Semiotics

Semiotics
Semiotics is the study of signs and is the process of understanding signs and codes, interpreting what they signify.
There are three main figures who have a strong connection with the development of Semiotics; Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Ferdinand de Saussure

(1857-1913)

Saussure was a Swiss linguist who is one of the founders of 20th century linguistics and semiotics. His concept of the sign/signifier/signified is the core of semiotics.
Signifier = the form which the sign takes
Signified = the concept it represents

 Denotation and connotation describes the relationship between the signifier and signified. 
Denotation (1st order of signification) is the literal meaning of a sign.
Connotation (2nd order of signification) is the socio-cultural and 'personal' associations of the sign, which are determined by 'codes'.


Charles Sander Peirce

(1839-1914)

Peirce was an American philosopher, mathematician, scientist and logician. He was also a founder of semiotics and called his general study of signs semiotic or semeiotic, which he began writing about in the 1860s, around the time when he devised his system of three categories. Later, in 1907 he defined semiosis as "action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs".

The three basic elements to semiosis are:

1. A Sign

2. An object (subject matter of a sign and an interpretant)

3. An interpretant (the sign's more or less clarified meaning) 

In order to understand or interpret the object the mind needs to be familiar with it, so as to know what a sign denotes.

Roland Barthes

Semiotics became especially important in the late 1960's, party due to Roland Barthes, an important intellectual figure, who developed Semiotics further through his book 'The Death of the Author' and collection of essays 'Mythologies'. In 1964, Barthes declared that "semiology aims to take in any system of signs, whatever their substance and limits; images, gestures, musical sounds, objects, and the complex associations of all of these, which form the content of ritual, convention or public entertainment: these constitute, if not languages, at least systems of signification"

He looked at how the audience interprets meaning, which is influenced by each individuals own background and experience. 

Jean Baudrillard

Baudrillard built on Saussure's ideas that meaning is given through systems of signs working together, but he argued that meaning is created through difference - through what something isn't. He felt that the excess of signs and meaning in late 20th century had caused society to become a 'hyperreality' of itself. It is a 'simulated' version of reality, where the media can shape and filter events and experiences so that consciousness can no longer truly define what is actually 'real'. The media's 2D version of the world has become naturalised to us as we have grown up to read their images as realistic.

Representation
This then leads to representation as, after all, media texts are a representation of reality; the process by which the media present to us the 'real world'. If this reality is in fact a 'hyperreality' this can seriously impact society, leading to issues such as stereotyping because, for many, how they see the world is through the media's non accurate portrayal. The process through which the media represents issues, ideas and events, is called mediation.