HEJ 231 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Connotation, Denotation, Family Values
30 Jun 2018
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Journalism week two: Introducing Textual Analysis
Textual Analysis: ‘a way at looking closely and critically at texts’
- Images are powerful and carry meaning
- Decoding images
- Signs, signals in the images that allow us to interpret images, why are we
locked out, unable to decode
- Do not understand codes and conventions in some images, that’s what makes
it difficult sometimes
- Taking a text apart, looking at its individual components
- Interpreting the meaning of texts
- How we make meaning allows us to be better producers and consumers of
media: re word
- Not just about theory, it is a practice that we do
- Text: ‘anything in which we can make meaning’
oImage, song, magazine, ad, text, graffiti, video game
oRead = interpret, anything that we can read to interpret is a text
oAnything in media and popular culture is worthy of analysis
Semiotics: method for textual analysis
- the study of signs, which are found as combinations in texts
- how meaning is generated in texts
- gives us a starting place for analytical writings, depth
- a sign is a unit of meaning
- all texts can be broken down into the individual components to make meaning
- looking at individual units to work out how they combine to form texts
- Formulated by Ferdinand de Saussure: 1857-1913
- Roland Bart: 1960’s: important as he was one of the first to apply this study to
popular culture and media
oChanged the rules about what can be analyzed
oNot just literature and art
oAllows us to analyze all forms of media and popular culture
Film, toys etc
- All texts are constructions: not truth or reality
oThis is how semiotics begin, with the understanding that texts are
constructed
oThe implications of the images that are chosen, gives the basis for
meaning
- Signs: the units of meaning that make up a texts
oSound, letters, colours, shapes
oWhat enables us to recognize things
oSignifier + signified = SIGN
oSignifier: physical form of the sign, what we perceive with our senses
Sound, visual image, gesture, facial expression
Something that we recognize
oSignified: the meaning of the sign
A stop sign; red octagon- with the meaning of stopping
- Signification: always arbitrary, no natural connection between the signifier
and the signified
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Textual analysis: a way at looking closely and critically at texts". Signs, signals in the images that allow us to interpret images, why are we locked out, unable to decode. Do not understand codes and conventions in some images, that"s what makes it difficult sometimes. Taking a text apart, looking at its individual components. How we make meaning allows us to be better producers and consumers of. Interpreting the meaning of texts media: re word. Not just about theory, it is a practice that we do. All texts are constructions: not truth or reality: this is how semiotics begin, with the understanding that texts are constructed, the implications of the images that are chosen, gives the basis for meaning. Signs: the units of meaning that make up a texts: sound, letters, colours, shapes, what enables us to recognize things, signifier + signified = sign, signifier: physical form of the sign, what we perceive with our senses.
