The Toolkit Question The question that I’m losing sleep over! And so should you be!

List 10 types of code that you decode everyday: 1.Text message

List 10 types of code that you decode everyday: 1.Text message 2.Cereal packets 3.Powerpoint 4.Clothing 5.Road signs 6.Verbal conversation 7.Paralanguage 8.Gestures 9.The ‘time’ in digital or analogue form 10. Facial expressions

There are two fundamental approaches to interpreting codes or texts: The ‘semiotic’ approach (more cultural) (the signifier and the signified) And: The ‘process’ school (more formulaic) (source – sender – message – receiver – destination)

De Saussure – Signifier/Signified A sign is something which represents something to someone else e.g

Signifier and Signified Saussure said that there are two parts to each sign Signifier – the label we put on a sign – the name or the sound Signified – the mental association that we have when we hear or see the sign

Look at these signs – write down the signifier (what it is) and the signified ( what you think of when you see this sign ) Saussure noticed that the link between the signifier (what you call or label a sign) and what it stands for, is a random or arbitrary thing. What is the link between these objects and their labels?

There is no concrete, tangible link between signs and their labels – the words we use for them. Baby School Player Doughnut What do these words stand for? What do you think of when you read or say these words?

Summing up signs Signs usually take the form of WORDS IMAGES NON-VERBAL (facial expression etc) Words stand for things we want to communicate to others about – feelings, opinions, information Sometimes we use pictures to communicate things to others and very often we use gestures or facial expressions or clothing to communicate with others.

C.S Peirce – Icon, Index, Symbol Peirce recognised that signs did not all work in the same way. He differentiated them by calling them: Icons Indexes And symbols However, he appreciated that these definitions overlap.

Icons Some ‘signs’ are very closely related to the things they represent. Words can be iconic, like ‘sizzling’... All these images are iconic; which are most ‘motivated’?

Index An index is a sign which is related to the object it represents but not directly or in a concrete way. For example, a knock on the door – an index of arrival. The knock is not ARRIVAL, it is not a direct representation of arrival, but it indicates arrival and is connected to that event. Most facial expressions work in an indexical way – because you cannot represent an emotion, we look for signs which indicate them e.g. a smile is an index (or sign) of happiness. The smile isn’t a direct representation of happiness. Indexes are used to represent abstract things – emotions, ideas etc.

Look at the signs below – what are the indexes of? Index of ………………? Index of……………….? Index of…………….?

Symbol Symbols are signs which have NO link at all with the thing they represent. The only reason we know what they mean is because we have learnt what they mean over time as part of our enculturation or socialisation. Words are symbols – there is no actual link between the word ‘table’ and the object because if there was, the word would be the same in all languages. People decide to give objects labels in an arbitrary, random way and as long as other people agree to these labels, we all know what each other are talking about. What are the meanings of these symbols?

Now, let’s see if you know the key terms from our practice test today: A text with lots of possible meanings is o_ _ n A text with a very limited, precise meaning is C _ _ s _ d

Is this text open or closed? Why so? How could it be both?

Meanings of texts can be: Literal: this is the de _ o _ _ tion Implied: this is the co _ _ o ta _ _ _ _ Note the amount of ‘n’s!

What is the denotation and connotation of this image: How is this image both iconic and symbolic?

Cultural significance Some things are culturally significant in Britain. What do the following things signify to a Briton:

However, some things are just myths. Why are the following images arguably more mythical than the previous ones:

What is the signifier and the signified of the following image:

In what ways could these be seen as icons, indexes and/or symbols?

What is the denotation and the connotations of the following:

What’s the difference between culturally significant and a cultural myth? Significant – still holds importance and meaning – drinking tea. Myth – Has lost it’s meaning/significance but many may still believe in it – drinking leaf tea out of a china cup and saucer.

Is the following image open or closed? Or both?

Now onto the process school Remember: The ‘process’ school (more formulaic) (source – sender – message – receiver – destination)

Applying the process school to advertisements source – sender – message – receiver – destination encoding channel decoding GQ magazine Buy this Marketing company Seen by reader Decision to buy

The message will have different functions. Jackobson suggested: 1.Emotive 2.Referential 3.Poetic 4.Phatic 5.Metalingual 6.Conative A nice ‘easy’ process So let’s complicate it!

