http://www.chrisbrecheen.com/2013/03/5-reasons-i-absolutely-hate-that-what.html
Week five has finally begun after a week long break!
As usual, we expanded on the knowledge presented by the readings in the lectorial. One of the central themes of the readings was semiotics; which is the study of signs and symbols and their use within interpretations. Long story short – interpretations can widely differ from person to person as a result of a number of variables such as, but not limited to:
- Culture
- Country
- Experiences
- Beliefs
This idea of ‘different interpretations’ was made evident through a task we did as a class. A photo of a man throwing a boy into a pool was shown, and in groups, we had to come up with as many different interpretations of the image as possible. Some associated the photo with family, others associated it with holidays, and I associated it with murder (that went dark really fast). I found the idea of semiotics and the different amount of interpretations very interesting. It’s intriguing to think that the interpretations that stem from a piece of media can be so hugely varied simply because of the way someone was raised.
However, the one thing that made me lose interest was the reading by Burgins, simply because – I just didn’t understand it. The words used in the article just made me feel extremely bored. I don’t understand why people try to sound intelligent when writing an article. By using more complex language, you narrow the possible audience of your article. Now you might argue that these are academic articles, which is why they are written at such a high standard. But from my point of view, by trying to sound smart, you potentially lose the message you are trying to convey – which in the end, simply contradicts the whole point of writing the article in the first place.
One thing that I noted about the McKee Reading is the fact that no interpretation is ever correct. It is impossible to find the correct interpretation for any sort of text. Why? Simply because people will associated different things with different signs. They well associate different things when a context is provided, and associate different things when there is no context at all. It all really just comes down to the time and place, which will ultimately affect the interpretation.