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A closer look at the content of drama series were also looked t. 2 Communication and Media Semiotics 2. 1 Introduction In Media, communication occurs by means of signs. This is because media is seen as a representation and an imitation of reality. Semiotics is made up of four principals namely, the sign, the sign system, codes and the meaning. We will take a closer look at the kinds of signs such as iconic, symbolic, arbitrary and indelicacy. (Fourier 2009:51) 2. 2 Discussion of Theory According to De Assure, a sign is made up of three parts. These are the signifier, the referent and the signified.
The Signifier is the physical quality – that which is tangible e. G. The word or picture. The signifier purpose is to represent something else or refers to something else, the ‘something referred to is the ‘referent’, it is therefore the idea, concept or object being referred to. The 3rd part, known as the signified is the meaning attached to the signifier by the recipient of the message. The signifier is not constant as the meaning may vary from one person to another. From the relationship formed, there are different types of signs that can be seen.
The first type is the Arbitrary sign. This is a linguistic sign, such as a word. And there is no resemblance between the signifier (what is seen) and what is being referred to referent). The signifies however will be the same for all the people able to understand the linguistic sign. For example if the sign is P-E-N, individuals that are able to speak the language will deduce that it means ‘pen’ so the signified will be common. However for a person who reads only sooth it may not mean the same thing. The next types of signs are the Iconic signs.
These are visual or pictorial images. Here the signifier refers to that which it signifies. For example a picture off pen will be interpreted by everyone has a pen and not only people that are able to understand English. Symbolic signs are symbols – literary and linguistic are the third type of signs. The meanings here however are derived from social dandy a culturally background. For example a picture of a dove could symbolism peace to many people. Indelicacy signs, the fourth type, are the natural signs for example smoke that would mean a fire or water that could mean a flood. Fourier 2009 51-52) 2. 3 Media Examples (ADDENDUM A and ADDENDUM B) The first example is an advertisement for make-up from a magazine. It originates The purpose of this is to find out how semiotics is used in advertising. In the picture o can see a bottle of mascara and crossing that is a open mascara stick. The word REVOLT is written bold and horizontally on the right of the page. The word REVOLT is written in white to stand out from the black/blue background and to identify the brand. The signifier is the picture of the bottle of mascara that is seen.
The referent is the mascara and it is therefore an iconic sign. It is a good example of an iconic sign as this picture will be identified as ‘mascara’ by anyone who sees it irrespective of culture, language etc. There is also an arbitrary sign in the picture. The word Revolt is used to refer to its beauty product. The second example is also an advertisement taken from a same TFH publication. This advert has a picture of an attractive female, her hair is blown away from her face and there is also a bottle of hair treatment and writing to supplement the pictures.
We can immediately see the iconic sign. The photo of the attractive female with blown hair refers to her good hair care regime. Thus referring to the advertised product. The bottle of hair treatment is an iconic sign also. It refers to the treatment that is available. 2. 4 Conclusion As seen, many print advertisements make use of iconic signed , re-enforced with arbitrary signs. The aim of advertisements is product knowledge and sales. When people are able to see the product and identify with it, it achieves this. This is not dependent on culture or language 3.
Textual Analysis: Narrative and Argumentative The drama that was used was an American crime drama, FLASHLIGHT. A textual analysis was then conducted as per the different theories. Prop Prop took a more extreme syntactic approach. He had 31 possible parts with 6 stages. These are preparation, complication, transference,struggle, return and recognition. In the preparation stage, the main actors are seen at a intersection. Officer Greg with his son Dean and sons friend, Clark. Officer Greg gives them a basic run down of what the Job entails. The boys are interested as Dean wants to take this up as his career.
The next stage then comes into play-the preparation stage. Here officer Greg receives a call from his office advising him of a shoot out that has Just taken place. He instructs the boys to wait in the car and leaves to the scene of the crime. The boys however to not listen , instead they follow and spy on the what was taking place. They see a man come out of the building where the shoot out occurs. He voids the cops and dumps a black bag into a bin. In the transference the boys debate whether they should tell his dad about what occurred and risk getting into trouble for disobeying.
