Semiotics

Process school

• Process approach focuses on communication between sender and receiver

• Laswell formula - who, says what, to whom, in what channel?

• S.P.A.T

• Does not allow for much interpretation from cultural perspective

• Semiotics sees communication as cultural phenomena

• No longer thinking of info content of texts but meanings

• Meaning arises from interaction between text and receiver within differing cultural contexts

• We will look at how we use and respond to various signs which themselves are part of codes or meaning systems

Codes

• A code is a system of communication1. Sign (anything that expresses meaning like

words, pictures, looks)

2. Rules (so that signs go together and make sense, like grammar)

3. Shared understanding (codes only work when everyone understands)

In groups, come up with some examples of codes and write down how they work with all three rules – present to the class

Identifying Codes

• Identifying codes in a text is vital – • Code as organising system of

communication – it is the system that makes meaning possible but only within interaction is individual meaning made

• When encoded message is being offered for decoding there is an invitation to make negotiated meaning

Negotiation• Active negotiation

between producer, reader and text

• Meaning is not fixed when encoded but depends on context of decoding

• What are the most important signs in this image? What is your reading of it?

Syntagm & Paradigm

• Syntagm = set of choices/ chain of signs which can be visual/ textual etc. The ask us to negotiate meaning

• Paradigm = the set from which individual syntagms come from. To take one syntagm from a paradigm is to reject all others

What paradigms have been used here? How would taking a different syntagm from these sets change meaning? What are the dominant signs?

• Here is a set of words and images (paradigm) from which you have to create an advertising

slogan (syntagm).• New Amazing Soap

Power Your woman Your man Cleaning Easy Cheap Stylish Impress Today

• When we are creating a text, we choose what to put in by identifying the purpose of the text, the audience and the type (genre) of text so that we know what to include. These factors help us to choose from the correct paradigms.

Anchorage

• Written text that anchors the preferred reading of an image

• Often ideological

• This image might have been advertising make-up or holidays etc. Anchorage fixes the signifiers (girl, chair, sky, photo)

“Warmer, drier summer on the way” Guardian 2008

How I fought to survive Guantánamo

Scott Brown, model politician trumps Obamas man.

Prince in New Zealand and Australia on first overseas tour