22-02-2012 Media Analysis Project 1 | Semiotic Analysis & Feminist Analysis | Ellen Gough |
Part One: Semiotic Analysis
Defining and Explaining Semiotics 1. What is meant by Semiotics?
Semiotics is the science of signs. It helps us better understand how messages are constructed through different media forms like still images, film, television and other works of art. It is the study of social production of meanings using sign systems which helps us understand how certain things come to have certain meanings. Semiotics was developed as a method of analysis by 20th century by linguistic theorists such as Saunders Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes.
According to Saussure, the fundamental unit of meaning was
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The colour of the dress is referred to in the tagline “Dare to wear red”.
Special K is marketed towards women who want to lose weight while still getting a proper breakfast. The message coming from the ad is that if you eat Special K, it makes you slimmer. When you’re slimmer you’re more confident, and ergo you have the confidence to “Dare to wear red”. So not only does this product make you look better, it makes you feel better too.
This idea, that the product advertised makes your life better, is used in all types of ads for all types of products. It’s a standard of the advertising industry. Semiotics is the building blocks used to get this idea across to the consumer.
Semiotic Analysis of Ad 1. Introduction
The ad I must analysis for this project is an ad by Volkswagen for the Volkswagen Polo. In the foreground of the image you can see a laptop that has a drink spilled across the keyboard. This has damaged the laptop, indicated by the warning symbol on the screen. In the background is a Volkswagen Polo with a small girl in the back seat who appears to be hiding there. It seems she was the one who spilt the drink over the laptop, and she is now hiding in the back of the Polo from the owner of the laptop, possibly her mother or father. Below the image on the left is the tagline of the ad, “The safest place to be. Polo.” and on the bottom right corner of the ad is Volkswagens icon and tagline.
2. Analysis
The
In the past and present women have had to endure sexism as a part of everyday life. This is unfair and unjust to the female species. In this paper I am going to be talking about some of the issues of sexism and how they affect women. Some of the issues I will be talking about are the white males club and how non-membership effects women. What are the benefits of having a membership to it. How women are kept in their place by society and by themselves. How has this unequal affected women through their lives and the business world. If women are being liberated or not. What types of problems women are experiencing. These are the issues we will be discussing in this paper. The first issue we will be discussing in this paper is the
Feminism is a female movement that has been around for a long time and it has evolved through many years. Many women call themselves feminists because women are not treated as equals to men and they would like to change that. Women were treated very unfairly, well up to the late 1900’s and they did not have many rights. Back in those days gender stereotypes were clear, the woman was there to be a housewife and the man made the money. Men also made the decisions in the family and the woman had to obey. I think feminists back then were right to want change, because they were not even close to be equal with men. White women did have it hard in those times, however they did not have it as hard as the black women. For example, “ Black women whose
Special K is a successful brand, with a good level of innovation and communication. It has reached many consumers; especially women aged 20 to 40 yearsold, focusing on key elements such as beauty, shape, and weight loss. People are ready to pay more for Special K cereals, positioned as high quality products, with higher prices as competitors’. As the
1.”semiotics” The study of signs and symbols and how they combine to convey meaning in different social contexts,This branch is mainly concerned with how verbal,non verbal and aural signs and symbols combine to create messages.
“All I have, is a voice.” –W.H. Auden. These are five words that could leave a thoughtful philosopher speechless. But perhaps found within the lack of “finding a better word” moments, are when revolution seeds are planted in the hearts and tongues of the passionate. And if this is a truth, then Adrienne Rich was absolutely no exception. The radical feminist and poet opened her speech, “Claiming an Education” to the girls of Douglass College, in the most straightforward way as possible. In skimming the text, only the reader can imagine what was really communicated in the zeal and urgency behind her rehearsed words that day in 1977. Therefore, in light of under
In the book, The History of Rap and Hip-Hop, rapper Fabolous states, “She did not have a sexual image when she got on the mic she was spitting like a dude, like a real MC (Baker 46).” From a male viewpoint, being a sexual rapper did not gain female rappers respect. If a woman wanted to be considered a serious rapper then she had to not only act the part but dress it as well.
