process of sigification

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Media theory essay

In everyday lives we are constantly faced with countless amounts of advertisements without even realising as it becomes normal to us in our everyday movements. We comes across these advertisements from the television,billboards,posters, magazines and the radio. Semiology was progressed through the development of Roland Barthes, however Ferdinand De Saussuer developed the idea.But the two dominate theorists that constitutes a sign are Ferdinand De Saussure and Charles Sandres Perice. Using the use of signifier and signified which are aspects of semiotics it allows use to understand ideology in advertisements. In this essay i will give my understanding of “process of signification” from the beginning by referencing three relevant theorists that I have covered and give examples of my understanding.

To understand the process if signification I will need to begin at structuralism, but what is structuralism ? Structuralism is a way of approaching texts and practices, which is from the theoretical work of Ferdinand De Sassure. Sassure dived the language into two parts As there are no obvious connections between a sign and a object our written and spoken words are examples of symbolic signs. An example of this if i was to say the word “cat” it has no clear link with a small furry 4 legged animal. The word cat will only work because we understand what letters that make the word cat when we put them in order. The first of these s called signifier and the second is signified which put together make up a sign. We understand these symbolic signs as a meaning from an agreement amongst their users. These types of signs don't have in direct connection to what is being signified. This agreem...

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...he ketchup has “quality” and “freshness”. When looking at these images we must consider the “codes” at work. There is a use of photographic and technical codes. The use of lightning created colour tones from light to dark. With the use of Photoshop it clearly exaggerated its appearance to make it fresh to increase its qualities. This advertisement an be categorised as a symbolic sign. As ketchup contains a large amount of sugars the advertisement tries to hide that factor by showing raw tomato slices that gives a sense of healthiness to promote a better lifestyle which its viewers want. The use of editing has helped to show that. This as does not have a set target audience, as today's society is pushing people unto eating more natural and healthier good so the ad is relying on people to choose that lifestyle and buy this product if not the ad wont be very successful.

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