First Lesson Summary

In our first lesson of Media Studies we learnt about Semiology. This is the study of signs. Alot of signs are polysemic meaning that they have more than one interpretation. An example of this is red, it can be interpreted as love or danger, and many others. A sign has a denotation and a connotation. A denotation is a physical sign where as a connotation is a message you take from a sign.The sign could be a wall. The denotation would be a physical barrier but the connotation you may get from this could be an emotional barrier. This could be what you take away from an image featuring a couple with a wall between them. Signs are categorized in to three types. These are Symbolic, Iconic and Indexical. A Symbolic sign is linked to what they signify however doesn't look like it at all. An example of this would be a radioactive symbol. We know it as radioactive but it doesn't show a radioactive source. Iconic symbols look exactly the same as what they symbolize. For example an image of a tree would signify a tree. You would directly interpret the tree as a tree. The third type is indexical. This is where the symbol is evidence of something else. Wreckage could be there because of a storm. However, the actual wreckage itself isn't the storm. It is evidence of the storm being there.