INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES

Decoding Print Media Texts Using Basic Semiotics

SAUSSURE’S MODEL (1)

PR. KHALID SAID

 INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES
Decoding Print Media Texts Using Basic Semiotics
SAUSSURE’S MODEL (1)

PR. KHALID SAID

 OBJECTIVES
• Many Media Analysts are interested in how the media affect our
understanding of the world. This involves looking at more than just texts. It
also involves taking different approaches to description and analysis, which
help make sense of how the media are part of our lifestyles, our beliefs and
even our social relationships.
• So, this document is devoted to introducing some different approaches to
studying the media. They are your tools for taking things apart, seeing how
things work, seeing where meanings about our world may come from.
• In this three lectures, we will use Semiotic Analysis to decode print media
text. Many theorists have contributed their own models and ideas to the
field of Semiotic Analysis. Three important contributors, are referred to in
this short document: Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Peirce, and Roland
Barthes.
• For ease of exposition, this document focuses on the approach of
Ferdinand de Saussure. Next documents will be about the contributions
of Charles Peirce, and Roland Barthes.
 OBJECTIVES

1 2 3 4
How to conduct
CONCEPT semiotic
Ferdinand de APPLICATION
DEFINING analysis
Saussure and CONCEPT
▪Sign CHECKING
▪Semiotic Geursen 1997
▪ Signifier
Analysis three steps
▪ Signified
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS

1 Reading Print Media

01
o One of the key approaches that will help you decode a TEXT in media
02 studies is SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS. Semiotics is the study of signs in our
culture (how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated).
These might be any aspect of print, audio-visual or digital media, including
03 images, sounds and language.
o Semiotic analysis looks beyond the surface of the message, studying verbal
signs as well as visual and auditory ones, thus revealing more deeply the
04 underlying structures of meaning, and helping to understand which
elements are responsible for creating corresponding effects/preferred
05 readings.

o One of the strongest aspects of Semiotic analysis is its relation to Linguistics

and critical theory. This interaction with these two broad fields has rendered
Semiotics a rich and powerful toolkit that is well-suited to analysing any kind
of media texts, and provides a good companion to studies that focus on the
recipient of the message (the viewer, listener, reader).
 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
1 The Origins of Semiotic Theory

01 Many theorists have contributed their own models and ideas to the field of
Semiotic Analysis. Three important contributors are referred to in this short
document: Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Peirce, and Roland Barthes
02
Ferdinand de Saussure
03 • Saussure is a Swiss linguist and is considered by most people to be one
of the founders of Semiotics. Saussurean thinking applied to reading
04 signs is sometimes referred to as semiology although it is fine to use the
term Semiotics when using his ideas. Saussure believes that Linguistics
provides a good model for application to wider cultural phenomena.
05
• Written or spoken language is the primary form of communication
between humans, but it is not the only form. The mass media are forms of
communication which deploy traditional language structures, but also are
Ferdinand de Saussure full of other codes. Semiotics, therefore, allows us to access these other
codes and to understand the sense that audiences make of them.
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS

3 Sign = signifier + signified

01 o At its simplest, Saussure’s model of the sign and
signification process can be illustrated as follows:
Sign = signifier + signified
02 o This model is usually drawn like this:

03 o Saussure’s model would work as follows: where

the word ‘apple’ conjures in the reader’s mind
the apple as a real-world object:
04

05 In order for the signification

process to work in a culture, users
have to agree on the signified.
The relationship between the
signifier and signified is sometimes
referred to as an arbitrary
relationship.
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
4 Sign = signifier + signified
❑ A signifier cannot exist without a signified – the two parts of the sign work in
01 tandem. The mental concept (the signified) is almost simultaneously triggered
the moment a signifier (the symbol or real-world object) is perceived. This
element of Saussure’s work remains at the heart of how we use Semiotics in
02 Media Studies. The sign itself can be thought of as the overall effect of the
two things combined.
❑ Signs can be simple or complex. Most media texts you analyse can be
03 regarded as complex signs, comprised of many signifiers plus signifieds, which
combine into a larger overall signification of the sign although some print
04 advertising will use more simple signs – which can be very effective.
❑ Let’s consider this example of simple signs:

05
Daniel Chandler gives the example of an ’OPEN’
sign encountered by someone at a shop door.
Because the word ‘open’ (the signifier) has a context
– being on the shop door – the signified is that the
shop is open for business. Similarly, a ‘closed’ sign
would signify the opposite.
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us apply Saussure’s model to the following media texts.
In marketing communications and advertising, Semiotics plays a key role in determining
the success or failure of any endeavour.
Begin your analysis by describing the physical form:
colour; shape, form and words. Then suggest why
the institutions used these particular signifiers

Here, the McDonald’s iconic yellow/Golden

arches is the signified whereby we can
relate to McDonald’s immediately when we
see it and the slogan, “i’m lovin’ it”, which is
their tagline*, is the dominant signifier that
people link easily to the famous fast
food chain.