1.Emotive – communicating emotions (“you complete ass!”) 2.Referential – refers to something else (news) 3.Poetic – for the pleasure of receiving the message (reading novels; watching films) 4.Phatic – to establish/maintain conversation (nice weather) 5.Metalingual – draws attention to the codes in the message (often self-referential – the Simpsons joke about seeing ‘The simpsons’ on a T-shirt). 6.Conative – prompts response; encourages participation (advertisements). The functions of the message:

The message might well have barriers impeding it’s journey. Barriers come in different forms. What do you think each one means? 1.Mechanical 2.Psychological 3.Semantic 4.Organisational

The barriers that might impede a message: 1.Mechanical – physical, e.g. noise, wi-fi. 2.Psychological – the receiver’s psychological response, e.g. be annoyed by the message (by its stereotyping). 3.Semantic – a language barrier (accent, sociolect, neologisms). 4.Organisational - ‘lines’ of communication impeded.

And when the message is read (decoded), that’s it, right? Nope! There are various readings, such as: 1.Preferred reading (dominant-hegemonic) 2.Negotiated meaning 3.Oppositional reading 4.Aberrant reading

Ways of reading (decoding) a text: 1.Preferred reading – the receiver decodes the meaning in the way intended by the source/sender. (Anchorage aims to ensure a preferred reading). 2.Negotiated meaning – the receiver understands the preferred meaning but might seek to negotiate it (find other readings). 3.Oppositional reading – the receiver rejects the preferred reading. 4.Aberrant reading – Not necessarily, an oppositional reading, but a wrong one.

Terminology test: The process school suggests messages go through which five stages: Source – sender – message – receiver - destination

Yesterday, I told you that the message will have a: Function and barriers might stop the message and then there will be different types of readings. Many of you got the order wrong. The order is essential. Function – barriers - readings

The message will have a function. List how many functions you can remember:

1.Emotive – communicating emotions (“you complete ass!”) 2.Referential – refers to something else (news) 3.Poetic – for the pleasure of receiving the message (reading novels; watching films) 4.Phatic – to establish/maintain conversation (nice weather) 5.Metalingual – draws attention to the codes in the message (often self-referential – the Simpsons joke about seeing ‘The simpsons’ on a T-shirt). 6.Conative – prompts response; encourages participation (advertisements).

What barriers might stop the message? 1.Mechanical – physical, e.g. noise, wi-fi. 2.Psychological – the receiver’s psychological response, e.g. be annoyed by the message (by its stereotyping). 3.Semantic – a language barrier (accent, sociolect, neologisms). 4.Organisational - ‘lines’ of communication impeded.

Then the message is ‘read’ by the receiver. How might they ‘read’ the message?

1.Preferred reading – the receiver decodes the meaning in the way intended by the source/sender. (Anchorage aims to ensure a preferred reading). 2.Negotiated meaning – the receiver understands the preferred meaning but might seek to negotiate it (find other readings). 3.Oppositional reading – the receiver rejects the preferred reading. 4.Aberrant reading – Not necessarily, an oppositional reading, but a wrong one.

In today’s practice you’ll encounter the following terms, so let’s just clarify them.

Encode The sender must encode their message before sending it:

Decode The receiver must decode the message:

Icon An icon looks (sounds, smells) like its meaning:

Index An index points towards its meaning:

Symbol A symbol needs cultural understanding.

Barriers Mechanical psychological semantic organisational

Some final ‘toolkit’ question terms to revise. A google search returned these images for the phrase aesthetically pleasing :

Mediation – how a media text presents an idea and how we ‘read’ it. How would we read this?

How are the target audience and preferred reading different for this text: Who’s the Target Audience? Preferred reading How does the company want the target audience to ‘read’ the advert?

What can we say about proxemics and orientation in this image:

Anchorage. Without anchorage, an image could have many meanings. How does the anchorage, anchor the meaning of this text?

How does this image follow the conventions of the horror genre? What’s the form and style?

What’s redundant (no new information) and what’s entropic (new information) about this advert?

Difference between barrier and noise source: If you can’t hear me, that’s a barrier to my message (mechanical barrier). But there could be different reasons for the mechanical barrier. That’s the noise source:

Gatekeeping This film had terrible reviews but a great cast. How could you say this advertisement has gatekept?

In our subject, this diagram is also called a m*d*l. (A graphic representation of something).

How is the register different in these three ‘texts’

Which of these images is the most motivated and why?

Is a polysemic image open or closed? Open:

There is often a dominant signifier in a text. What is the dominant signifier in this text:

And your old friends, paradigm and syntagm. What do they mean? Syntagm – what the ‘collection’ of signs make. Paradigm – choosing an individual sign to contribute to the syntagm.

The following images of trainers all have very different paradigms and they therefore create a unique syntagm. What does the syntagm suggest? Remember the phrase, ‘paradigmatic choice’. You make paradigmatic choices every day.