The ‘reader’ or ‘viewer’ is a crucial component when creating meaning within media texts. Their cultural background, experiences and attitudes ultimately help to deconstruct codes and conventions applied to a text, in order to obtain the meaning (Fiske, 1990). This essay will use semiotic analysis to ‘decode’ a given image, and define the preferred meaning suspended within. In order to do so, this essay shall explore the three steps (denotative, connotative and mythological) as defined by Chandler (2007), the codes and the cultural context that lead to signification, that is, the meaning behind the sign. The image will be decoded according to the current mythologies of a Westernised Australian culture, and the ideologies contained therein that pertain to the different races. In doing so, the essay will also be exploring the counter-myth of the presented image. A visual image is similar to that of Plato’s puppets (Reference), where the ‘reader’ perceives an image in one way, when in reality there are deeper layers of understanding and meaning that relate to individual perception.
At the turn of the 20th Century, Ferdinande de Saussure put forward a belief that we should study a different type of science, the science of Semiotics. He believed there was a “need for a field to study the meanings conveyed through signs and symbols” (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1993, p. 4). Today, semiotics is the study of signifiers (that which is visible; the sign) and the signified, the “mental concepts” (Fiske, 1990, p. 44) formed through deep cultural meanings subsisting within each sign (Chandler, 2007). Roland Barthes stated that the first step in signification is denotation (Rayner, Wall, & Kruger, 2004), the literal and most obvious first meaning in a sign...
... middle of paper ...
.... Abingdon, England: Routledge.
Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (1993). Semiotics and communication: Signs, codes, cultures. New York, NY: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Leiss, W. (1997). Social communication in advertising (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Reid, J. (2012). The remythologisation of white collective identities in post-apartheid South African film by myth and counter myth. Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research, 31(1), 45-63. doi: 10.1080/02500167.2011.649042.
Tinic, S. A., (1997). United colors and untied meanings: Benetton and the commodification of social issues. Journal of Communication, 47(3), 3-25. doi: 10.1111/j.1460-2466.1997.tb02714.x.
Van Leeuwin, T., & Jewitt, C., (Eds.). (2004). The handbook of Visual Analysis. London, England: SAGE Publications Ltd.
United Colors of Benetton “Ebony & Ivory” Advertisement (1982).
In this image, a sewage worker is seen cleaning the drainage system, with his bear hands, without the use of either any equipment’s or protection. On the first glace, the image depicts the idea of health risk, because the man is exposed to such contaminants, which for him is work. He is looking up from a dirty drain, covered in filth, which shows that he is clearly used as the subject of this image, whom we are engaged to more as he is making eye contact with its viewers. This picture only includes one person into the frame, as the other man’s face isn’t available to see in this picture, which is man that is holding the bucket. Holding a bucket either emphasise the idea that he is helping the sewage worker, either to get the dirt out or to put the dirt in the drainage system.
“Symbolism.” Dictionary of World Literature: Criticism - Forms - Technique. Ed. Joseph T. Shipley. New York: Philosophical Library, 1943. 564-9.
Though most works of art have some underlying, deeper meaning attached to them, our first impression of their significance comes through our initial visual interpretation. When we first view a painting or a statue or other piece of art, we notice first the visual details – its size, its medium, its color, and its condition, for example – before we begin to ponder its greater significance. Indeed, these visual clues are just as important as any other interpretation or meaning of a work, for they allow us to understand just what that deeper meaning is. The expression on a statue’s face tells us the emotion and message that the artist is trying to convey. Its color, too, can provide clues: darker or lighter colors can play a role in how we judge a piece of art. The type of lines used in a piece can send different messages. A sculpture, for example, may have been carved with hard, rough lines or it may have been carved with smoother, more flowing lines that portray a kind of gentleness.
