OUGD501 // Lecture 10 // Communication Theory

Communication theory lecture by nathan bolton

Semiotics.  - The Persuasion of Advertising - Essay

The two ronnies - four candles - youtube
how precarious communication is. That meaning isn't always guaranteed in what you say. Misinterpretation.


Linguistic area of semiotics - how transferred into study of images.

Defining semiotics
a study of sign systems.
signifier / signified / referent

signifier - thing that signifies something - stand in place of something else

signified - mental image / concept / translation of it - what you image in your head when told something

referent - the actual thing / concept

Allows element of thinking, anyone can interpret it themselves


- separated the word ( sign ) from meaning, that meaning is not inherent within the sign. there is a separation -
- separated the system of speaking - will full thing on our part, we decide what we want to say. Language itself doesnt belong to us. belongs to society
- meta language - language about language itself
- signs work within systems and structures - what gives us the signifier? SYSTEMS DO - advertising. Film. Photography. etc - systems of communication - an agreement of what they mean.


Green - grass, go
Blue - water, cold,

Crisps with colours
green - salt and vinegar, cheese and onion
blue - cheese and onion

Walkers demonstrate how the system is fluid, it only works if there is an agreement. Change the system and influence it to a point that everyone will agree.
There is no literal relationship between the colour and flavouring - agreement within the system of communication

Saussure - signs that work within sign systems work in opposition - we dont always no what something means by what it is, but do by what it is not.


Connotations, denotation
provides us with levels or orders of signification - not everything works on a realistic level - deeper levels.

what may seem to be literal or denotated - cant always tell so be cautious about this.

Myth
signs that are culturally informed
 - refer to PDF

- no literal meaning to what they are saying. first order denotation, connotation is second order , myth third order - something that has no natural connection, but society has made this conncection.

RED WINE - class, intelligence, intellectuals  - no relationship with this, nothing says red wine is this

MILK - in us - strength, natural strength, freedom, liberty - no relationship to this either - suggested to this over time.
Association that is good for you - only because we have been told this, so we associate this with it.

SYNTAGM and PARADIGM
sytagm - series of signifiers creating a 'text' - 'text' - images, sentence
relation of signifiers - formal qualities of the signifiers - looking at a sentence, looking at the formal structure, tone.

Paradigm - signifers that are related - by meaning or function - look at how meaning change.
how replacing signifiers will change meaning.

HE HIT THE BOY
HE HIT THE MAN
HE HIT THE GIRL

changing the signifier changes the whole meaning of the sentence


DOLCE AND GABBANA
gentleman, classy, smug
bottle perfume - bottom right
type etc in bototm right too.

Formal qualities - composition
- 1st third of image
- information and product in bottom corner

Paradigm - replace something within the same collection.
- replace the guy with a cowboy, meaning of the text and advert would change significantly.
- aftershave for rugid men.


COWBOY
- replace the cowboy with someone else - a women - the communication of advert would change significantly.

Metaphor and metoym
words associated with language
work with images too - image of one thing can mean something else.

Metaphor - one sign replaced with another that has similar relations within the same context. REPLACEMENT -

Metonym - signifier stands in for another to which it is conceptually a part of it
DISPLACEMENT

White house - doesn't mean the white house - just a building - american politics - western politics

Rhetoric
politicians, journalists, advertisers,
- act of persuasion using words - not just a mesaage, but trying to persuade you with something - work is so subtle not aware that it is actually persuading you.

army man - rhetoric - war does bad things to people -

Meta
used as a prefix to alter the purpose of practice.
- meta-language

THE GREATEST MOVIE EVER SOLD - documentary - about his task of making a movie - a movie about making a movie - meta-movie

Fountain - artwork about art - comments on art itself

Structuralism
Term used for the broad application of semiotics / semiology to a range of sign systems.

How they come to represent - what the systems actually represent in the images itself.

Emphasises structures or systems of signification - how it comes to mean

Roland Barthes - Image, Music, Text - 1977.
- analyses a range of visual media in terms of their signifying structures:
The photographic message
The rhetoric of the image
The third meaning

Post structuralism
- modernism - part of modernism -
focusses on the structures of meaning in any signifying system

Whats wrong -
reduces everything to related elements
 - authoritarian nature
- assumes the presence of a meaning - the meaning is there
- deconstruct assumptions and emphasise the interpretation - break down the structures - identify whats missing.

Differance
Jacques Derrida
- to differ and to defer
- not just about difference but also about being deferred.
- deferance - when you come across a word, look up in dictionary, find other words dont understand, so have to look them up also - define a meaning by using other words to do this. constantly being pushed aside.

quote -
reflects what he says about interpretation.
explaining the process of differing and deferring at the same time

Deconstruction
to dismantle the structures - identify gaps and instabilites
challenged 'binary oppositions' which are rooted into our culture and language
emphasising what is left aside.

Intertextuality
describes how texts are constructs / collages of previous texts - subject to influence and everything that comes before. everything is connected, has traces of things that comes before it. conformity to the situation of the content it belongs in.

Foucault quote:
every text that is out there is subject to everything that has come before it in its area.


Scary Movie
intertextuality  - things that it references

Simulacra
hyper reality in representation - no longer represents anything real, just themselves - the representation comes before the thing itself - represented.

experience of reality is through images.

Stages of simulacra
- refer to PDF

images we see inform our understanding of what the real actually is

DISNEY LAND
- best things of certain countries in one place
- distorted

Brands
Arent about products but about the brand itself - not how useful to us.

How concepts can be used to analyse art and design?
How consider idea and concepts when creating art and design?