American Ideological Research Of Criminal Minds With Semiotics Theory

Criminal Minds is a television series produced by CBS,tells detective stories of Behavioural Analysis Unit(BAU),the subordinate department of U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation(FBI).As a part of television cultural products,Criminal Minds expresses typical American beliefs such as Liberalism,Individualism and Racism.The expression is mainly embodied on multiple connotation and binary principle of them.The spread of American ideology expressed by Criminal Minds can be interpreted from a variety of angles.According to semiotics theory, Criminal Minds has constructed a complete and unique system of symbol and meaning to express the American ideology.It is a system including terrorism,violence,ethnic and religious symbols.It describes fanatical religious beliefs and acts,and reckless bloody violence in United States which reflected by criminal cases of religious.It reflected the extreme pursuit of personal values,religion,inequality and discrimination which based on the Liberalism and Individualism.Based on the theory of semiotics and symbolic matrix analysis method created by A.J.Greimas,Criminal Minds constructed a semantic matrix including X,anti X,non X,non anti X elements and the relationship between them.Criminal Minds also sets up four kinds of roles,including anti crime,crime,victims and auxiliary.The complex relationship between four roles expressed Americans’ understanding with freedom,democracy,fairness,justice,self-reliance,self realization and resistance against authority in United States.All above values are attributable to Individualism, Liberalism and Racism.With these ways,the expression of American ideology was accomplished in Criminal Minds.