Tagline= a catchphrase or slogan,

especially as used in advertising
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us apply Saussure’s model to the following
media texts. The signifier in this image is the ‘open happiness’ quote and the
woman’s facial expression. Coca Cola is communicating to the
viewer “buy Coca Cola and you will experience happiness”.
There is sharp detail in the Coca Cola bottle, highly
photoshopped, which brings forth warm brown tones and bubbles
to communicate fizziness and refreshment. Everyone wants to feel
refreshed when they have had or having a long day. So Coca
Cola wants people to buy it to fulfill this human need.

Also, the woman is wearing a ‘yes’ label; this labels the idea of
her feeling really happy by thinking ‘yes.’ What is more, Coca
Cola wants the viewer to subconsciously think, ‘yes’ I want to buy
this drink, ‘yes I want to feel happy.’ Coca Cola has powerfully
not forced the advertisement on the viewer. It is not written on
the advertisement buy Coca Cola you will be refreshed and
happy etc. It is the viewer that ideally makes this
communication. Therefore, viewers are active in the process
of meaning construction.
https://nikkparry2014.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/semiotics/
 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us Analyse the following print advertisement in terms of the signfiers and what they signify
https://media-studies.com/signs-analysis-fedex/

THE WORLD ON TIME

 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us Analyse the following print advertisement in terms of the signfiers and what they signify

• FedEx is a logistics company which transports packages across the world with
its huge delivery network.
• This text was designed/made/constructed to communicate the company’s
global presence and ability to send goods effortlessly from one continent to
another in the same way you can pass a parcel to the people next door.
• This preferred reading is encoded by the effective use of three or four
dominant signifiers, making it a great text to analyse in terms of Ferdinand de
Saussure’s sign theory.
❖ The dominant signifier is the package being passed down to the window below
❖ The map plays an important role in the advertisement’s message because
FedEx is a global company that has the capacity to deliver parcels all around
the world
❖ The choice of how actors are being represented. The viewer will probably
assume it is an apartment complex and the two people are neighbours.

THE WORLD ON TIME

 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us Analyse the following print advertisement in terms of the signfiers and what they signify
https://media-studies.com/syntagm-example-nescafe

1. Analyse the following print advertisement in

terms of semiotics and syntagm.
2. What is this preferred reading of the text?
• In this Nescafé advertisement, the alarm clock, coffee
cup and the tagline form the sentence so they achieve
their full meaning when they are read together. What
is this preferred reading of the text?
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us apply Saussure’s model to the following media texts.

What about this ad ? What are

the signifiers and what is being
signified? How do audiences
relate to the meaning? What
is/are the effects of the signifiers
on meaning construction?
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us apply Saussure’s model to the following
media texts.

o You can see that the signifier is represented by a public bus

as well as a woman holding on to hand rails that are shaped
like hands. There are also words – “WHOSE HAND ARE YOU
HOLDING?” – which adds to the signifier.

o What is signified to you? Perhaps the feeling that it can be

dirty, unhygienic and full of germs.

o For this ad, a strong message is effectively communicated

without the use of many words.
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
Let us apply Saussure’s model to the following media texts.

What about this ad ? What are

the signifiers and what is being
signified? How do audiences
relate to the meaning? What
is/are the effects of the signifiers
on meaning construction?
 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
HOW TO CONDUCT A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS BASED ON SAUSSURE'S MODEL
o Words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects are all Take this historical “Fight Cancer” ad:
signs to interpret. A semiotic analysis can interpret each,
then use that information later to persuade consumers.

o Each sign consists of two parts:

1.Signifier. The form it takes.
2.Signified. The concept it represents/conjures

o A semiotic analysis has three steps (Geursen 1997

p 102-103) :

1.Analyze verbal signs (what you see and hear).

2.Analyze visual signs (what you see).
3. Analyze the symbolic message (interpretation
of what you see).
 DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS
HOW TO CONDUCT A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS BASED ON SAUSSURE'S MODEL
Here’s what a semiotic analysis would unearth:

https://cxl.com/blog/semiotics-marketing/
DECODING PRINT MEDIA TEXTS USING BASIC SEMIOTICS

1. Analyse the following print advertisement

in terms of semiotics and syntagm.
2. What is this preferred reading of the text?
 THANK YOU
INTRODUCTION TO MEDIA STUDIES

PR. KHALID SAID