Barthes theory: The signifier is the object, whilst the signified is what it represents metaphorically.
- water is a physical object but it represents life.
Semiology is the study of signs. Signs consist of a signifier (a word, an image, a sound, and so on) and its meaning – the signified.
Denotation the literal meaning - stone - means a rock.
Denotations signify connotations - stone - might an implication of a rocky area or a mountain / cliff.
Denotations and connotations are organised into myths – the ideological meaning. These make ideology seem natural.
Barthes’s understanding of myth is the idea of a socially constructed reality which is passed off as ‘natural’.
Enigma code
- It’s an unsolved question that is presented, usually used in a non-linear timeline movie. For example in the movie brick the girl is presented dead in the opening. The unresolved questions are: Who is she? Why is she dead? Where is this? Why is there bells and a marimba playing in the background?
- The reasons why enigma is effective, is because it creates questions to the audience, causing the audience to be curious about what will happen.
Cultural code
Semantic code
Symbolic code
Action code
According to Todorov, all narratives have a fairly similar structure that entails a shift from one equilibrium condition to another. He claims that a time of imbalance or disequilibrium separates these two phases of equilibrium, which must be addressed. The way tales are resolved can have a lot of ideological significance.
Equilibrium - Disruption - Recognition - Disequilibrium - New Equilibrium
Unlike Strauss, he argues that stories are built through narrative sequence and transitions over the entire story, rather than by any particular impact e.g. binary opposition or two conflicting characters.
Quest Narrative: A narrative in which the central hero goes on a journey – usually in an attempt to repair the narrative equilibrium constructed at the start of the story.
In Burnt by the Sun
The family living a peaceful life after the great war ended was the equilibrium. When the family was accused to be rebelling against the orders of Stalin the story moves into a state of imbalance. In this case the movie didn’t resolve into a happy ending but the death of the Family resulted in a new equilibrium.
Steve Neale, argued that story structures are continuously adapting and changing.
The hero: According to Propp, there are two types of heroes: the seeker-hero (who is more reliant on the donor to achieve their objective) and the victim-hero (who needs to overcome a weakness to resolve the quest).
Luke Skywalker would account for a Seeker-Hero ->
Anakin Skywalker would account for a Victim-Hero ->
The villain: is someone who battles or chases the hero and must be defeated in order for the hero to complete their mission.
The princess and the princess’s father: The princess is usually the reward for the hero's quest, while the princess's father often assigns onerous tasks to the hero in order to prevent them from marrying the princess.
The donor: offers a magical agent to the hero, allowing him to defeat the adversary.
The helper: usually accompanies the hero on their quest, saving them from the struggles encountered on their journey, helping them to overcome the difficult tasks encountered on their quest.
The dispatcher: sends the hero on his or her quest, usually at the start of the story.
The false hero: performs a largely villainous role, usurping the true hero’s position in the course of the story. The false hero is usually unmasked in the last act of a narrative.
Propp suggests that these are all of the characters that will appear in a narrative, but not all of these characters will necessarily be in the narrative. Medium is the message - McLuhan
By this statement he changed the perspective of how we perceive media. The meaning is - the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived.
McLuhan divided media into two distinct categories. Media such as print, photographs, radio, and movies are considered as hot media. Media such as speech, cartoons, telephone, and television are described as cool media. Hot media are 'high definition' because they are rich in sensory data. Cool media are ‘low definition’ because they provide less sensory data and consequently demand more participation or ‘completion’ by the audience.
Steve Neale's: Audiences enjoy specific texts because of "repetition and difference" of the repertoires of genre elements used. For example an audience might enjoy a film because it is a typical action film which uses all the normal key action conventions. They might also enjoy a film specifically because it avoid other conventions that are present in horror or thriller genre. A film genre is a category of film based on similarities either in the emotional response or key conventions. Basic genres include Thriller and Crime, from which sub-genres have evolved, such as crime-thriller. Other sub-genres include Comedic-Romances and Action-Comedy. Feature films that seem unrelated can also be combined into hybrid sub-genres, such as the fusion of horror and comedy, as in Shaun of the Dead.
If the theory of genre is challenged there is a high possibility that the audience will not like the produced media, which will cause the audience not willing to watch the film / media.
Levels of verisimilitude - the degree to which the media product reflects the real world. Verisimilitude can be separated into high and low, this is decided by the degree of accuracy reflecting the real world. Genres such as Documentary, News and Historical drama would have high level of verisimilitude. However genres such as science fiction and fantasy offer low level of verisimilitude. Due to the unrealistic scenarios e.g. flying Spaceships and Zombie hordes.
Unlike Strauss, he argues that stories are built through narrative sequence and transitions over the entire story, rather than by any particular impact.
Lévi-Strauss - takes a structuralist approach to media analysis, claiming that people encode and decode the world using universally shared principles.
He developed the theory Binary opposition (The use of paired elements within a narrative that provide contrast. ) In media, these oppositions can be found in the portrayal of characters or narratives. Character Opposition is represented by the character e.g. Old and Young, Evil and Good, Obese and Skinny. With the human biased outlook if we believe something is normal automatically anything that doesn’t match to the normal is abnormal. Creating these simple principles that are universally shared. For example in Star Wars, The Jedi are presented as Good automatically setting everyone with lightsabers and not Jedi Evil (Sith). Other symbols such as colour (due to evolution) influence our thoughts,. During the stone age when it was pitch black / night there was a high possibility of dying or getting injured, contrasting with daytime when its bright / white the likelihood of getting injured or dying is lower. This causes us to associated the colour black with evil and the opposite of black is white further cementing that Good is white. Coincidentally majority of the Jedis are dressed in White or other similar plain colours.
Stuart Hall agrees that binary oppositions may be used to encode media, but the audiences do not always decode the products in the way that media creators intend. Due to, not all principles of judgement are the same, and the audience plays a big role in understanding the opposition as they decide what the media means to them.
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