Yesterday’s lecture was all about semiotic theory: the idea that in all communication there are certain ‘signs’ that create meaning because of a shared social understanding of that sign. It makes sense when you think about it; an easy example to use is that of language. The word ‘dog’ doesn’t inherently mean anything; to a native Spanish speaker it means nothing. However, in English speaking countries, we immediately associate it with a small, four-legged animal because that’s what our shared understanding of it is.

In media, this theory is particularly important because we gain a great deal of understanding that isn’t explicitly explored. For example, if you saw a picture of Voldemort having never seen Harry Potter before, you could probably still guess that he was the bad guy because our society has a shared understanding that black clothing and inhuman features signifies evil.

In media analysis, we call this interpretive process ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’ (thank you year twelve media!). ‘Denotation’ is what actually, physically appears in a media product. In the above example, it would be a picture of a strange-looking man with black robes. The ‘connotation’ is the meaning we gain from this due to our shared social understandings (eg. he’s the bad guy).

We can further look at this process of denotation and connotation in terms of ‘codes’ and ‘conventions’ (again, thank you year twelve media!). A ‘code’ is a technical aspect of a media production; for example, sticking with the Harry Potter, it could be the darkness and lack of bright lighting in the final movie. The ‘convention’ is the meaning associated with this code, so in the case of Harry Potter it would be that these are ‘dark’ times for the wizarding world and that Harry is in danger.

And that, in a nutshell, is what media analysis is all about: understanding the meaning associated with technical aspects of a media product, and thus being able to understand both the creator’s choices and the effect the product has on its audience.