In the lectorial today, there were some very interesting points which were covered. One being that media is not so much a thing but is something all around us. It surrounds our everyday lives and is something that is just a part of each and everyone of us whether we like it or not. It has been believed in the past that media has such a direct effect on people that what they see, how they react to or how they connect with media can make them do these things in reality. One of the examples of this discussed was that if someone had a room full of murder films or TV shows and watched them all the time, that this would trigger them to become a serial killer. Or if a child plays violent video games that they will grow up to become a violent person. But, there is no evidence to support this theory, and really, how can you actually test this theory or prove it, because it is a topic with such broad perspectives.

We then went on to discuss other matters, but the one that interested me most was the semiotic tradition of analysis. We began discussing this topic around sign, signifier and signified. The signifier was described as being something that is not really anything; something as simple as letters put together to make a word. For example the word ‘DOG’ and only this word can be described as a signifier. Signified is all of the things you think of when you see this word; you may think of what a dog looks like, how it sounds, how it feels, etc. In other words the signifier is the bigger picture and what the word ‘DOG’ makes your brain think about. These were just some of the many things discussed in today’s lectorial, but some I found quite interesting and some that made me really think.