INTRODUCTION TO COMMUNICATION: MEDIA CONTENT
Representation – represent, act of ideas of putting ideas into words, visuals, audio – eg
tv show simpsons, simpsons isn’t a family, is a representation of a family - picture of
plane crash, presentation of plane crash – simplifies object being described – pic is a
perspective only, if you’re there, you can smell, touch them – representation is a
simplification of it – receiver must decode or interpret to understand the idea – eg look
at a picture, take time to understand, if not clear picture, you have to concentrate to
understand the picture, some are faster than others – all interactions of media takes
effort to decode
Signification – using signs to meaning, words images sounds objects – creating
meaning, put words together, website, picture – signifiers and signified – see a pic, pic
is the signifier, the idea signifies – different people take different meanings – 3 different
signs, icon(map that looks like a city), index(smoke represent fire), symbol (no meaning
like names) – text, magazine is text, EXAM MCQ
Indeterminacy of representation – apple pic, apple mean fruit or company, knowledge
of context of Christian bible, depends upon context we find it in – see the pic beside a
computer, it’s an ad for a computer company
Intertextuality – experience of the sign – if we Christian, we have Christian background
– hungry, apple is a fruit – set the sign in our own history
Polysemy – similar to indeterminacy – apple can have many different meanings – work
to make meanings – eg textbook, put effort to signs we see to understand and
remember them – meanings don’t just go into our head
Radio tv newspapers – every meaning we encounter has a different way of representing
ideas to us, visual, written, sound – representation can overlap – how things are said
and how things are interpreted
Head – different ways it can be interpreted – different meanings
Social theory – not the actual act of communication – its idea of communication –
abstract idea, each idea is a different representation – so we can intervene in the
Representation – represent, act of ideas of putting ideas into words, visuals, audio – eg
tv show simpsons, simpsons isn’t a family, is a representation of a family - picture of
plane crash, presentation of plane crash – simplifies object being described – pic is a
perspective only, if you’re there, you can smell, touch them – representation is a
simplification of it – receiver must decode or interpret to understand the idea – eg look
at a picture, take time to understand, if not clear picture, you have to concentrate to
understand the picture, some are faster than others – all interactions of media takes
effort to decode
Signification – using signs to meaning, words images sounds objects – creating
meaning, put words together, website, picture – signifiers and signified – see a pic, pic
is the signifier, the idea signifies – different people take different meanings – 3 different
signs, icon(map that looks like a city), index(smoke represent fire), symbol (no meaning
like names) – text, magazine is text, EXAM MCQ
Indeterminacy of representation – apple pic, apple mean fruit or company, knowledge
of context of Christian bible, depends upon context we find it in – see the pic beside a
computer, it’s an ad for a computer company
Intertextuality – experience of the sign – if we Christian, we have Christian background
– hungry, apple is a fruit – set the sign in our own history
Polysemy – similar to indeterminacy – apple can have many different meanings – work
to make meanings – eg textbook, put effort to signs we see to understand and
remember them – meanings don’t just go into our head
Radio tv newspapers – every meaning we encounter has a different way of representing
ideas to us, visual, written, sound – representation can overlap – how things are said
and how things are interpreted
Head – different ways it can be interpreted – different meanings
Social theory – not the actual act of communication – its idea of communication –
abstract idea, each idea is a different representation – so we can intervene in the
