This document provides an overview of media language and semiotics. It defines media language as how a text constructs meaning for its audience. It then discusses key semiotic concepts such as denotation, connotation, signifiers, signifieds, and how codes and conventions influence audience interpretation. The document uses examples and theories from scholars like Saussure, Barthes, and Chandler to explain how semiotics can be applied to analyze how meaning is created in media texts through the use of signs, and how this shapes cultural myths and realities.

1. Media Language
The way in which a text is
constructed to create meaning for
a reader or viewer of the text
Some of the content is adapted from Chandler (2005) -
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

2. For the exam you need to be
able to:
Write a coherent analysis of the media language in your
teaser trailer:
Refer to theory – e.g. Semiotics, Saussure, Barthes
Apply this theory to your teaser trailer, giving lots of
specific examples of how meaning is created for the
audience.
Use key terms appropriately (e.g. denotation and
connotation, signifiers and signified, codes and
conventions, and terminology relating to micro and
macro features of a media text).

3. KEY TERM: Semiotics
Definition: The study of SIGNS
(& the role of signs in social life)
Semiotics examines how signs construct meaning
(i.e. how the use of mise-en-scene, camerawork, editing and sound
construct meaning in your teaser trailer).
You will be using a semiotic approach to analyse
media language in your teaser trailer.

4. Semiotics – The Study of Signs
Saussure (a founder of semiotics)
summarised it in the following equation:
The Sign = signifier + signified
the form which
the sign takes
the concept it
represents

5. Semiotics – The Study of Signs
• This basic level of signification operates at the
level of ‘denotation’. In other words we are
simply identifying or ‘describing’ a sign.
• i.e. Furry animal, four legs, barks = dog
• A more complex level of signification operates at
the level of ‘connotation’ these are more
sophisticated mental associations we conjure up
when we come across a particular sign.

6. SEMIOTICS
Denotation
furry animal, four legs, barks
Connotation
dirty, friendly, ‘mans best friend’ dangerous, etc..

7. Signifier Signified
Dog
SIGN (denotative)
Signifier Signified
Friendly
SIGN (connotative)
Remember at the second level of signification meaning is less ‘fixed’.
The number of connotative response to the image of a dog will be
varied and numerous although some will be more common than
others. Shared connotations can be described as ‘socially agreed’
Furry
animal,
four
legs,
barks
Dog
The two levels of signification: DOG
At the second level of signification meaning is less ‘fixed’. The
number of connotative responses to the image of a dog will be varied
and numerous although some will be more common than others.
Shared connotations can be described as ‘socially agreed’

8. Semiotics – codes and
conventions
We interpret things as signs largely unconsciously by relating
them to familiar systems of codes and conventions (e.g.
genre conventions, cultural conventions, etc.).
e.g. low key lighting which casts dark shadows in a film scene can
symbolise mystery or sinister characters.

9. But it all depends on context!
What made the shadows mysterious or even
sinister in the last slide?
What different meanings are created in the
images on this slide?

10. Shadows as symbolic codes
Shadows are not mysterious in themselves.
I am tapping into cultural ideas that connect
darkness with the unknown or hidden.
Also, expectations based on our understanding
of thriller/horror film codes and conventions,
which associate low key lighting and dark
shadows in a scene with mystery or sinister
characters.

11. Semiotics
So, signs can be polysemic (have many possible
meanings)
Why do viewers interpret certain meanings over others?
– Dominant cultural ideas will lead us towards certain
interpretations over others.
– We understand the conventions of particular media
forms.
– Context is important – how signs work in combination will
lead us towards particular readings over others. Meaning
can be anchored.

12. Semiotics
Write down an example from your teaser trailer that
demonstrates how you have anchored meaning for the
audience. i.e. how you have encouraged them to take a
particular reading.

13. How to read the signs and
signifiers within a Media Text
All media texts have 2 layers of meaning:
DENOTATIVE LEVEL:
What we actually see/hear
CONNOTATIVE LEVEL:
What you associate with this image

14. This image denotes a tropical
island
The image connotes peace,
tranquility paradise, holiday,
summer to some readers.
…but think about the film
‘Castaway’, the victims of the Bali
bombings or the recent tsunami - in
this case the image may connote
isolation, fear or even death
It is important to note that images
have different connotations
depending on the reader of the
image/text

15. Denotation & Connotation within a
Media Text – A Movie Poster
The Mission Impossible Poster
denotes a MATCH and a
GLOBE OF THE WORLD
What are the connotations of
a) The match?
b) The globe?
What are they communicating to
an audience? Why?

16. TASK
Log on to YouTube and access your teaser
trailer in video manager. (Use Chrome)
Add at least 5 annotations that explain how
meaning is created for the audience
(denotation and connotation / signifier and
signified).
Try to link to meaning created for the
audience in terms of genre, narrative,
representation, audience.

17. Examples
Textual analysis of media language
reveals how the following adverts are
constructed to create certain meanings
in relation to their product.

18. SIGNIFIER:
Water/Ocean
Wave
SIGNIFIES:
Wild, Stormy,
Natural, Earthly
SIGNIFIER:
Words ‘Cool
Water’
SIGNIFIES:
Refreshing,
different,
SIGNIFIER:
Droplets on
Bottle
SIGNIFIES:
Cool, chilled
appearance,
almost drinkable
SIGNIFIER:
Mans Naked
Torso
SIGNIFIES:
Natural, angelic,
pure, toned, ideal,
masculine, adonis
SIGNIFIER:
Facial
Expression/Body
Language
SIGNIFIES:
Ecstatic, pleasure lost
in ecstacy, laid back,
inviting
SIGNIFIER:
Calligraphy Style
Font
SIGNIFIES:
Classic, timeless,
expensive tastes

19. SIGNIFIER:
Blonde Hair
Signifies:
Ideal
Woman,
Innocence,
Looks ‘gold’
SIGNIFIER:
Perfume
Bottle
Signifies:
Looks Jewel-
like, Buried
Treasure
SIGNIFIER:
Colour Gold
Signifies:
Luxury, Riches,
Expense,
Success,
Shimmering
SIGNIFIER:
Jewellery
Signifies:
Extravagance,
Excess,
Glamour,
Decedance
SIGNIFIER:
Word
‘Love’
Signifies:
Passion,
Excitement,
Lust
SIGNIFIER:
Font
Signifies:
Dior Logo,
Brand Name,
Designer

20. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Barthes was an influential theorist who
explored the way in which media texts make
meaning.
(Saussure was more interested in how meaning was created
in language, Barthes was more interested in the cultural
significance of Semiotics.)
He considered that all cultural forms, are essentially made up
of a system of signs that could be deconstructed to reveal
how cultural meanings are constructed.
He analysed the denotative and connotative level of signs
in a media text.

21. Roland Barthes and semiotics
Barthes argues that the organisation of signs encodes
particular messages and ideologies and that these
ideologies can be revealed as constructed through textual
analysis.
He described these constructed messages and ideologies as
myths – cultural myths.
For example, he would say the perfume adverts reinforced
ideas of materialism and certain ideas of masculinity and
femininity.

22. For those of you who want to really
stretch your academic muscles…
‘Semiotics is important because it can help us not to 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 or conventions of which we are normally unaware.
Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually
empowering…
Daniel Chandler (2005)

23. For those of you who want to really
stretch your academic muscles…
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.’
Daniel Chandler (2005)

24. Over to you
Go back to your analysis.
Summarise any overall messages it
connotes or cultural myths it reinforces.