Some men as well as women think that part of the feminism’s definition is that women want to be men. That is so far from the truth. Having the same rights and equalities of men is not the same as wanting a penis. Feminism has a misconception of being a movement that is anti-male. An example of this thinking is a quote from Reverend Jerry Farwell “Feminists hate man. They’re sexist. They hate men - that’s the problem” (David, 1998). Some people object to the language change in feminism that is the change of a “police officer” from a “policeman”. These thoughts are from the same people who don’t believe that women should even be allowed to vote. Unfortunately some people cannot see the big picture on how the feminist movement has
It too, has a patriotic look to it with the reds, whites, and blues which is an engaging look for audience members to notice their cereal box. The women notice the U.S.A. colors which again is an attractive look for most people because it is our country's colors. However, once the women are already attracted to the colorful box as a whole, that is when they begin to notice the separation of colors with specific health facts that draw them in even more. Special K has a light and subtle color along the whole box with “red berries” written in darker red, “fiber” highlighted in green, and “taste” highlighted in blue. If a woman is trying to lose weight, all the seperate colorful health facts is what will draw her into purchasing the cereal because they instantly want the gratification of knowing they are making a healthy choice like the advertisement tells them they are. They all draw effect on the important health benefits in hope to result in customers choosing Special K as their “healthy and tasty
is hereditary in Athenian times “INSERT QUOTE”. In her acquisition of dominance, the children are used as a leverage in the vengeance against her perpetrator, Jason. Unable to identify with her offspring of a perceived patriarchal continuance, Medea struggles to see worth in them, keeping them alive would force her to continue her role as a mother, hence maintaining the clichéd Grecian wife which she previously upheld. Jason also seeks to narrow the debate about Medea’s lamenting, focussing on her personal grievances and sexual jealousy, in attempt to try and characterize Medea [presumably to the Grecian audience] as a nuisance and nothing more than a part of the inferior gender. Whereas Medea has appealed to the women of Corinth on matters associated to the intolerable status of women. Downplaying the enormity of Medea’s pain Jason claims “you thought that reason enough to murder them, that
Semiotics is the study of meaning. There are many aspects that go into developing a semiotic analysis. They include signs, a signifier and signified, codes, opposition, code confusion, intertexuality, paradigms, and syntagyms. Before delving into the analysis, the meaning of each of these terms and their relation to semiotics must be made clear. A sign could be anything that stands for something else. A signifier is the physical object that represents something else, while the signified is the image the object relays. Codes are a set of rules that govern everything. Opposition, or binary opposition, which is used in this analysis, is when two things or people are used as opposites
The textbook identifies four approaches to gender development: biological, interpersonal, cultural, and critical. Define each theory. Then answer the following question: which of the theoretical approaches to gender do you find the most valid? Be sure to include at least two examples from your own experience as well as two scholarly sources to back up your claim.
The theory of semiotics, as proposed by Roland Barthes, has been used to analyze advertisements and the effectiveness of advertisements on viewers. In the articles that I researched that used semiotics to analyze particular advertisements, I found four common and related themes. First, the articles mentioned that the viewer determines the meaning of the advertisement or the viewer interprets the advertisement. Second, this meaning that the viewer assigns to the advertisement is largely determined by context, both social and cultural. Third, advertisers use culture and predominant cultural beliefs in their advertisements in efforts to reach their audience more effectively. Finally, these advertisements actually end up supporting the
The basics of Semiotics were laid down by a Swiss linguist, Ferdinand De Saussure (1857-1913). “He used the word to describe a new science which he saw as ‘a science, which studies the life of signs at the heart of social life’ [Saussure cited in Underwood] He considered that a sign had two essential elements: the signifier and the signified. A signifier is any material thing that
Woman’s studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to topics concerning women, gender and feminism; exploring our gender existence, how we perform femininity and masculinity and how this interacts with other aspects of our identities, such as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and sexuality. Women’s studies emerged in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as a concerned women being misrepresentation and trivialization in the higher education curriculum and as well as being excluded from many positions of power authority as colleges faculty and administrators. An example from the “ Women’s Voices /Feminist Vision” book written by Susan M.Shaw Janet lee was “the entire course in English or American literature to include not one
Books, plays, and movies that depict culture and social life often make statements about social issues such as gender roles, racism, and class distinction. Stories set up a context in which characters relate, often representing “stock” characters chosen from society and placed in situations where their stereotypical behaviors—and sometimes their breaking of these stereotypes—are highlighted. As feminism became a popular movement in Western countries in general and the United States in particular, female voices were naturally heard through fictional characters. Social and political issues commonly fuel entertainment; feminism, racism, and classism—recurring themes in entertainment through the 20th Century and into the modern day—have