Semiotics or semiology, is the study of signs, symbols, and signification especially as elements of language or other systems of communication. In a semiotic sense, signs take the forms of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects. Its two major founders were the American Philosopher C.S. Peirce and the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Both Peirce and Saussure base their theories on the fundamental distinction in the sign between the
It is evident that Western Cultural values are diffused worldwide through the movie industry. The films are controlled by western funding and reflect Western perspectives vividly. Between the lines in the scripts, filmgoers are urged to link the Western culture and “whiteness” with positive-hence legitimate-values and accept whites dominant position. Film is a powerful medium, thus movies were created with emotional designs on the individual audience in order to control his or her mind hence Hollywood serve as the functional means for establishing the concept of white supremacy. Hollywood movies are therefore the main instruments for establishing the whit supremacy mind-set that automatically triggers the message that whites are far superior than any other race. Ideological hegemony theorizes the way in which relationships of domination and exploitation are embedded in the dominant ideas of society. To the extent that dominant ideas are internalized, they induce consent to these relationships on the part of the dominated and exploited. Blood Diamond and In the Heat of the Night are two distinct movies where the movie makers present us with two different ideological concepts, Both films portrayed the white and non white consciousness. Blood Diamond they attacked their own race as In the Heat of the Night the whites attacked the non whites . Blood Diamond showed this in a more violent way then In the Heat of the Night did. The conscious of both films were power and authority. The blacks in each of these films are seen as secondary characters which is usually a way of promoting the supremacy of whites . The movie Blood Diamond discusses the complexity of conflicts with bringing western group intt Sierra Leone. This concept also trie...
The first artwork I chose for the formal analysis project is The Tiger by Ito Jakuchù originally painted in 1755. This painting is of a tiger licking its paw in the grass underneath a tree branch. There seems to be two diagonal planes as the tiger is leaning forward and sitting erect. There is a horizontal plane from what appear to be branches above the tiger. The painting has asymmetrical balance as the elements are equally distributed to balance the top and the bottom of the space. The artwork demonstrates several types of line. There are curved lines used in the tiger’s stripes. There are also diagonal, vertical and horizontal lines used in the background for the grass and the overhanging tree branch. The curved and wavy lines used in the tiger’s body, for example in the shoulder muscles, imply movement in addition to the curve in the tiger’s tail. The color scheme used in this painting seems to be complementary to one another as the artist used orange and brown tones with blue and red-orange accents for the tiger’s eyes and tongue. Black is used throughout the p...
We can therefore draw the conclusion that meanings and ideologies are, indeed, produced through signs. By following semiotic analysis of the one dollar note, I am able to link those concept together. In a linguistic analysis, the dollar note doesn’t have a specific meaning, however as soon as values and signs are attributed to it, a meaning and ideologies come trough. All the symbols are here to represent what the United States represent and convey a strong patriotism. Nevertheless, the dollar stays a currency, it therefore takes
Rose, G (2001) Visual Methodologies, An introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials London: Sage Publications
Griffin, Emory A. "Semiotics of Roland Barthes." A First Look at Communication Theory. Seventh Ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill Higher Education, 2009. Print.
Schirato, T. and Webb, J. (2004). Reading the visual. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Danesi, M. (1998). Sign, thought, & culture: A basic course in semiotics. Canadian Scholarsí Press: Toronto, Ontario.
The model of semiosis allows us the investigation of the ¡¥sign¡¦: music, in its structure, in its act and its functionality which means communication and signification. Thus we can identify ¡¥the music-sign¡¦ through the expression of the sense¡Xthe sense that "is conceived as an evidence, as the feeling of comprehension, in a very natural way" (1)¡Xand through the significance. Thus, our guidance implies ¡¥sign¡¦, ¡¥expression¡¦, ¡¥signification¡¦¡Xthe triad that brings together the coordinates of semiosis; defined, it, by Charles S.Peirce through the cooperation of the sign, its object and its interpretant (2) and by U.Eco: "the process through which the empirical individuals communicate and the processes of communication become possible thanks to the systems of significance" (3). This semiosis is put in evidence by different semio...
... what is told and retold in national histories, literatures, the media and popular culture. These provide a set of stories, images, landscapes, scenario, historical events, national symbols and rituals which stand for, or represent shared experience, sorrows, and triumphs and disasters which give meaning to the nation. As members of such an ‘imagined community’, we see ourselves in our mind’s eye, sharing this narrative. Investing in this kind of identity lends significance and importance to our existence, connecting our everyday lives with a national destiny that pre-existed us and will outlive us. Thus the narrative of Generations plays an important role in giving meaning to what constitutes the South African generation as we move into the 21st century, as well as shaping how members of a
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013). In the remainder of my essay I will be commenting on many modern films and their use on this trope, and why subscribing to this filmmaking strategy is problematic.
Herman calls semiotics the 'conventional relation between signifier and signified'. Looking at these conventions would re-establish the contexts of 'production... and reception' (Lanser, 2008, p. 344) so important for feminist criticism, whilst still utilising some of the formal insights of narratology.