Assigment 1

Assignment 1: Textual analysis essay
Signs or semiotics are meanings and interpretations humans create when observing
something, signs can be communicated through different forms such as words, images,
sounds, acts or any other senses. According to Saussure who laid the foundations of
semiotics for the 20th century, signs only consists of two key elements. Building upon
Saussure's linguistic theories Roland Barthes constructed his own theory of semiotics.
According to his book Mythologies (1957). The two elements are a signifier and a signified,
and this can only gain some meaning when “it has someone to mean to. Signifier, the
material object, and the signified, which it its meaning.” (Williamson, 1978:17). A viewer’s
own interpretations of a text are important and are different to other people’s thoughts, as
they will be drawing from their own codes and cultural values. This essay will analyse two
different media texts using analytical tools that I will employ to show how meaning can be
created from audience responses. As stated by Branston and Stafford “in the study of media
and culture, a text can be anything which is to be investigated: a haircut, hip-hop....”
(2010:11). Semiotics was explored before by theorists and has been noticed throughout
history in philosophy and psychology. The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure defined semiotics
from his independent works as well as the works of American philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce. Although philosopher John Locke has used the word before particular in the 17th
Century, Saussure expanded on the word looking more at the patterns and functions of
language itself. Saussure was born on November 26th, 1857 in Switzerland and studied a
variety of subjects but took interest in linguistics and semiology. Likewise, Peirce also
studied philosophy and help define semiotics, but he foremost calls himself a logician which
the study of human words and thoughts.
The first text that I will be analysing is a photograph of the universal soldier sitting with his
head down and gun laying next to him in the Vietnam War, taken by Tim Page. Tim page is
an English photographer who left England in 1962 who made his name during the Vietnam
War and is currently aged 64. He is a self-taught photojournalist who documented the war
in Vietnam. His intentions were to take photos in dangerous situations where other
photographers would usually not venture, capturing unique photos that show more reality
to things happening there. His strange personality was part of the inspiration for the
character played by Dennis Hopper in Apocalypse Now (1979). His work was released in a
book called Tim Page’s Nam (1983) where it focused on the Vietnam War. I will take a

semiotic approach to this and find different signs, codes and conventions within the image,
explaining different connotations and denotations. “Although they are two opposite modes
of signification, both denotation and connotation institute the foundation of
communication.” Kyong Liong (Kim, 1996:24).
Furthermore, the first signifier I noticed is the colour of the photo. The image is in black and
white, which makes this image much more serious as we do not see any bright colours to
show positive themes. The dull colours of black and white tells us how serious this image is
and it shows its age and history in black and white. The connotation we see when looking at
this photo is that we think more of the past because photos used to be in black and white,
and we think of periods in the past like the 1940’s making the image a documented moment
in history. Signifier: The framing of the camera shot is unique because we see the soldier
and gun in a near equal level and spacing to each other. Both of them being in the middle of
the shot. Connotation: This makes the gun a more eye-catching object and telling the viewer
the gun is an important part of the image and to the person. In media, guns have always
been a dangerously deadly object often unlike other weapons that pretty much do the same
act such as lasers, knives, and more. However, contemporary guns are dangerous and the
solider in the picture is aware that guns are one of the most dangerous weapons they can
face. He knows this and we can see that through his action in the photo even though a
soldier’s weapon is one of the closest objects they rely on. The rifle represents ethics as he
has done terrible things using it he just want rest by resting his weapon of the destruction
sitting away from it. The gun is rested far away from the soldier as if it was an entity itself
using the compositional technique with them balancing the two main subjects in one image
making them equal. Both are shown bad conditions with the gun being dirty laying on the
ground dead and the person looking down in depression. There are no bright colours
meaning we do not have many distractions giving more of the focus on the actual person or
object. The connotation is that the gun is this powerful object that has affected this person’s
Morales and life like the devil on his shoulder being the hammer of his decisions. Black and
white make the image more realistic and moody, which fits perfectly with the theme of this
photo giving it more emotional impact. Signifier: The soldier’s head is hanging down, we
cannot see his face so we do not see the emotion from his eyes or facial expression because
of that all we get from him is his body language. His body language connotes so many