While they debate this, a unknown man comes for the bag and Clark hands it to him but first puts his cellophane in his bag so that they are able to track it. Struggle – here the Dean and Clark tell officer Greg what happened and about the cellophane. They track the phone and find locate the villain, a drug Lord known as Grain. In the Return stage, the villain is arrested and taken away. The last stage is known as the recognition stage. Here the villain is exposed. The boys are not punished for their disobedience UT are rewarded with pizza for depart they played According to Toronto a narrative will go through 5 stages.
A state of equilibrium, disruption of the equilibrium, recognition of the disruption, an attempt to repair the disruption and a restoration of the equilibrium. In the first stage, the state of equilibrium. Here everything is fine. It is a normal day and officer Greg is on the Job with his son Dean and dean’s friend, Clark. The second stage, known as the disruption of the equilibrium by some action is then evident. Officer Grey receives a call telling him about a shooting that has occurred. This ends the day with the boys and officer Grey has to rush off.
Recognition of disruption – the boys know that something is not well so instead of waiting in the car like they were instructed. They flow officer Greg and spy on what happens. They notice a man escaping the scene without the knowledge of the police. In the fourth stage – the Attempt to repair the disruption stage. The boys try to help and plant a cellophane in a bag they found. They then inform officer Greg and the police so they are able to locate the criminal. In the last stage – a restoration of the equilibrium occurs as the villain, Grain is found and arrested and order is once again brought by the cops.
Levi-Strauss Strauss focuses on the meaning and the underlying rules and codes that produce the meaning. He was concerned with identifying a deep structure of meanings in mythic initiatives that can only be grasped by taking the characters, settings and actions out of the syntactic flow and by analyzing their relations of similarity and differences (Provision 2009:236) The binary oppositions would be as follows Hero Cop Legal Obedience Rewarded for good Honest Villain Criminal Illegal Disobedience Punished for Bad dishonest 4. Narrative Analysis 4. The name of the series is ‘NO’S LOS ANGELS’ and the title is ‘Identity. The main characters are Called and AL Cool who are senior special agents. Also on their team are Kens’, Don, Marty, Heath, and Ante. They are part of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and work undercover to solve crimes. It is a fiction crime drama. There are various themes. The classic ‘Good vs. Bad’ theme is present where the cops are the good guys and they defeat the criminal(Bad guys). There is also a theme of loyalty, this is evident in the cops risking their lives for that of their partners. . 1 According to Aristotle, there is a three-act Narrative structure, namely, Exposition, Climax and Resolution. In the first act, the exposition, is where the characters are seen and the story introduced. Called and his team are at their head office talking when they are summoned to the board room and presented with a case. A commander was killed and they were to investigate his death. The second act is the The commanders niece is kidnapped and they have only 4 hours to rescue her. The final act is the resolution act. Where the problem is resolved.
After some hard work, Called and Cool find the hideout and rescue the girl. Returning her to her mum. 4. 3 Umber CEO ‘s model is a flexible and adapted form to analyses television programs. It consists of three levels. Binary Oppositions, Play situations and Machine Ideology. He penetrates deeper into the message of the narrative, Roland Berates provides a dominant thinking on narrative. He says that language is made up of a system of signs that reflect the beliefs of a particular society at a particular time. He was concerned with explaining the meaning behind how the story is constructed
Vladimir approach was to analysis Russian folk tales and from this established 31 constant functions and developed 6 stages. Outdoor says that narratives function on two levels namely the state of being and the casual transformation. He breaks down a narrative into its constitute parts to determine the functions and relationships. From these two levels he determined the 5 stages of the narrative. These are the State of equilibrium, the disruption, The recognition that there has been a disruption, the attempt to restore equilibrium and finally the reinstatement of equilibrium. . 4 Binary Oppositions Called is the hero- Child found safe Called rewarded Play Situations Mexican Villain Commander murdered Villain Captured These are when the oppositional character pairs combine through the narrative. A – Commander dies B – Called and team investigates C – Find out that Child is kidnapped D – Go after Kidnappers E – Almost get shot by Villain F – find the child G – Villain is arrested, Called rewarded H – Called and team are heroes Machine ideology According to the Machine, the world is not governed by one perfect being by a balance between good and evil.
