Semiotics - Roland Barthes

Question 1

How is communication possible through media?

Answer 1

With the use of signs and sign systems (codes), whether they are letters on a page, sounds or visual codes.
We can understand visual images because we learn to decode them.
Semiology or semiotics is the study of these signs and systems of signs.

Question 2

Define the term semiotics.

Answer 2

Is the study of signs and how they communicate meaning theorised by Roland Barthes.

Question 3

Define the term sign.

Answer 3

It’s an image, object, gesture or action used to convey information or meaning. It’s anything that can be used to represent something else.

Question 4

Define the term signifier.

Answer 4

It’s a sign’s physical form (such as sound, printed word or image) as distinct from its meaning.

Question 5

Define the term signified.

Answer 5

It’s the meaning or idea expressed by a sign, as distinct from the physical form in which it’s expressed.

Question 6

Define the term dominant signifier.

Answer 6

It’s the dominant ideology of the text or the strongest message.

Question 7

Define the term icon.

Answer 7

Is a sign that resembles something, such as photographs of people. An icon can also be illustrative or diagrammatic, for example, a no-smoking sign.
Iconic sign - Looks like what it represents.

Question 8

Define the term code.

Answer 8

Is a set of conventions or sub-codes currently in use to communicate meaning.

Question 9

Define the term technical codes.

Answer 9

Are the physical processes that have been involved within the construction of the text.
These can include:
The camera angles selected.
The mise en scene chosen.
The editing choices made.

Question 10

Define the term mise en scene.

Answer 10

Is the stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production.
The key elements of Mise En Scène are:
Costume
Lighting & colour - Low key lighting - creates a sharp contrast of light and dark areas. High key lighting - filtered light used appears normal/ realistic. Creates mood and atmosphere.
Action/ Actor - Facial expression and body language
Make-up & Hair
Props
Setting

Question 11

Define the term verbal codes.

Answer 11

Is what communicate meaning directly to the audience through either:
Through words e.g. on a print product.
Through sound e.g. an audio/visual product.

Question 12

Define the term repetition codes.

Answer 12

The use of codes can help to define the genre, style or purpose of a product.
The repetition of codes can lead to an establishment of conventions for that product.

Question 13

What does identification of codes and conventions of products do?

Answer 13

It helps to give meaning to the product, as well as making it easier for an audience to identify.
For example, a magazine usually has a masthead at the top of the front cover, with cover lines surrounding the main image.
As this is repeated on most magazine covers, the consumer is then able to identify a product as a magazine.

Question 14

Identify Barthes five different kinds of semiotic elements that are common to all texts.

Answer 14

Hermeneutic/ Enigma codes
Proaireatic/ Action codes 
Symbolic codes
Semantic codes
Cultural/ Referencial codes

Question 15

Define the term symbolic codes.

Answer 15

An image that has come to represent something else. For example, a cross on a building represents the fact that it’s a church.

Question 16

List the symbolic codes of hoodies

Answer 16

Rebels
Criminal youth (hood to conceal identities)

Question 17

Define the term semantic codes.

Answer 17

Are parts of a media product that have hidden meanings there are connotations to them that audience should understand. For example, in a horror movie, there are typically lots of the colour reds and blacks which the audience understands that those colours signify blood, danger, darkness, mystery, etc.
Therefore red and black have become the semantic codes of horror.

Question 18

Define the term action codes.

Answer 18

Are elements of media products that signify that something is going to happen as a result. For example, a moment in a film where a person is pulling a gun out of their pocket would be a proairetic code signifying to the audience they’re going to shoot somebody.

Question 19

Define the term enigma codes.

Answer 19

Enigma = Mystery
It’s any mysterious part of a text that will engage an audience in some way, hook them in and make them want to read the full article, advert or watch the full advert or film.

Question 20

Define the term cultural codes.

Answer 20

Are parts of a media product that individuals only understand if they’re part of that particular culture, e.g country, nationality, ethnicity, age, gender or historical time period.

Question 21

Define the term symbol.

Answer 21

A mark, character, image or sign used as a conventional representation of an object, function or process.
A material object that represents or stands for an abstract idea.

Question 22

Define the term anchorage

Answer 22

This is what’s used to describe how the combination of elements within a sign fit together and fix the meaning. It’s the way different media language elements combine to help fix the meaning that a producer wants to convey to the audience.

