This document discusses media language and semiotics theories that can be applied to media productions. It defines key terms like media language, semiotics, denotation and connotation. It discusses theorists like Saussure who see signs as composed of a signifier and signified, and Barthes who saw how signs in media construct cultural myths and realities. It provides examples of how these concepts could be applied to analyze students' thriller openings by examining the signs, codes, realities constructed, and whose interests are privileged or suppressed through the media language.

1. Section 1, Question B
‘Apply the concept of
media language to one of
your productions.’
Objective – to understand the theories and
apply thinking to media productions.

2. Media Language is everywhere
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
It is worth remembering that when writing about the
other key concepts, you are dealing with media
language to some degree.
Media language can create representations, appeal to
an audience, make clear a narrative or signal a genre.
What do we conclude about our response to the
media language question from that?
To be asked about it in isolation would be rare, but it
could happen.

3. KEY TERM: Semiotics
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
Definition: the study of signs
(and the role of signs in social life)
• Semiotics examines how signs construct meaning
(i.e. how the use of camerawork, mise-en-scene, sound and editing
construct meaning).
• You will be using a semiotic approach to analyse
your thriller openings or music videos.

4. Semiotics – the study of signs
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
• Saussure (a founder of semiotics)
summarised it in the following equation.
• The sign = the signifier + signified
The form which the
sign takes e.g. a
bushy moustache
The concept it
represents, e.g. a
well-educated
Victorian man (or a
hipster).

5. Semiotics – the study of signs
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
• The basic level of signification operates at the
level of ‘denotation’. In other words we are simply
identifying or describing the sign’s external
appearance. i.e. furry animal, four legs, barks; a
dog
• The more complex level of signification, which is a
subjective reading, is the level of ‘connotation’ –
the mental associations we develop from ‘reading’
the sign. e.g. dogs are dirty, smelly, cute, man’s
best friend, etc.

6. The two levels of signification
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
The connotative sign is less fixed than the denotative sign,
and more based on social norms.

7. Semiotics – codes and conventions
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
• We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by
relating them to familiar systems of codes and
conventions; genre would be one such system, e.g. low key
lighting which casts dark shadows connotes a monster,
but only perhaps within the system of the horror genre.

8. Semiotics – codes and conventions
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
Of course this does mean that things could be very
different within another system (or schemata) of meaning.

9. Semiotics – codes and conventions
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
What this means is that signs can be polysemic and therefore create an
open narrative – although even in closed narratives audiences can still
misinterpret them.
Factors governing interpretation:
• Dominant cultural ideas or ideologies
• Expectations about generic conventions
• Context is important – it is how signs work together that can allow
the meaning to be anchored.
Think about the signs in the opening few seconds of either production –
how do some establish the system of codes and conventions while others
work to anchor this meaning? (remember the signs don’t have to be
visual) Do any remain polysemic?

10. Further example
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
The denoted signifier and signified
are…? The sign produced is…?
What about the connoted? What does
it depend on?
It could have different meanings
depending on whether it is in a
romance, a pirate movie or a film like
Cast Away.

11. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
While Saussure’s version of semiotics
was based around the signs found in
literature, Barthes took a more cultural
perspective.
He considered the all cultural forms - including films,
television, radio, photographs, graphic products,
advertisements, the works – could be deconstructed to reveal
the social role of signs within the culture producing them.
It was he that first explored the denotative and connotative
level of signs within media texts.

12. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
He argued that the organisation of signs
together could create messages and
ideologies (systems of belief)
These cultural messages and ideologies came to be
described by him as myths.
An example would be that perfume advertisements might
create messages saying that materialism is good and
reinforce ideologies about masculinity and femininity.

13. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.

14. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
Message?
Ideology?
Now – what
cultural
myths do
your
productions
use?

15. Daniel Chandler (2005) – step 1
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
‘Semiotics is important because it can help us not take ‘reality’ for granted
as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of
human interpretation.
It teaches us that reality is a system of signs. Studying semiotics can
assist us to become more aware of reality as a construction and of the
roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it.
… meaning is not ‘transmitted’ to us – we actively create it according to a
complex interplay of codes and conventions of which we are normally
unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and
intellectually empowering…
What do we say about offering our audiences opportunities to construct
a reality in our products? Do we do it through verisimilitude (attempts
to actively reflect reality) or through hyperrealism (deliberate
construction of artificial reality)?

16. Daniel Chandler (2005) – step 2
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
‘In defining realities, signs serve ideological functions. Deconstructing and
contesting the realities of signs can reveal whose realities are privileged
and whose are suppressed.
The study of signs is the study of the construction and maintenance of
reality. To decline such a study is to leave to others the control of the
world of meanings which we inhabit.’
• In making our own media texts, whose interests have we served?
What ideologies have we privileged and which have we suppressed?
Linking to Marxist thinking, have we represented the interests of the
proletariat or the bourgeoisie in our productions?
• What links are there here to section 2 and what does that suggest
about are productions – the thrillers in particular?

17. Case Studies
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
Thinking back to Chandler, what might he make of Matt’s video?
Why Matt’s?
It is probably the video that is most specific in its representation of British
youth, so how does the media language at work privilege certain beliefs
about British youth and suppress others?
Being made by a young British man, we would like to think it privileges more
positive ideologies about British youth culture, but does it?
Not quite relevant to Question 1b but how does it compare to the ideological
nature of the media language in Quadrophenia or Human Traffic?

18. Case Studies
Objective – to understand the theories and apply thinking to
media productions.
Now think about Barthes’ ‘myths’ in light of Tim’s thriller
Why Tim’s?
Tim’s aim was to construct the thriller around a representation of mental
illness (so did Matt’s and Bethan’s, to an extent). But, while use of enigma
code leaves us uncertain about the protagonist’s role in the murder or
attempted murder that portrays, if the character was responsible, then
what myths have been created about people with mental health problems by
the media language in the sequence?
Then perhaps compare this to Matt’s portrayal.