The good would be Called and his team and the bad s the Mexican villain. Hero(Called works as a special agent) – Dispatcher (incise) Hero (Called) -Villain (Mexican) Villain(Mexican) – Victim(Emma , the kidnapped child) Victim( Emma rescued)- Hero (Called) 5. Media and Visual Literacy Media literacy can be divided into three levels on the basis of how researchers and analysts view the mass media. (Fourier 2009:121) The three levels are explained below. Media Content Literacy This is based on the assumption that a person is visually literate if he or she is able to access and analyses the content of messages in a variety of media. Reid & Van Hardhearted:97). It is not limited to a specific communication medium as it focuses on message elements can be found in different settings. This refers to the content matter dealt with in media text e. G. Themes,values, ideologies etc. When conducting a text analysis in the media content, there are questions that can be addressed such as , what is the overt message? What is the covert message or How can the content be read differently by different individuals? (Fourier 2009:122).
Media Grammar Literacy Media grammar literacy is based on the assumptions that the mass media use pacific languages the mass media language distinguishes between codes of content and codes of form. This level requires readers to be able to analyses genres within each medium. To be ‘grammar’ literate means the ability to analyses how the encoding characteristics of a particular medium are manipulated to convey a particular perception of the message. Medium Literacy This deals with how the nature of a medium influences communication on a micro and macro level.
It focuses on the medium as an institution, rather than a specific encoding medium. The micro level is the small scale level and questions why certain interactions work differently depending on the medium of communication used. The Macro or societal level requires the reader to consider how social forces contribute to the development of certain media as well as the effects. 5. 2 Discussion of similarities and differences As per Addendum 1, THE MERCURY was used as a broadsheet newspaper example and THE CATCHWORD TABLOID was used as an example of a Tabloid newspaper.
Listed below are the comparisons Tabloid Broadsheet Paper The red, light grey and yellow are very eye catching colors that draw a readers attention. The thickness of this paper is the same as the broadsheet paper however the size differs drastically. The tabloid is approximately half the size of the Broadsheet paper This paper uses color also but is not as striking as the tabloid. The thickness of the paper is the same as the Tabloid, The size of the paper is almost twice the size of the tabloid. Typeface The name of the newspaper is in big clear to read fonts.
The article below that however has a font that is almost cursive and difficult to immediately make out. All the stories headlines are in similar fonts The however are done in easy to read fonts. The Main story is in the largest fonts. The other stories in smaller fonts Blank Spaces No blank spaces – 2 articles and 6 adverts and a picture fill the front page No blank spaces -4 articles, 1 car advert and headlines of stories in the rest of the paper fill the front page Page Layout Priority and most space given to a picture of well known acting personalities.
On the right is the main story. Information on the social personalities is seen in a small article below the picture. Advertisements are placed at the bottom and top of the page. The name of the newspaper is Just above the main story and photo The top of he page has the name of the newspaper. Directly below are stories inside the newspaper(preview) on the left is the main story with a picture and description on the right. (not related to main story) 3 more articles and a car advert occupy the bottom of the page.
Cropping of photographs The main picture of 2 plywood actors are properly cropped to include all important detail. The main picture of the cyclist is also properly cropped so that the cyclists and the background are both captured 6. Media, Language and Discourse The article “Born-frees have precious little freedom. ‘ Is a newspaper text with an inverted pyramid structure addressing a serious issue and can be seen as an editorial opinion. The article is made up of words and sounds. In the article, the signifier are the ‘born-frees’ and the signified is the ironic image that they do not really have freedom.
The article headline is satirical and ironic. The children who are ‘born free’ are the ones that do not have freedom due to the crime. The article however does not focus on the crimes against these children but rather the reaction of the public and the media to these crimes. The metaphors used in the text are effective as they draw a mental picture to compare. .. .Rapists were called ;animals by birth” here due to the brutal incidents theses rapist were likened to animals, it is an effective comparison as it highlights their coldness.
The argument is structured like that of Toolkit(Fourier 2009:101). The writer makes a claim that the born frees are not really free, this claim is supported by the data that he presents on crime and activities that have recently occurred which brought him to the aforementioned conclusion. His interpretation of it is the warrant. His warrant is that the media take a more active role. The article is written in the active voice as it urges co-operation owe. The text is a discursive Journalism text that is editorial in nature.
Although it presents facts of an incident, it has the writers view on the solution to the problem of born-frees not really being free. It does not Just state facts but offers the writers solution to the problem. An image of how things should be is presented. The audience would be other Journalists, people in media and government as it directly asks them to make a stand. Also the public that need to be made aware of current issues. Journalistic ideology is evident where there is a human factor and care for the ext generations well-being and safety.