Formation and Transformation of Social Representations
Objectification is a more in-depth process, infusing anchored phenomena with a concrete reality. The idea of objectification is effectively expressed in Moscovici's claim that the phenomenon that is originally perceived in the process of anchoring becomes, in the process of objectification, conceived, that is, it becomes conceptualized as real. The interdependence and transformation of the anchored, i.e., the perceived phenomenon into an objectified, i.e., a conceived phenomenon, can be observed particularly in language. Naming embraces both anchoring and objectification. For example, the term like Freud's ‘Oedipus complex’ may be originally perceived as a strange and intellectual phenomenon and becomes associated with, or anchored to, the boy's jalousie of his father. Subsequently, through the use of ‘Oedipus complex’ in daily language, the term becomes objectified. It turns into designated ways in which relations between parents and children are organized, and it helps to interpret certain tensions in such relations and to refer to them as pathological symptoms. In other words, elements of scientific terminology turn into signs that correspond to a particular reality and become reified within that reality. Thus we may say about someone that he/she is stubborn or quarrelsome; through repeated use in language this label becomes conceived as a real feature of that person and subsequently, this ‘reality’ becomes incorporated into habitual social practices with respect to that individual.
Graphic representation is another form of objectifying ideas into entities. Written texts, posters, or pictures, all turn an idea into real graphic objects. Visual images in the press, advertisements, and campaigns are used to influence or change social representations of political or health issues. Visual images in the press have been particularly influential in staged photographs capturing public images about genetic engineering as injecting tomatoes with genes that make them grow bigger. Wagner and Hayes (2005: p. 181) comment that viewers associate images of genetically modified tomatoes with inoculation and with injecting foreign materials into human bodies as they know it from medicine and chemistry. There is also a related belief of infection that passes from one organism to another. These examples show that a new reality and new social representations are created by means of semiotic signs and symbols and their transformation.