different emotions that he and the viewer can be feeling as well as trying to show his
ideologies in the Vietnam War. Connotation: You get the feeling of emptiness off the person
like he has nothing left besides that gun. We see nothing happy or lively in the image just
nothing but sadness from his actions. It connotes soldiers are people as well and that they
all have different morals and choices that define them as a person. Media represents
soldiers as heroes killing the bad guys showing binary oppositions with good and evil, but in
reality it’s not so black and white as people thinks which also relates to the photo being
black and white showing shades of grey. A person who did not want this is just taking a
break but we can see from his posture he is slumped down in depression and exhausted. It
tells me that war was the enemy and the people they were fighting because their lives like
this soldier have been taken away like their freedom has been taken away yet they’re
fighting for freedom using weapons that have also taken away their freedom as well
creating a binary opposition between the man and the rifle. Binary opposition was a theory
developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss a French anthropologist who argued that most narratives
contain binary opposites that cause conflict and contrast to further push the narrative. The
notion of representation can be shown with Timpage taking pictures on the America side
showing only representing one version. Representation is where semiotic signs take the
place for something else, organizing reality and the world in acts different acts such as
stereotypes, culture, ideology and version. We also see that in myth guns throughout
history are crazy and is a destruction because the gun represents war and hate In this image
and this certain person seems really frustrated with it and he uses it as a weapon to kill
because the setting around him is destroyed with cracked walls and broken concrete. The
culture of war is shown through that setting Page wanted us to invoke those certain
emotions when viewing its why he took the photo in a certain way to help show his
ideologies on war. He presents this version of a soldier instead of the stereotypical fearless
action Jackson man that people have consumed from mainstream culture that media texts
have shown us, texts such as The A-Team (1983) and Top Gun (1986). As people, we learn
and see elements from media that make us think in a certain way, as stated, “The cultures
we inhabit teach us to see the world in some ways and not in others” (Ott & Mack,
2010:126). As well people, especially in countries like America, also had other factors
influencing their ideologies of the US soldier, in that between the 40’s and 70’s the image of
a man in the army was more of a courage’s tough patriotic white person. Especial during

world war two where there was propaganda everywhere to convince people to join the
army. As stated by Gillespie and Toynbee “Signs that once had positive connotations, for
example, can later time have negative connotations” (2006:16). The photograph now with
its context does not show a positive thought but rather a negative depending whom view it.
Regarding my second text, I chose the season one poster of Stranger Things (2016) to
analyse and dissect. Stranger Things (2016) is a science fiction horror web television show
created, written and directed by Matt and Ross Duffer, as well as co-produced by Shawn
Levy and Dan Cohen. The TV show was released and distributed by Netflix, an online
distribution and streaming site that started in 1997 and initially the company only rented
out DVD’s but later expanded into its own film and television production creating “Netflix
Original” content, such as Stranger Things (2016). The show is set in a fictional town called
Hawkins in America, Indiana in the early 80’s. The show became extremely popular globally
being critically acclaimed for its writing and paying homage to the 1980’s culture. The poster
was created to promote and advertise the television series before it was released to
communicate and peak peoples interest. The show, in general, has had a lot of inspiration
and postmodernism inspiration from 80’s culture with the show being inspired by films like
The Goonies (1985), Firestarter (1984), Stand by Me (1986) and such. We can see these
themes and imagery from movies that era in the poster itself having a very 80’s look to it as
well as still being current to the genre its time today. The poster and TV series heavily show
postmodernism as its one of the big points that make the show. Postmodernism is a stylish
term to describe contemporary culture or culture from the past that we see and live
amongst. It has key characteristics such as intertextuality where a media text or something
has elements formed from previous media texts and pastiche is the same meaning however
instead it imitates a previous text with respect. We see intertextuality with references to
other texts in the 80’s as well creating a pastiche which is paying homage to works and
culture in that decade. For example, the whole style of the poster and placing of characters
refers to movie posters like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Stand by Me (1986). It is
stated that “postmodern pastiche is ultimately seen to result in the loss of history” (Connor,
2004:49).
Furthermore, this relates to the idea of narrative and underlying the structure of a text using
theories. I will approach this media text from a narrative point of view using Propp’s theory

of narrative as an analytical tool to analyse the poster. Subsequently, Vladimir Yakovlevich
Propp was a Soviet filmtheorist born in 1928 in Russia. He analysed different narrative
elements in Russian folk tales to identify the narrative elements in them. His work helped
break down the narrative structure in numerous texts and is even utilised today. His book
Morphology of the folktale (1968) has influenced people’s ideas of folklore but also ‘It
decisively shaped contemporary narrative and textual studies and semiotic theory of all
kinds, and some have argued that it gave birth to structuralism.’ (Forrester,2012:8). He also
influenced other theorists such as Roland Barthes and Claude Lévi-Strauss. His theory
suggests that every folktale has the same eight characters that follow a certain role in the
overall story. This idea can be utilised to understand a little more about the narrative
structure of Stranger Things poster. However, the theory is limited and is usually employed
in narratives and not usually used for posters when originally constituted by Propp. He
offers that ‘the number of functions known to a fairy tale is limited’ (Propp, 1968:21). In
addition, Propp also devised certain models for each character that in literature a limited
number of factors with narrative and characters can be analysed. He said there are eight
plot models in narrative and each model presents many different forms of genre.
The poster invokes specific themes to genre and narrative. Just from the font of the title and
colour scheme, Levi-Strauss’s binary opposition is being employed. With top of the poster
literally being split with the night sky being blue and inside walls being red. Both opposing
forces causing conflict giving a very sci-fi and supernatural theme to it with both having
circles with the blue having stars and red having light decorations showing a sort of twisted
family Christmas theme, but as well as presenting horror with the alphabet being shown in a
dark way which references the idea of simplicity and children. The title is in red making the
poster majority red, which overshadows the blue, meaning signs and themes like danger,
power and blood, overpower the theme of peace and sadness. This can relate to Todorov’s
theory that every narrative has something disrupts the equilibrium of peace which turns the
narrative into danger. The show was able to trigger nostalgic feelings in audiences familiar
with the popular 1980s movies it was inspired by, while still making a current use of all of
the formal and narrative conventions of the genre. Their target audience was young to
middle-aged adults interested in geek culture and the 80’s era. Sullivan in reference to Fiske
states, “There is no text, there is no audience, there are only the processes of viewing”.

