Term 2 - 2020/2021
Qualitative Methods in Media &
Communication (CM2006)
WEEK 6
When and Why Should you use Semiotic Analysis?
- Important for decoding and understanding information
- Useful when analysing visuals
- Useful for identifying implicit meanings
Literature
- Like rhetorical analysis, this form of data analysis is more formalized and benefits from an
ever-expanding body of methodological literature advancing how-to instructions for
applying it in practice.
- Related to the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who was preoccupied with
the relation between reality, words, and the process of meaning-making.
- Launched by de Saussure and continued largely by European scholars (Roland Barthes,
Umberto Eco, and Julia Kristeva being among the most known representatives) and the
American branch associated with the work of Charles S. Peirce.
- Semiotics: Science of Signs
- Sign: anything that is meaningful to us, humans, constitutes a sign; is the smallest unit of
meaning
- Asignis made up of asignified(the mental concept that it invokes) and thesignifier(the form
the sign takes – could be a spoken or written word, a photograph, a drawing, etc.).
- Signifiers are polysemic - contain a variety of meanings
- Signs have denotative (standard definition) and connotative (associated) meanings
- Signification: A process (the process of understanding, of coming up with the ‘right’ mental
concept) unconsciously
- 3 types of Signs
• Index: Suggests casual relations. A sign that refers to another sign (ex. Smoke is an index
of fire)
Laura Sehnem
, Term 2 - 2020/2021
• Icon: Bears a very close resemblance to the referent. A sign that represents what we see
(ex. Passport photo)
• Symbol: Relation to a particular referent is arbitrary and culturally contextual (ex. Logos
for a brand for instance, the arches of McDonald’s or the swoosh for Nike)
- Semiotics thus distinguishes between different types of signs based on their relationship
to the referent (the object, the person, the place, etc.) they depict.
- Arrangement of signs– their co-presence, their syntax (or, how they are put together to
create meaning)
- The bond between signifier and signified is socially situated – it can change with time, with
speakers, or with the purposes of the communication act.
- Fixation of the Chain of Signification
• Ideology (mythology): ideology as a set of ideas that justifies a particular arrangement of
power and a particular distribution of resources as ‘normal’.
Steps in Semiotic Analysis
- Useful for the analysis of images. Although it can be applied to other media – written or
spoken words, clothes, buildings – images (as well as moving images)
- Useful for showing how meaning-making works ideologically.
• That is, how it can mask inequalities, power relations, or social injustice.
- Depends on the analysts’ knowledge of the cultural codes (general beliefs, principles, value
systems, traditions, etc.) and awareness of the power arrangements of the social
structures.
1. Identify all signs in a text (ex. background, or the font, the angle from which a photograph
has been taken, or the logo in the corner)
Laura Sehnem
Qualitative Methods in Media &
Communication (CM2006)
WEEK 6
When and Why Should you use Semiotic Analysis?
- Important for decoding and understanding information
- Useful when analysing visuals
- Useful for identifying implicit meanings
Literature
- Like rhetorical analysis, this form of data analysis is more formalized and benefits from an
ever-expanding body of methodological literature advancing how-to instructions for
applying it in practice.
- Related to the work of Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who was preoccupied with
the relation between reality, words, and the process of meaning-making.
- Launched by de Saussure and continued largely by European scholars (Roland Barthes,
Umberto Eco, and Julia Kristeva being among the most known representatives) and the
American branch associated with the work of Charles S. Peirce.
- Semiotics: Science of Signs
- Sign: anything that is meaningful to us, humans, constitutes a sign; is the smallest unit of
meaning
- Asignis made up of asignified(the mental concept that it invokes) and thesignifier(the form
the sign takes – could be a spoken or written word, a photograph, a drawing, etc.).
- Signifiers are polysemic - contain a variety of meanings
- Signs have denotative (standard definition) and connotative (associated) meanings
- Signification: A process (the process of understanding, of coming up with the ‘right’ mental
concept) unconsciously
- 3 types of Signs
• Index: Suggests casual relations. A sign that refers to another sign (ex. Smoke is an index
of fire)
Laura Sehnem
, Term 2 - 2020/2021
• Icon: Bears a very close resemblance to the referent. A sign that represents what we see
(ex. Passport photo)
• Symbol: Relation to a particular referent is arbitrary and culturally contextual (ex. Logos
for a brand for instance, the arches of McDonald’s or the swoosh for Nike)
- Semiotics thus distinguishes between different types of signs based on their relationship
to the referent (the object, the person, the place, etc.) they depict.
- Arrangement of signs– their co-presence, their syntax (or, how they are put together to
create meaning)
- The bond between signifier and signified is socially situated – it can change with time, with
speakers, or with the purposes of the communication act.
- Fixation of the Chain of Signification
• Ideology (mythology): ideology as a set of ideas that justifies a particular arrangement of
power and a particular distribution of resources as ‘normal’.
Steps in Semiotic Analysis
- Useful for the analysis of images. Although it can be applied to other media – written or
spoken words, clothes, buildings – images (as well as moving images)
- Useful for showing how meaning-making works ideologically.
• That is, how it can mask inequalities, power relations, or social injustice.
- Depends on the analysts’ knowledge of the cultural codes (general beliefs, principles, value
systems, traditions, etc.) and awareness of the power arrangements of the social
structures.
1. Identify all signs in a text (ex. background, or the font, the angle from which a photograph
has been taken, or the logo in the corner)
Laura Sehnem
