Semiotics

1) What meanings are the audience encouraged to take about the two main characters from the opening of the film?  The main characters are hooligans and they are only looking to cause trouble

2) How does the end of the film emphasise de Saussure’s belief that signs are polysemic – open to interpretation or more than one meaning?

Some people may think differently which shows his idea of polysemic and when we find out he is deaf it creates a second meaning which shows he is right. 

Part 2: Media Magazine theory drop - Semiotics 

Greenford Media department has a subscription to Media Magazine - a brilliant magazine designed exclusively for A Level Media students and published four times a year. We strongly recommend you read it regularly and also set plenty of work for the course based on the articles inside. You can find our Media Magazine archive here and for this task need to go to MM68 (page 24) to read the introduction to Semiotics. Once you've read it, answer the following questions:

1) What did Ferdinand de Saussure suggest are the two parts that make up a sign?
Signifier and signified

2) What does ‘polysemy’ mean?

The coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.

3) What does Barthes mean when he suggests signs can become ‘naturalised’?

When Barthes suggests that signs can become "naturalized," he is referring to the process by which these second-order signs (myths) come to be seen as natural or common sense, rather than as socially or ideologically constructed. This means that the meanings and connotations attached to these signs are accepted as given, self-evident truths, rather than questioned or recognized as the products of cultural construction.

4) What are Barthes’ 5 narrative codes?
enigma code

action code

semantic code

symbolic code

cultural code

5) How does the writer suggest Russian Doll (Netflix) uses narrative codes?

So the title acts as a symbolic code for us to then make sense of the full narrative. Then the camera pans past a bowl of fruit that is entirely rotten only a few viewers catch this. This is an example of an enigma code.

Part 3: Icons, indexes and symbols

1) Find two examples for each: icon, index and symbol. Provide images or links.

Icon: 

Index: 

Symbol: 

2) Why are icons and indexes so important in media texts? Because they allow the people who make the films (producers to communicate with the audience. 

3) Why might global brands try and avoid symbols in their advertising and marketing? Because that index or symbol could mean something different in different cultures and religions. 

4) Find an example of a media text (e.g. advert) where the producer has accidentally communicated the wrong meaning using icons, indexes or symbols. Why did the media product fail? (This web feature on bad ads and marketing fails provides some compelling examples). 

     

 

This advert was meant to show that smoking is portrayed as good for the baby and helps the Mother feel better but it isn't healthy for the pregnant. 

5) Find an example of a media text (e.g. advert) that successfully uses icons or indexes to create a message that can be easily understood across the world. The world cup advert because they promote countries that play in world cup every 4 years.