Media Key Concept - Second-order signification

According to Roland Barthes, de Saussure's model of the SIGN, as a combination of a SIGNIFIER and a SIGNIFIED, is not sufficient to explain how we come to make judgments about the information we receive.

It is all well and good that when I see a picture of a cloud, or read or hear the word cloud, I get a mental picture of a cloud. This only goes part of the way to explaining MEANING.

Barthes says that the SIGN in de Saussure's model is itself part of a process of SIGNIFICATION.

Once I have understood, when you say the word cloud, that what you mean is in fact a cloud, I have to work out what the context is of your talking about the cloud. Are you discussing the weather ("The clouds are coming in / moving off.")? Or your mood ("I'm feeling under a cloud today. / I feel like a cloud has lifted.")?

What you intend, what you MEAN, by using the word cloud is in what Barthes called the SECOND ORDER OF SIGNIFICATION.

Now, whereas, with de Saussure's model, when you say dog, and you know I speak your language, you can pretty much guarantee I'm going to get a mental picture of a dog, (although you can't control what kind of dog), in contrast, with Barthes' model, you can never be quite sure how I'm going to respond to the mental picture of a dog.

But you can predict, and you can restrict my responses to what you say by choosing your words and pictures carefully and by knowing something about me, and this is what producers of media products do.

Here is the magazine front page that inspired Barthes to come up with this theory. The picture is of a young black man wearing a French military uniform. The year is 1955 and France is still a colonial power with a strong presence in Africa.

What do you think the picture is meant to SIGNIFY to its readers?

Find an example of a media product that signifies more than what it simply seems to show. Describe it in a reply to this post.

Related posts: Media Key Concept - Signification; Media Key Cocept - Denotation/Connotation

Politics Key Concept - Democracy

I know of no safe repository of the ultimate power of society but people. And if we think them not enlightened enough, the remedy is not to take the power from them, but to inform them by education. (Thomas Jefferson)

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. (Thomas Jefferson)

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. (Thomas Jefferson)

Democracy: (from the Greek demos, "people", and kratos, "rule") a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them or vote directly on issues of governance.

Media Key Concept - Signification

According to Ferdinand de Saussure, signification is a process by which things in the world, and things in language, come together to produce MEANING.


Every element in language (whether it is a word, a gesture, a picture, an object you are looking at) means something. It is part of a process called signification. The element of language is a SIGNIFIER, and what it refers to is a SIGNIFIED. The combination of the two makes a SIGN.

So the word DOG is a SIGNIFIER, and the mental picture of a dog in your mind's eye, or a specific dog I am pointing to, is the SIGNIFIED.

The first thing that is of interest is that a SIGNIFIER can have any number of things as its SIGNIFIED. I was thinking of a border collie. What kind of dog were you thinking of? I happen to like dogs, and to me, dogs are associated with friendship and loyalty. But if you've been attacked by a dog, you might have been thiking of an angry rottweiler. Our emotional response to the signifier would be different. (For more on that, read about 'second-order signification')


The second thing worth noting about SIGNIFIERS, is that although I use the word DOG on this blog, a French blog would use the word CHIEN, a Spanish one, the word PERRO, a Korean blog, the word KAI (in an alphabet you aren't likely to recognise). A SIGNIFIER is a purely mental construct. We only use the words we use because we have agreed together to use those words.

Bienvenue

Welcome A-level Film Studies and Government and Politics students, and welcome GCSE Media Studies students.

On this blog, you will find a host of resources I will be using in class, including videos, pictures, keyword definitions, links to useful web sites and the like.

Feel free to leave comments and feedback for other users about the usefulness of these recources. Keep it polite!

Mr D.