Analysing And Deconstructing

Question 1

What is semiotics?

Answer 1

The structured method for deconstructing media texts. The study of signs and symbols and their meanings.
Developed by Swiss Linguist, Charles Pierce and Roland Barthes.

Question 2

What is the signifiers and the signifieds?

Answer 2

Signifiers - the physical object.

Signifieds - the mental concept or the meaning that the signifiers convey.

Question 3

Iconic sign?
Indexical sign?
Symbolic sign?

Answer 3

Iconic sign - looks like what it represents.

Indexical sign - points to what it represents.

Symbolic sign - chosen at random to represent something of association.

Question 4

Anchorage

Answer 4

Fixing of a set of meanings, often found in a photograph usually through captions or other written text.

Question 5

Codes

Answer 5

A system of signs, languages and symbols that allow audiences to decode meaning.

Question 6

Content analysis

Answer 6

A way of decoding meaning

Question 7

Conventions

Answer 7

The expected format of a media text.

Question 8

Culture

Answer 8

Understood through the different system of communications produced by language and arts from different countries.

Question 9

Connotations

Answer 9

Different meanings produced by the sign. Connotation is open to interpretation

Question 10

Decoding

Answer 10

The process where meaning is deconstructed by the audience

Question 11

Denotation

Answer 11

Physical form of the sign, the signifier

Question 12

Dominant preferred meaning

Answer 12

Meaning that is encoded into media texts and constructed by producers

Question 13

Encoding

Answer 13

The meaning that has been put into a media text

Question 14

Intertextuality

Answer 14

When media texts make reference to other media texts

Question 15

Juxtaposition

Answer 15

Images or objects placed next to each other to create a third or different meaning.

Question 16

Paradigmatic

Answer 16

A group of signs that represent the same object or idea

Question 17

Metonym

Answer 17

Representational image used to stand for a whole

Question 18

Mode of address

Answer 18

The way media texts speak to its audience

Question 19

Negotiated reading

Answer 19

Meaning of a sign is not always agreed upon

Question 20

Oppositional reading

Answer 20

Meaning that is decoded is the opposite of what was intended by the producer of the media text

Question 21

Polysemic

Answer 21

Where a sign is capable of producing a number of different meanings

Question 22

Syntagm

Answer 22

A chain of meaning or a completed text

Question 23

Arbitrary sign

Answer 23

Signifier has no connection to the signified