2. What is “Semiotics”?
Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols. It
looks how signs and symbols are used to
communicate and develop interpretations.
3. Ferdinand de Saussure
• Saussure was a swiss linguist who created the term
“semiotics”. Saussure distinguished between the signifier and
signified. The “signifier” is the physical form which the sign
takes, the “signified” is what we understand the form to
represent. Therefore, for a sign to be considered a sign, it
must both be the signifier and the signified. He was as also
concerned with the arbitrariness of language and language
itself as signs.
• Saussure argued that words are verbal signifiers that are
personal to whoever is interpreting them so for example,
there is nothing physical about the rose that determines it
must be called a “Rose”- this is why different languages have
different spellings for words such as “tree” and “rose”.
Furthermore, when you see the written word “rose”, this acts
as an arbitrary signifier leading the individual to think of any
rose they wish whether it be red, pink or yellow.
• However, a signifier can have many different representations
which can turn it into a different sign. For example, the word
‘open’ becomes a completely different signified when it
states “push to open the door”. Another example is where it
states on the top of a juice bottle to “open this end”- this
highlights that the same form (signifier) can have different
meanings (signified).
4. Roland Barthes
• Barthes was a French literary
theorist, critic and like Saussure,
was also interested in semiotics.
Barthes semiotic theory focuses
on how signs and photographs
represent different cultures and
ideologies in different ways. These
messages are established in two
ways, through:
Denotation: The literal meaning of
the sign
&
Connotation: The suggested
meaning of the sign, the cultural
conventions associated with the
sign.
5. • For example, Harry Potter denotes a
storybook character, it connotes to
wizards, witches, spells, Hogwarts,
magic and spells. A rose denotes a
flower, however it’s connotations
could be passion, love, romance.
• The term “myth” refers to the
collective, unconscious meaning
created as the result of a semiotic
process.
• Barthes theorised that a myth is a
chain of semiotic events which, when
experienced or seen by members of
society, creates a subconscious
meaning. For example, when
members of society come across the
signs of McDonalds, Burger Kind, KFC,
Pizza Hut, the literal meaning is that
they are restaurants whereas the myth
would be consumerism, capitalism,
obesity which society members will
not register on a conscious level.
6. Stuart Hall
• Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and
sociologist.
• Hall’s encoding/decoding model is a
part of the reception theory that looks
at how audience interpret and
respond to a particular medium
whether it be a newspaper or
television show.
• Hall theorised that broadcasters,
producers, institutions such as
newspapers and magazine encode a
particular media message which
creates a new form of
communication. Hall argued that the
audience then decode (receive) this
meaning using their own methods of
logical interpretation.
• Hall argued that the meaning of
media messages is not fixed by the
institution that is encoding the
message and that those receiving the
message are not passive when it
comes to interpreting meaning.
7. • Hall also argued that the meaning of the text is
relative to the person//audience interpreting it.
The producer (encoder) can fix the meaning of
the message in a specific way but they cannot
control how the audience decode the message
and this is dependent on their personal
background, economic situation and cultural
background.
• For Hall, the denotation and connotation
process is an analytical tool He also argues that
it is very rare for signs to signify their literal
meaning in the world and that most signs will
combine both the denotative and connotative
process and work simultaneously together to
create meaning.
8. • Hall went onto argue that for those decoding
readings, there can be a number of unlimited
readings and that the decoding process is
“polysemic”- meaning that one text can have
a number of meanings. Hall stated that whilst
these various meanings do exist, they will
eventually give way to a “dominant or
preferred meaning”.
• The next slide gives an example of Hall’s
communication model.
9. The magazine editor is encoding
the message of the latest
fashion on the catwalk on this
cover of “Elle” magazine. The
reader may decode the
message as either a) the latest
fashion on the catwalk
b) this is what “beauty” is and
that this is what all women
should look like or
c) in order to make it into the
modelling industry, you have to
starve yourself to the point
where there is nothing left of
you.
The way you interpret
(decode) this magazine
cover will depend on your
social, economic and
cultural background
amongst other interests.
