What is the author's tone in Subculture, the Meaning of Style by Dick Hebdige?

Hebdige writes and reasons like a semiotician. He's less concerned with the apparent, preferring instead to strike out for the hidden. Hebdige doesn't see a punk's ripped t-shirt. Rather, he sees an attempt to rupture societal expectation and definition. It isn't merely the t-shirt itself which is damaged, but the very consensus of what a t-shirt actually represents to society. To Hebdige, objects do not represent static, physical things, but the underlying ideas themselves, ideas which might be changed, redirected or even destroyed entirely. The main thrust of the book concerns itself with the way in which objects are invested with meaning.