Semiotics

Semiotics

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

-They were made to be thought of as hood rats or bad people but in the end the message is don't judge a book by its cover especially in the end when English gave the man a fresh batch of bananas when he thought he has a gun in his sweater.


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?

-One of the characters was nicer than the other as he helped out with the bananas and he talked about Winston Churchill and how he swallowed his words finding it to be a wholesome diet. He is trying to give the audience meaningful advice while the other character keeps on joking around and laughing at everything. In the end the two characters have different mindsets completely opposite from each other.




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

-The signifier and the signified.

2) What does ‘polysemy’ mean?

-More than one meanings

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

-It means that certain meanings, like the phallic emoji of the previous paragraph, are created or brought about in society and once people know about these new meanings, they are naturalised.

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?


-Enigma codes are used in Russian doll when the camera pans to a bowl of rotten fruit and raises the question that how are fruit moving through linear time but the characters aren't. Symbolic codes are also used to make sense of the narrative since the Russian doll helps us.

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?

-These are important as the icons and indexes help communicate key things to the audience. For example an icon could be the Instagram logo and it allows the audience to understand what exactly is happening.

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

-Global brands avoid the use of symbols incase their message gets misinterpreted by the audience. This could create a bad brand image.

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).

























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.