems characterized by a correlation between a category of the expression plane and another one of the content plane. For an introduction to the problems involved by this type of significant systems, see entry "semi-symbolic" in [12: 203–206]. From this first proposal of Floch, Semiotics has widely used this concept, see as Refs. [12, 20, 23].

  3. http://www.raiyoyo.rai.it/dl/PortaliRai/Programmi/PublishingBlock-844eb8e1-6772-4ebf-b345-3cddc0e103f0.html?ContentItem-6d832e12-a3f2-4794-91bb-d37d0c363932. Accessed on Dec 22, 2015. My translation.

  4. For the Italian debate over this issue, see [3, 27, 28].

References

  1. Agnello Maria Laura. 2003. Don Giovanni Felice, 4. Comunicando n: Intorno al logo McDonald’s.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Barthes, Roland. 1957. Mythologies. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Biondillo, Gianni, and Severino Colombo. 2008. Manuale di sopravvivenza del padre contemporaneo. Milano: Guanda.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. 1980. Mille Plateaux. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Eco, Umberto. 1966. Apocalittici e integrati. Milano: Bompiani.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Fabbri, Paolo and Gianfranco Marrone. 1992. La luce del Sud. Analisi semiotica di un frammento di Paolo il caldo di Vitaliano Brancati. Working papers del Circolo Semiologico Siciliano 2.

  8. Fabbri, Paolo. 2010. Arte in teoria. In Arte in teoria, arte in azione. Nelson Goodman. Milano: Et al.

  9. Finzi, Roberto. 2014. L’ onesto porco. Bompiani: Storia di una diffamazione. Milano.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Floch, Jean-Marie. 1990. Sémiotique, marketing et communication. Sous les signes, les stratégies. Paris: Presses Universitaries de France.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Floch, Jean-Marie. 1995. Identités visuelles. Paris: Puf.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Gremas, A.-J. and J. Courtés. 1986. Sémiotique, disctionaire raisonné de la théorie du language, t. 2, Paris: Hachette.

  13. Kuhn, Thomas. 1977. The Essential Tension. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Kundera, Milan. 1984. Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí. Toronto: 68 Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Eric, Landowski. 2005. Les interactions risquées. Limoges: Pulim.

    Google Scholar 

  16. Latour, Bruno. 1991. Nuos n’avons jamais été modernes. Essai d’anthropologie symétrique. Paris: La Découverte.

    Google Scholar 

  17. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1962. La Pensée sauvage. Paris: Plon.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1975. La Voie des masques. Genève: Skira.

    Google Scholar 

  19. MacDonald, Dwight. 1960. Masscult and Midcult I. Partisan Review XXVII 2: 203–233.

    Google Scholar 

  20. Mangiapane, Francesco. 2015. Yo logo(s): On the icono-plastic configuration of brand symbols. In Handbook of Brand Semiotics, ed. George Rossolatos. Kassel: Kassel University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  21. Marrone, Gianfranco. 1995. Il dicibile e l’indicibile. Verso un’estetica semio-linguistica. Palermo: L’epos.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Marrone, Gianfranco. 2007. In aeroporto, 33. Il Verri: Traduzioni intratestuali in The Terminal.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Marrone, Gianfranco. 2007. Il discorso di marca: modelli semiotici per il branding. Bari: Laterza.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Marrone, Gianfranco. 2014. The Invention of the Text. Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis International.

    Google Scholar 

  25. Marrone, Gianfranco. 2014. Gastromania. Milano: Bompiani.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Millard, Rosie. 2010. How Peppa Pig brought home the bacon. Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/b7bcd9b6-9ab1-11df-87e6-00144feab49a. Accessed 10 January 2018.

  27. Quilici, Folco. 2010. Storia della Paternità, Dal pater familias al mammo. Roma: Fazi.

    Google Scholar 

  28. Recalcati, Massimo. 2013. Il complesso di Telemaco. Milano: Feltrinelli.

    Google Scholar 

  29. Silverblatt, Art. 2001. Media Literacy Keys to Interpreting Media Messages. Westport (CT): Preager.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy

    Francesco Mangiapane

Authors
  1. Francesco Mangiapane
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Francesco Mangiapane.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Mangiapane, F. Peppa Pig and Friends. Int J Semiot Law 31, 451–471 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-018-9553-1

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-018-9553-1

Keywords

search

Navigation