Introduction to semiotics:
Living in the 21th century
when everything, including philosophy, techn
ology, industrialization etc. are associated with each other, demands a comprehensive understanding of concepts and meanings, their ability to change overtime and being applied or used differently. Mankind living a in a modern
world, if intending to be a man of wisdom, essentially needs to know these meanings, their intention of presentation at certain times, which are often associated with key words, allowing her to comprehend the situation. One of these key words, playing an undeniably significant role in our everyday life in different aspects, is the term Semiotics. Semiotics defines the representation of a sign as subject. A sign is the representation of a meaning or concept in different forms, such as media, text, art, music etc. In other words, Semiotic is the reason we have a specific understanding of a situation presented by sign. In our everyday life we relate our mind and action to the semiotics behinds a subject either consciously or vice versa. Semiotics, as aterm could be comprehended better when it is applied to a certain situation/ subject such as media or text.
Media and Semiotics: whatever is presented in a media, and even the medium itself brings us to a comprehension of the content and naturally affects our reaction towards it. Without semiotics, the content of media could seem meaningless and confusing. It is obviously the concept of use, and its purpose that lead us to utilize a medium. For example, the red light of the streets is designed to contribute to the unity of the street and preventing cars and people from possible accidents. By seeing the red light, we know that we are not permitted to drive or walk through the street, and when it’s green we shall move again. Here, Color as a concept is associated with an external meaning that is offered as a solution to a certain situation, which is the prevention of a messed up street. Without having the lights on the streets, every driver could let himself to drive to a different direction, without concerning its consequences. In this case, semiotics, beside its association with a medium, is also applied relating to law, which makes it necessary to be obeyed because of its functionality. Another example could be the
sound of Azan, which for Muslims works as an invitation to pray. By hearing this sound, people would know that it is time for them to pray if they are Muslim. The leads us to an interesting fact that semiotics, however considered a subject of study in the modern era, has a long root in people’s life style in the old time.
Text and semiotics:
Semiotics, when associated with text, implies on the author’s intention of writing and a possible interpretation of the person reading the words a sign. For example, the word “BANG” , written in an illustration showing a police with a gun in his hand would be followed by the meaning that the man is shooting, and BANG is the sound created because of the action. In some cases, text and media are both associated with semiotics. For example, the title “Facebook”, when read in a text reminds us of a social medium that allows interaction in a virtual social world (the concept). Without having any knowledge if Facebook and its function, the reader would not have a clear Idea of what is the meaning of the world. It is the semiotics that links the title, as a sign to its concepts of social media.
In brief, everything that we see today, has a concept that could be signified by signifier (Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory). Otherwise the interpretations may be irrelevant.
gracias behrooz! your definition for the texts was awesome but let me add something for the part of interpretion; I will start my analyze with the statement that I wrote at the first of this comment, the word "gracias" for most of people is familiar, they heard it before or they just use sometimes. why we use it? and how I know this word? me and most of us know that this is Spanish word and it means "Thanks" and we learn it from media, like TV or Internet. and why we use it is because of the fact of communicating with each other, we learn to say thanks for anything that our friend, family or another people do for us. so when behrooz see the word "gracias" he will know that I say thanks to him and it automatically interpret in his mind that I like the post. but when another person come and doesn't heard about it he/she will get another meaning from it. just like all kind of interpretion that we do in our life.
ReplyDeleteIn my idea signs has their own straightforward mening and we need to interpret the symbols, this was a very easy symbol that I use it with the medium of the "text" but maybe some other person will get another meaning from it. so the intrpretion of any symbols for everyone is diffrent and important for the designer.
Thank you, Behrooz for the article.
ReplyDeleteEverything is well written and clear about the concept of semiotics in the article. I just would like to elaborate a little bit more about the examples given at end of the article. I totally agree with kind of meaning the word "Bang" conveys to the reader BUT let`s not forget the meaning interpreted by the reader also strongly depends on the way it is written, as it is explained in the example, the word "Bang" comes along with the illustration of a police man pointing his gun towards something can send the meaning of a policeman shooting his gun. If we change the illustration we may be able to convey another meaning like an explosion or a door being slammed.
The second example, I find a lot more relevant. Another good example might be “Apple”. About a hundred years ego if you see or read the word apple anywhere it would only signify one thing, and that was the fruit apple. But today because of a computer company called “Apple” we can associate this word to something other than just the fruit apple. Thus sometimes we may need some extra information about this word to associate it with the right concept, the fruit or the company.
I totally agree with all of you guys. well, in addition to what you've said, I think it is also interesting to say now that nowadays, it's usual to speak critically of the way that women are depicted in our popular visual media. There's too much sex in movies, television and magazines, people say. And this is often coupled to complaints that the media represent women as sex objects, provide unrealistic beauty standards, or focus only on women's outer beauty, instead of the more important attributes of character and accomplishment. There is truth in all of this. But often these claims seem to imply that there is an obvious "thing" called beauty or sexual attractiveness, and that the question is simply whether or not the media should display so much of this "thing." this is the other way media can be related to semiotic in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteBehrouz, it was totally a good understanding of text and media semiotics. Especially, when we know that these texts and media signs, obviously, play an important roll in our lives. These days, technology has really improved and people in the media industry got too many ways to convey their massages to their audiences. Because of the technology, massages have become so real and believable. For example, Cinemas are using high definitions videos,big screen and Dolby sound to make their movies so believable for the audiences.Even, recently, the new 3d glasses technology is being used to make the movies more realistic as it is existing in the real world. Another example is the use of softwares like Photoshop to manipulate a photo and making it more realistic for the audiences, especially, when it comes to sell a product. Nobody, can deny that models who advertise a product are not beautiful, but, the thing is that the use of Photoshop to manipulate their photos as well as their gestures really affects people's view on a particular product.
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