Semiotics

Semiotics was a theory created by Ferdinand De Saussre and it is the study of signs and how we produce a meaning of our own instead of the meaning itself. They study the effects of how we interpret things such as corlours, which produce connotations of that colour without any added information, it suggests that certain events would trigger particular emotions or negative thoughts e.g. the rain, this would result in people becoming bored or unhappy. This procces is: sign, signifier,signified. The sign is the first stage, a word or visual image produces a reaction that recognises this with the signifier, and the reaction in terms of the emotion or thought produced has beed signified.

 Saussre argues that the only real meaning of anything is all comes from the way we interpret it for example a house does not mean anything, it is just 5 letters put together, however the meaning we create in our head and the certain connotations that come within this word do mean something. Semiotics is all about how someone responds to a symbol, it can be used within the media to provoke certain reactions or ideas within a persons head. Moreover, this is not just used within the media it can be used in everyday life e.g. red=danger for the use of road signs.