1. Reading Signs in the Media
Lecture by Ayesha Mulla
HOC Winter Indus Valley School of Art & Architecture

3. The Treachery of Images (1936)
Translation: This is not a pipe

5. This is not a cow.

6. This is not manhood

7. This is not womanhood

8. This is not patriotism

9. This is not love

10. What is Semiotics?
Semiotics = the study of “signs” in everyday speech [and of anything which 'stands for' something else]
In this sense, “signs” = words, images, sounds, gestures and objects.

11. Semiotics: Definitions
Ferdinand De Saussure (1916): Semiotics is a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life
Charles Peirce (1931): Semiotics is the formal doctrine of signs. A sign is something which stands for something in some respect or capacity -- “every thought is a sign”

12. In semiotics, the basic unit of meaning is a sign
In semiotics, the basic unit of meaning is a sign. A sign is anything that makes meaning.
All signs have two aspects: the signifier and the signified. The signifier is any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, a picture, graffiti. The signified is the concept that a signifier refers to.

13. Denotation = the relation of signifier to signified
Thus, Denotation = the literal meaning of a sign

14. Connotations = involve signifying signs
signs that become the signifier for a second signified (The second level of meaning)

15. What is “medium”?
The term 'medium' is used in a variety of ways. It includes broad categories such as: - speech - writing - print - broadcasting

16. Medium A Medium is a particular form or system of communication
Mass media (radio, television, newspapers, magazines, books, photographs, films and records)
Media of interpersonal communication (telephone, letter, fax, , video-conferencing, computer-based chat systems)

17. What does semiotics have to do with understanding Media?
Semiotics teaches us that reality is a system of signs.
Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us - we actively create it according to a complex system of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware.
We live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized.

18. IDEOLOGY
In semiotics, Ideology is the point where semiotic systems and codes intersect with the exercise of power in social life.
Ideology = the process where codes reinforce or become aligned with structures of power.