Semiotics : Anyone know about this?

[Jayems]

Hi folks...

Have a communications final next week, and one of the lectures was on semiotics. For some reason, all I can wrap my head around is that it is the study of signs and objects etc and how they reinforce dominant values of culture...

So power is communicated through everyday objects and symbols...

Is that basically the message behind the theory of semiotics? Am I missing anything important? Have I over-simplified it?

If anyone has some thoughts, please let me know...

Cheers,

James.

[Phaneuf3]

if it was only 1 lecture, read this and you'll know enough to tackle anything on your final
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Semiotics is a really broad category, but if you give me the names of the main figures your class discussed, I MIGHT be able to help, depending on what they are. Is Ferdinand de Saussure one of them?

[Superfraggle]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

if it was only 1 lecture, read this and you'll know enough to tackle anything on your final
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics

OR, you could try using your textbook/lecture notes to know what your prof actually wants you to get out of semiotics, rather than read a broad, general overview on a website with dubious credibility.



It would really help to know a little more specifically what the lecture was about, like IFF said.

[Jayems]

well, the lecture notes were posted, but its just triangles with sn = sr+sd ... stuff like that..

I think i actually have a good handle on it now.

Roland Barthes is who we were looking at.

Basically, im looking how how semiotics directly relates to communications, and even more specifically, how semiotics can be used to argue for or against the culture studies theory claim that production of knowledge or meaning is done in the interest of the powerful.

But, ive been reading on it for a long time, and think I know it now.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Jayems

well, the lecture notes were posted, but its just triangles with sn = sr+sd ... stuff like that..

I think i actually have a good handle on it now.

Roland Barthes is who we were looking at.

Basically, im looking how how semiotics directly relates to communications, and even more specifically, how semiotics can be used to argue for or against the culture studies theory claim that production of knowledge or meaning is done in the interest of the powerful.

But, ive been reading on it for a long time, and think I know it now.

Barthes is pretty cool. If you're doing Barthes in relation to semiotics and culture, it's probably earlier Barthes, like Mythologies, perhaps or Writing Degree Zero. I'm going to guess that "sn" is "sign," "sr" is "signifier" and "sd" is "signified," if that he;ps at all.

Barthes core example is cultural values claims, like "blouses are appropriate for summer parties," which implies a bourgeois value as well as a fashion value--or a kind of secret, subversive signifier with an equally subversive signified that is kind of subconsiously understood. So he's kind of in line with later Marxists in that sense.