(Sullivan, 2012:153). We all have a different social experience and therefore a different
reading. The positioning and size of each character on the poster are placed specifically to
their character and we can apply Propp’s theory. First the girl in the middle is positioned
directly in the middle and is bigger than everyone else, maybe suggesting that she’s the
central character to all this that ties everyone together being placed centrally. There for
she’s presumed to be the hero as they are the main character in a narrative. The text can
also say she’s the helper because her action suggests that she has some kind of power or
ability maybe making her helper as well. Also maybe making her the princess as she’s is the
only girl similar age to the majority of the cast suggesting that this show is mainly going to
be focused on the children. The ominous person at the back is not connected to other
characters as we can see its entire body as well their gender and face is not visible and is
standing behind the lab in a hazmat suit. This can be placed in the villain characters as he is
separate from the cast wearing unusual clothing compare to them. Jonathan and Nancy are
on the left side and are the same size holding items. This suggests that those items are
probably unique objects important to their character in the narrative. It also suggests that
they could be helpers considering they having conventional objects to the genre like
weapons is an iconography to horror helping the hero on his journey or maybe giving the
hero a magical item for his journey being the donor rather than the helper. Nearly all
characters types can be associated to more than one person on the poster. Propp suggests
his theory that all narratives have different forms and ways such as Pulp Fiction (1997)
where more than one character fills in one of the roles as well as that more than one
character can fill in one role.
In conclusion, semiotics is important because it can show us how meanings construct,
sustain and compromise certain ideologies and attitudes in a culture. As stated 'Signifieds
have a very close communication with culture, knowledge, history, and it is through them so
to speak, that the environmental world invades the system'. (Cobley, 1996:131). In addition,
Propp’s theory helps us understand the narrative structure more because we know which
character is who in a fundamental level and what role they are going to play in the bigger
narrative.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Berger, A. (1982). Media analysis techniques. Sage Publications.

Berger, A. (1996) Narratives in Popular Culture, Media, and Everyday Life.Sage Publications.
Cobley, P. (1996) The Communication Theory Reader. Routledge
Connor, S. (2004) The Cambridge Companion to Postmodernism. Press syndicate of the
University of Columbia
Gillespie, M. Toynbee, J (2006) Analysing Media Texts. Open University Press in Association
with Open the University
Mack, R. Ott, B (2010) Critical Media Studies: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons
Kim, K. (1996) Caged in Our Own Signs: A Book about Semiotics. Albex Publishing
Corporation
Propp, V. (1968) Morphology of the folktale. University of Texas press Austin.
Propp, V. Forrester, S. (2012) The Russian folktale. Wayne State University Press Detroit.
Sullivan, J. (2012) Media Audiences: Effects, Users, Institutions, and Power. Sage
Publications.
Williamson, Judith. (1978) Decoding Advertisements: Ideology and Meaning in Advertising.
London Marion boyars
William, Shawcross. (1983) Tim Page's Nam. Thames and Hudson.
FILMOGRAPHY:
Apocalypse Now (1973) Directed by Francis Coppola [Online] Available through Netflix.
[Accessed on 19th January 2018]
Firestarter (1984) Directed by Mark L. Lester [Online] Available through Netflix. [Accessed on
22nd January 2018]
Pulp Fiction (1997) Directed by Quentin Tarantino [Online] Available through Netflix.
[Accessed on 20th January 2018]
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Directed by Stephen Spielberg [Online] Available through
Netflix. [Accessed on 21st January 2018
Stand by Me (1986) Directed by Rob Reiner [Online] Available through Netflix. [Accessed on
22nd January 2018]
Stranger Things (2016) Created and written by Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer [Online]
Available through Netflix. [Accessed on 23rd January 2018]
The A-Team (1983, TV) Created by Frank Lupo and Stephen J. Cannell [Online] Available
through Netflix. [Accessed on 20th January 2018]
The Goonies (1986) Directed by Richard Donner [Online] Available through Netflix. [Accessed
on 23rd January 2018]

Top Gun (1986) Directed by Tony Scott [Online] Available through Netflix. [Accessed on 20th
January 2018]

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