Media Culture: Semiotics ( Denotation, Connotation, Myth)

Semiology came from the Greek word 'semeion'. which means sign. It is an attempt to create a science of study of sign systems and their role in the construction and reconstruction of meaning in media texts. Semiology concentrates primarily on the text itself and the signs and codes that are contained within it.

Semiotic is the study if sign process (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign system. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood. In simple sentences. Semiotic is the study of sign.

There are two major traditions in European semiotics: F. de Saussure (Swiss-French), semiology; and C.S. Peirce (Anglo-American), semiotics. Saussure's approach was a generalization of formal, structuralist linguistics (The scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.); Peirce's was an extension of reasoning and logic in the natural sciences.

From class, lecturer have bring out few element of semiotics.  Signification,Sign=Signified and Signifier; Iconic and Arbitrary; Denotation, Connotation and Myth.

Daniel Chandler, Basic of Semiotics:

Signs take the form of words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects, but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with meaning. 'Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign', declares Peirce (Peirce 1931).

A sign is composed by two-part model:

a 'signifier' (signifiant) - the form which the sign takes; and

the 'signified' (signifié) - the concept it represents

A sign is a  combination of a signifier with a particular signified. The same signifier (the word 'close') could stand for a different signified (and thus be a different sign) if it were on a push-button at a computer window ('push to open door'). 

Iconic is how close the sign is to ' the real thing', how constrained a sign represent an object or a thing,  and photographic portrait is typically iconic.

Arbitrary (aka symbolic) is the opposite of iconic. Arbitrary is how far away a sign is from "the real thing', how unconstrained a sign represent an object or a thing. A person's name bears little physical resemblance to them but is less arbitrary than a nickname or an employee number.

Denotation is a  direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it. What it actually is. (ie ‘red’ denotes a certain colour, a ‘car’ denotes a vehicle for moving people and things around, the McDonalds golden arches denote a fast-food restaurant, the twin towers denoted a place of work in New York). Denotation is the 'surface' meaning. Similar to signified. Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the 'dictionary definition'.

Connotation:the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning. (ie ‘red’ connotes danger/passion/communism, a ‘car’ connotes freedom, the McDonalds arches can connote ‘americanisation’). This is very often cultural and can depend on context. Connotation represents the various social overtones, cultural implications, or emotional meanings associated with a sign.

The following extract from his essay 'Rhetoric of the Image', Roland Barthes demonstrates the subtlety and power of connotation in the context of advertising.

For an example, the name ' Hollywood' connotes such things as glitz, glamour, tinsel, celebrity, and dreams of stardom. The name 'Hollywood" denotes an area of Los Angelas, worldwide known as the center of America movie industry.

Myth: Roland Barthes in ‘Mythologies’ explores this further by looking at the mechanisms through which meanings are produced and circulated. He is interested in ‘how’ things mean. During the class, our lecturer had say that myth= denotation+connotation.

Barthes myths were the dominant ideologies of our time. In a departure from Hjelmslev's model Barthes argues that the orders of signification called denotation and connotation combine to produce ideology - which has been described (though not by Barthes) as a third order of signification (Fiske & Hartley 1978; O'Sullivan et al. 1994). In a very famous example from his essay 'Myth Today' (in Mythologies), Barthes illustrates this concept 

References:

Chandler, Daniel (1994): Semiotics for Beginners [WWW document] URL http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/semiotic.html [9 June 2012]

MEDIA STUDY: The Feedback Loop

During the second lesson in Media Culture we learn about Feedback Loop that i am not really understand about that why i did some research about it.

What is feedback loop?  First of all, what is feedback?
In a system where a transformation occurs, there are input and outputs. The inputs are the result of the environment's influence on the system, and the outputs are the influence of the system on the environment. Input and output are separated by duration of time, as in before and after, or past and present. (J.de Rosnay 1997)

As the note given by our lecturer, the feedack loop is the dominant pattern in both organic and mechanical systems.

Something happens, something happens as a result of that thing happening,

the new happening modifies the original happening, the something happens again…

Feedback loop is 

Central to a full understanding of dissipative systems, and especially those in symbiotic relationships, is the concept of system feedback (Stear, 1987). Complex systems with feedback loops that allow for self-renewal are called autopoietic structures.  One example of a simple, self-organizing system is a whirlpool. Another example is the red spot on the planet Jupiter. Other systems, such as the human body, can be extremely complex (Briggs and Peat, 1989).  

Put it into simple phrase is feedback loop is information about the result of a transformation or an action is sent back to the input of the system in the form of input data. Or is a way of "communication" between input and output.

And there are two different kinds of feedbacks: Positive feedbacks and negative feedbacks.

Positive Feedback:

Data facilitate and accelerate the transformation in the same direction as the preceding results, they are positive feedback - their effects are cumulative. Positive feedback leads to behavior: indefinite expansion or explosion (a running away toward infinity) or total blocking of activities (a running away toward zero). Something similar to a snowball effect. For examples like chain reaction, population explosion,  proliferation of cancer cells and so on. However, when minus leads to another minus, Typical examples are bankruptcy.(J.de Rosnay,1997)

Negative Feedback:

Data produce a result in the opposite direction to previous results, they are negative feedback - their effects stabilize the system. The data will exponential growth or decline in the first stage then in the second there is maintenance of the equilibrium. Negative feedback leads to adaptive, or goal-seeking behavior: sustaining the same level, temperature, concentration, speed, direction. In some cases the goal is self-determined and is preserved in the face of evolution: the system has produced its own purpose (to maintain, for example, the composition of the air or the oceans in the ecosystem or the concentration of glucose in the blood). In other cases man has determined the goals of the machines (automats and servomechanisms). (J.de Rosnay,1997)

As in simple phrase: Positive feedback is data will increase or drop infinity and Negative feedback is data will increase or decrease but in the end the data will tend to be stable.

To link back to the note that our lecturer give us,  

"Think of the process of learning to ride a bike for instance, or the driving of a car, or the operation of a toilet cistern …"

The process of cycling and driving car can product positive and negative feedback. 

-Positive: maybe the they are in a race, they increase the speed faster and faster.

-Negative: Maybe there is a signboard telling them a speed limit at 80km/h, the will decrease or increase and make the speed at 80km/h.

For the operation of toilet cistern is for sure negative. The water inside the toilet cistern will reach until a limit and stop when the water has been flush, the water fill back and stop when it reaches the equilibrium.

Feedback loop are find in all place for example email.

If an email is marked as Spam, the system will automatically unsubscribe that address from the list, providing the sender with a considerable reduction in time, effort and money.

These are some video that i found in internet that give more example about feedback loop.

Positive and Negative Feedback Loop

Feedback Loop

References:

J.de Rosnay(1997): "Referencing pages in Principia Cybernetica Web", in: F. Heylighen, C. Joslyn and V. Turchin (editors): Principia Cybernetica Web(Principia Cybernetica, Brussels), URL: http://cleamc11.vub.ac.be/REFERPCP.html