Semiotics: blog tasks

English from Tarun Thind writer | director on Vimeo.

1) What meanings are the audience encouraged to take about the two main characters from the opening of the film?

at the beginning of the scene it encourages the audience to not judge a book by its cover, as in the begging the two are shown to be violent as he always puts his hands in his pocket when he gets angry as if he had a weapon in there, which was then proven to me a pencil.

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? 

the end of the film emphasises that at the begging they were presented as rude teen whereas they were actually deaf so they didn't realise the noise they were making by using the harmonica.

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?

 the two parts that make up the sign are signifiers and signified 

2) What does ‘polysemy’ mean?
 Polysemy means when it has many meaning. 
3) What does Barthes mean when he suggests signs can become ‘naturalised’?

it suggest that certain meanings can be created or brought into society  and eventually it would become normalised. 

4) What are Barthes’ 5 narrative codes?

hermeneutic code/enigma code- something which is a mystery and not explained

cultural code-something that refers to scientific, historical  knowledge 

sematic code-element that carries a deeper meaning.

symbolic code-it has a symbolic meaning e.g. costume, lighting

Proairetic code-sequential elements 

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

They use enigma  code as the fruit bowl  had fruits which were mouldy and wondered why no-one noticed.

Part 3) Icons, indexes and symbols

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

Icon:

Index:

Symbol: 

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? 

icons are important as that is what they see and index help them gather there opinion of the text.

3) Why might global brands try and avoid symbols in their advertising and marketing?

they avoid symbols as it might mean something else and put the brand at risk as they connotation may be negative.

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 advert was at the begging of April 2017,for the drink Pepsi.

Kendall Jenner in the middle of a protest she walks up to the police officer and hands him a Pepsi  to seem like that's   stopping the protest, this suggest the company Pepsi didn't really take in the fact that there was a protest happening for a valid reason yet they cared about the popularity and the sales of Pepsi, people are there scarifying and suffering but at that time Pepsi didn't want to be considerate.

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.

This advert successfully used icons and indexes to create a strong message, loreal published this advert to let the customers or people on the media that you wont have to worry about shade match ever again as that is the most important part of make up. it was impossible to not find your shade as they had almost all cultures and skin tones.