MIGRAIN: Semiotics blog tasks

 Part 1: English by Tarun Thind analysis

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

That they are stereotypical antisocial teenagers who are involved in gangs and crime 

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?

It subverts the typical negative stereotypes of teenagers and presents them as intelligent and more responsible than all the adults and other people they encounted in the film

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 signifier and the signified 
2) What does ‘polysemy’ mean?
The same signifier can have multiple signified meanings
3) What does Barthes mean when he suggests signs can become ‘naturalised’?
That a society can overtime accept the newly constructed meaning about a signifier 
4) What are Barthes’ 5 narrative codes?

Enigma code- Anything in the text that creates a question

Action code- Anything that suggests what is going to happen next

Semantic code- Connotations/deeper meaning

Symbolic code- Anything that has a symbolic meaning

Cultural code- Anything that refers to an external knowledge like historical knowledge

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

The title acts as a symbollic code

The rotten fruit is an enigma code

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?

They help give meaning to a media text

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

some symbols may signify or mean different things in different countries or areas of the world so the symbol may not be universally recognisable so the audience may not understand what is being converyed

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.

Extension work: additional semiotics terminology

The new Media specification identifies further semiotics terminology that could potentially appear in an exam question. Read this document with semiotic terms and definitions to become a true semiotician.