Can you tell what it is yet? - an introduction to the theories of realism, immediacy and transparency

Realism (18th century ~19th century) is the 'close resemblance to what is real, fidelity of representation, rendering the precise details of he real thing or scene'.

Marshall Law: the world according to Professor McLuhan

The Medium is the Message from Joe Cajindos on Vimeo.

Medium is the message a famous quote by Marshall Mcluhan (1911-1980), the 'medium' stands for extension of mind/body (remote-extension of arm; bicycle-extension of legs) while the 'message' stands for the effect or impact, ignoring the content in it.

Two sides to everything (and a bit in the middle): structuralism

If you have OCD, you would probably be able to associate yourself with this term. Structuralism, is the love of categorizing and structuring things, combining linguistics, narratology and anthropology.

In fact, you may even have a sense of I see what you did there when you observe of how things have their certain obvious pattern and formula:

Nothing new: Intertextuality

Intertextuality, fancy word for lack in originality. Although not really plagiarism, but more towards "influence".
According to Julia Kristeva: "the term intertextuality denotes transportation of one sign to another"

“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
Paul Valéry, Pièces sur L’Art, 1931
Le Conquete de l’ubiquite

Reading the signs: Semiotics

Are there more than meet the eyes?
...
Why, yes, there are, in fact, when you see it, you'll shit bricks.

Well, not really. But on semiotics there are a whole lot of bricks-shitting terms that you have to know about.
For starters, let's look at how the term semiotics came about, these 2 educational video should've warp it up: