Semiotics: The study of systems of signs, the process of signification, and the production of codes Some terms: Sign: signifier/signified Syntagmatic/paradigmatic.

Slides:



Advertisements
Similar presentations
Elements of painting, printmaking, photography, graphics art
Advertisements

RHETORIC OF THE IMAGE II. FUNCTIONS OF THE LINGUISTIC MESSAGE IN RELATION TO ICONIC MESSAGE  ANCHORING  RELAYING.
Structuralism Semiotic. Definition Semiotic / semiology => The study of sign and sign-using behavior a domain of investigation that explores the nature.
SEMIOTICS What is Semiotics? Semiotics is the study of signs. A sign is something that stands for something other than itself.
DIGITAL CULTURE AND SOCIOLOGY session 3 – Susana Tosca Representation: Meanings and Symbols Digital Culture and Sociology.
Semiology and the photographic image
Space is the place Hum 201 Autumn 2005 Day 5. Today’s itinerary Use de Certeau to make “place” and “space” strange. Demonstrate how this is related to.
RECAP  Ethical and Sustainable Design for Fashion, Textiles, Interiors and our Future  Ethical and Sustainable Design vs Conventional design and production.
Textual Analysis. Text = films, television programs, shows, magazines, advertisements, songs, clothes, posters Textual analysis = The interpretation of.
Media Arts and Technology Graduate Program UC Santa Barbara MAT 256 Visual Design through Algorithms Winter 2006 Visual Syntax & Semiotics.

Week 4: Semiotics & Theatre Today we will seek to answer the following questions: Where is meaning made on stage ? How is it communicated to an audience.
Qualitative Discourse Analysis: Contribution of Social Semiotics, & Nexus Analysis Masayuki Iwase CMNS 801 (2008 Spring) March 5, 2008.
Introducing Media Semiotics. How did it Develop? 1960s: Shift away from the more ‘humanist’ approach of auteurism with its focus on mise-en-scène Interest.
ENCODING / DECODING program encoding (structures of meaning)
In Written Texts and Screens.  Make a list of dominant images in the novel  Categorize the images into binary opposites.
Broadcasting: Concepts and Contexts Chris Gilgallon.
The Photographic Message Roland Barthes. The photographic paradox What is the content of the photographic message? What does the photograph transmit?
Media Arts and Technology Graduate Program UC Santa Barbara MAT 259 Visualizing Information Winter 2006George Legrady1 MAT 259 Visualizing Information.
What representation is not… Media instantaneously planting images and thoughts in our heads.
Importance of media language Every medium has its own ‘language’ – or combination of languages – that it uses to communicate meaning. Television, for example,
THE RHETORIC OF THE IMAGE
11 English Semiotics and advertising. AIDA Attention Attention Every ad competes with many other ads. It must have something about it that attracts attention.
Kuliah Proses Komunikasi Oleh Coky Fauzi Alfi cokyfauzialfi.wordpress.com Visual Semiotics.
2IV077 Media Analysis Lecture 2: Semiotic Analysis Dr James Pamment, 5 November 2012.
WEEK 6 Communication Theory: Semiotics Intro to Communication Dr. P.M.G. Verstraete.
Signification: Denotation / Connotation
By Laura Pound and Beatrice Fatusin.  Media Languages can be Written 2. Verbal 3. Non – verbal 4. Visual 5. Aural (Personal responses: We felt.
G235: Critical Perspectives in Media Theoretical Evaluation of Production 1(b) Media Language.
Reading literacy. Definition of reading literacy: “Reading literacy is understanding, using and reflecting on written texts, in order to achieve one’s.
What are the components of Media Literacy?.  Narrowest meaning:  Reading ability – verbal texts  Fluent, critical reading ability  To be educated,
Vocabulary Presentation By: Aurora Arrollo 2B. Intrapersonal communication ● Is a language use or thought internal to the communicator. Is the active.
Dr. Holly Kruse Communication Theory
Semiotics and Photography
TODAY QUESTION 1B.
Media Studies: Week 6: Semiotics Citroën DS-19.
Rhetoric and Advertising
Visual Perspective Jaclyn Baglos.
Visual Arts Art criticism and art history
AREA OF STUDY – BELONGING 2013 SECTION 1 An approach as you prepare for the Half Yearly examinations and beyond.
SMT. KAMALAXI TADASAD. Ph.D.
Intro to cultural studies
Ch. 2 Fundamental Concepts in Semiotics Part One
Question 1b: Media Language.
Intro to Film Analysis and Theory (but first, a brief overview of Cultural Studies) overview of the “Introduction” from Film Analysis, edited by Jeffrey.
Semiotics – Roland Barthes
How to Analyse a Visual Text
Ch 1 Second Half What is a Language?
Standard Critical Approaches
What is the difference between a sign and a symbol?
Connotation and Denotation
Media Studies Key Terms
Denotation vs. Connotation
ENCODING / DECODING program encoding (structures of meaning)
DIDOSS: Elements of Craft
2MED443 Approaches to Media
Writing a literary analysis essay
Media and Visual Literacy
Semiotics Structuralism.
SEMIOTICS AND STRUCTURALISM
SEMIOTICS AND STRUCTURALISM
SEMIOTICS.
Look, Learn Connect: How to Interpret Art through the “Close Read”
Italy Through Italian Film
Message, Meaning, Connotation, Denotation
Wrt 105: practices of academic writing
SEMIOTICS.
James Tissot, The last evening, 1873
Wrt 105: practices of academic writing
QUESTION 1B The list of concepts to which questions will relate is as follows: • Genre • Narrative • Representation • Audience • Media language.
Presentation transcript:

Semiotics: The study of systems of signs, the process of signification, and the production of codes Some terms: Sign: signifier/signified Syntagmatic/paradigmatic relations.

Roland Barthes (12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980)

Barthes: why advertising? In advertising, the message is so intentional. It is frank, it is emphatic. There are typically 3 messages in advertising: A linguistic message A coded iconic message A non-coded iconic message

Barthes: the Panzini ad It provides a linguistic message in the text below, as well as on the product It depicts a series of images that are carefully clustered together (signifiers) These singifiers imply a set of signifieds: freshness; home cooking; Italianicity; and an aesthetic signified harkening back to the idea of the “still life painting”

In anchoring, we are also dispatching. Barthes: Anchorage Images are polysemous. In the process of anchorage, the textual information fixes the process of signification and limits the polysemic possibilities of an image. In anchoring, we are also dispatching.

Barthes: Relay The dispatching associated with the anchoring of an image by a text is different than the process of relay, the second function of the linguistic message. “Here text and image stand in a complementary relationship; the words , in the same way as the images, are fragments of a more general syntagm and the unity of the message is realized at a higher level, that the of the story, the anecdote, the diegesis…” it may elucidate and advance the action in a film, for example, by setting out “in a sequence of messages, meanings that are not found in the image itself” (21)

Barthes: Denotated Images Ideally, a denotated image is purely anological, a “message without a code” Photographic images, which have an iconic relationship to that which is represented, seem unlike drawings to be a “message without a code”. Drawings are rule governed and historical; their operation is selective; it is an activity that must be learned.

Barthes: photographs Seem to be natural and merely a recording of reality, as is. Its reality is a “having-been-there.” (23) “the denotated image naturalizes the symbolic message, it innocents the semantic artifice of connotation, which is extremely dense, especially in advertising.” (23)

Barthes: rhetoric of the image Advertising is effective, suggests Barthes implicitly because the image (a lexia) engages with different potential lexicons. The readings can vary with individuals, however, the variation in readings is not “anarchic.” (24) A lexicon is a portion of language which corresponds to “a body of practices.” (24) There is a lexicon of cooking; of different sports; of art; of musical genres. An idiolect is the plurality and co-existence of a lexicon in an individual.

Barthes notion of rhetoric …signifiers are connotative and this connotation is an aspect of ideology. For Barthes, rhetoric is the “signifying aspect of ideology.” (25) There are omissions and absences (an asyndeton) Asyndeton: “the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence” But, iconic denotation is only syntagm, associative elements that become connected, even when they are presented as fragments. This iconic denotation, the literal message, naturalizes the system of connotation even though its adequate decoding requires that we mobilize our own knowledge and practices (lexicon) in order to make sense of its meaning.

De Certeau Like Barthes, he uses a blend of concepts drawn from semiotics and rhetoric. In this instance, he also is connected to that tradition of thought known as phenomenology, specifically the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty who understood all of communications and acts of significations in as an embodied practice.

Michel de Certeau (Chambéry, 1925- Paris, 9 January 1986)

De Certeau Is also concerned with the visual field, but his gaze and speculations are not turned to the advertising image but to the city. Opens his essay by describing two perspectives on Manhattan, that of the voyeur and that of the walker. These become conceptual metaphors for his discussion of two implied ideas: strategies and tactics.

De Certeau Famous for his interest in the practices of everyday life, but as well for his writing on the city and his delineation of strategies and tactics. Strategies: the structured dynamics of power that are set out for us to follow. Connected to systems. Tactics: how users negotiate the strategies that are put into place. (see pp. 154-155, where these terms of mentioned, but not fully explained).

De Certeau: cities The city, he says is comprised of a 3-fold operation. 1. rational systems of organization 2.these try to impose a “no-when” or erase a history of a space and limit the tactics of users, but this is impossible says de Certeau. 3. create identities for themselves as ‘subjects’. (think how different cities brand and market their image)

De Certeau Cities are defined, in part, by their “spatial practices” (157). “Their intertwined paths give their shape to spaces.” Walking rhetorics: This is an invitation for you to consider just how you move through the city, or observe others moving through your city, or suburb.

Identify 4 types of mobility you have observed. Take one and describe in detail, how this informs the relationship that you have with others in city space.

De Certeau: parting remarks “Stories about places are makeshift things. They are composed with the world’s debris”

“Things extra and other (details and excesses coming from elsewhere) insert themselves into the accepted framework, the imposed order. One has thus the very relationship between spatial practices and the constructed order. The surface of this order is everywhere punched and torn open by ellipses, drifts and leaks of meaning: it is a sieve order.” (160)