Question 23

Define the term ideology.

Answer 23

Are people’s assumptions about what signs are, what functions signs serve, and what consequences they might produce.
Ideas and beliefs.

Question 24

Define the term paradigm.

Answer 24

It’s when signs can replace each other as a result changing the meaning with the substitution.
It doesn’t have a meaning by itself but take on meaning when combined with more complex patterns of signs called syntagms.
Paradigmatic relationships are about substitution.
For example “The cow jumped over the moon”, you could replace cow with another word to form a different sentence with a different meaning such as “The fish jumped over the moon.”

Question 25

Define the term syntagms.

Answer 25

Is a sequence of signs that together create meaning.
Syntagmatic relationships are about positioning.
For example, if you change the order of syntagms in a sentence it can change the meaning significantly;
John ate an octopus.
An octopus ate John.

Question 26

Barthes’ ideas and theories on semiotics:

Answer 26

Signification
Denotation
Connotation
Myth.

Question 27

Define the term signification.

Answer 27

The act of denotation and connotation combine to produce ideology in the form of myth.
Denoation + Connotaion = Ideology/ Myth

Question 28

Define the term denotation.

Answer 28

To be the sign of something, to mean or indicate something.
It’s literal.
-signifier.

Question 29

Define the term connotation.

Answer 29

To imply or suggest something in addition to the main meaning.
It’s not literal (works at a symbolic level).
-signified.

Question 30

Define the term myth.

Answer 30

Are way the connotations suggested by a sign have come to be seen as normal and natural.
A popular belief due to a chain of concepts widely accepted throughout a culture.
The role of myth, as Barthes explains, it is to expose the signs to show what appears to be determined by history.

Question 31

Define the term arbitrary or symbolic

sign.

Answer 31

A sign where the meaning of it is culturally acquired.

Question 32

Define the term decoding.

Answer 32

When audiences interpret a text.

Question 33

Define the term encoding.

Answer 33

The intended meaning in a text.

Question 34

Define the term polysemic.

Answer 34

A sign that has more than one meaning

Question 35

Signifiers in Stranger Things.

Answer 35

Hopper (Sheriff) sequence - 
Badge
Gun
Uniform
Empty beer cans

All communicate meanings in relation to the character -
Policeman
American
Masculinity
Alcoholic/emotional/psychological distress

Also, suggest values and ideological messages about power and masculinity. This demonstrates the way objects develop a social meaning which reflects dominant ideology.

Question 36

Myths in Stranger Things.

Answer 36

Establishing shot of the Wheeler house.
Example of the way signs works as myths. Whilst the house is just a physical object, the meanings it suggests about ideas of family and home.
These ideas are viewed as expected social norms communicating ideological messages.
Hopper’s signifiers follow the myth that men in power are often lazy.

Question 37

How Barthes Theory of Semiology Applies to Stranger Things?

Answer 37

Op. scene - hybrid genre:

• Horror (isolated lab, night)
• Sci-Fi (unnatural monster signs, unseen)
• Period Drama (non-diegetic text = 80s USA)

1st shot Hopper’s house = kid’s family drawing
(kind, cares for family no longer has)
- Has flaws (beer cans everywhere)

Intertextual references, Spielbergian diegesis - dominant mothers holding the family together (high angle shots Mike’s mum), absent fathers (Mike’s dad literally out of focus in the background)

Shot of Nancy’s reflection in mirror whilst making out with Steve - two sides to her (gender performativity)

Question 38

What’s a strength of semiology in Stranger Things?

Answer 38

It’s useful for identifying some of the ways in which meaning is communicated in LFTVD, and for considering how those meanings might relate to social values and ideology.

Question 39

What’s a limitation of semiology in Stanger Things?

Answer 39

Doesn’t account for the importance of other media language elements such as genre conventions or narrative structures in creating meaning. May result in readings that don’t reflect the potentially diverse meanings and values audience members may construct.

Question 40

What are the 4 codes and conventions of LFTD?

Answer 40

More than one narrative - Has multiple storylines.
Non-chronological order of narrative theory - To keep the audience engaged.
Cliff hangers - Makes the audience want to watch the next episode and how the problem is resolved.
Camera angles - Close up - showing facial expressions
Establishing shot - Setting/ Location which then introducing characters.