301 test 1
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- commutation test
- simply asks whether a difference makes a difference. If this were changed, how would the meaning of the text be affected?
- power of semiotic analysis
- to allow us to identify the ways in which texts establish meaningful differences that produce different meanings.
- paradigm
- it describes possibilities rather than what is actually in the text. A paradigm describes the potential substitutions that one can make without changing the syntagmatic relationship
- syntagm
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Through this process—which is referred to as connotation—chains of meaning are established: a means b means c means d
Such chains be¬come codes that then structure future texts and interpretations The syntagmatic dimension of a text describes its organization, how its signs are connected in time or space: This is next to that, this follows that - binary oppositions/codes
- black/ white, individual/social, good/bad, male/fe¬male, young/old, beautiful/ugly, strong/weak, work/play, na¬ture/culture. Such codes create structures of meaning by establishing equivalencies between the terms of different binary oppositions and then privi¬leging one side of the opposition over the other
- Deconstruction
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undermines the ability to draw such simple dichotomies in which one side is made superior (male) to the other (female).
argues that the terms in such binary oppositions depend on each other (as in a system of differences). That is, deconstruction extends the argu¬ment that difference is more fundamental than identity. - If so many meanings are possible, why do people ar-rive at so few, and why do they usually arrive at the same one, a meaning that is not only taken for granted but is assumed to be obvious and transpar-ent?
- the answer is that a relatively small number of very powerful semiotic codes transect in the text itself and thus produce the accepted meaning
- What is the text to be interpreted?
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⬢ There is no single text that can be isolated for the sake of analysis
⬢ Every text is an intertext
o Helps to explain the radically polysemic nature of media msgs
o Every text is potentially a number of different texts, each with its own set of possible meanings
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what question is the text answering?
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⬢ People look for behavior and meaning in text
⬢ Models of behavior
o Rules for living, role models, implicit instructions on how to do something
⬢ Meaning
o Looks for something that is not obvious to everyone
- How does a text communicate?
- o Sometimes we’re more interested in understanding how the text produces the particular meaning we assume it has
- Transmission model of communication
- assumes that the aim of all communication is to maximize the liklihood that the receiver receives the exact same message (meaning) as the sender sends
- Visual messages
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⬢ Mental
o Experience from inside your mind
⬢ Thoughts
⬢ Dreams
⬢ Fantasies
⬢ Direct
o See without media intervention
⬢ Mediated
o Those you see through some type of print or screen medium
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similarity
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⬢ given a choice by the brain, you will select the simplest and most stable form to concentrate on
⬢ stresses the importance of basic shapes in the forms of squares circles and triangles
- proximity
- ⬢ the brain more closely associates objects close to each other than it does two objects that are far apart
- continuation
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⬢ rests on the principle that the brain does not prefer sudden or unusual changes in the movement of a line
⬢ the brain seeks as much as possible a smooth continuation of a line
- common fate
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⬢ a viewer mentally groups five arrows or five raised hands pointing to the sky because they all point in the same direction
⬢ an arrow pointed in the opposite direction will create tension bc the viewer will not see it as apart of the upwardly directed whole
- Semiotics
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⬢ study or science of signs
⬢ attempts to identify and explain the signs used by every society in the world
- Sign
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⬢ anything that stands for something else
⬢ meaning behind any sign must be learned
- Iconic signs
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⬢ easiest to interpret because they most closely resemble the thing they represent
⬢ true representations of what they depict
- indexical signs
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⬢ logical commonsense connection to the thing or idea they represent
⬢ interpretation takes a little longer than that of icons
- symbolic signs
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⬢ no logical or presentational connection between them and the things they represent
⬢ have to be taught
- codes
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⬢ chain of associations
⬢ metonymic, analogical, displaced, and condensed
- metonymic
- ⬢ collection of signs that cause the viewer to make associations or assumptions
- analogical
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⬢ group of signs that cause the viewer to make mental comparisons
⬢ yellow post it might remind the viewer of a lemon bc of its color
- displaced
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⬢ transfer meaning from one set of signs to another
⬢ lipstick cigarette and liquor ads use phallic imagery to signify sexual conquest
- condensed
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⬢ combine to form a new composite sign
⬢ lots of elements, but the creator cant control the message
- aporia
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gap in the logic of text, and absense on which it builds its entire textual edifice. disrupts the fliudity of the narrative and undermines the transparency of the taken-for-granted interpretation
even when polsemy seems to be totally under control, there is always at least one point in the text when it is threatening to reappear and that point can never be totally sealed up - mise-en-scene
- what is in the frame itself
- editing
- the process by which shots are connected to each other
- meaning
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the primary product of media communication
process by which people organize the world into significant differences
accomplished through the construction of codes - numbing repetition
- . At some point, the stomach stops twisting. Desensitization sets in. Horror evaporates
- logo-tization of news
- occurring when a journalistic image ceases to tell a story but becomes a symbol for a story, denuding it both of its actual news significance and of its inherent drama