Gill Branston, besides having a pretty sweet name, analyses text in ‘Approaching Media Text’. As Branston says, “‘text’ originally referred to sacred writings, such as the Bible”, but more recently, a text has been described as “anything which is to be investigated” (2010 p11). From this we can assume that texts surround everyone in everyday life, and cannot be avoided.
Branston refers to the semiotic analysis approach established by Ferdinand de Saussure (and later used by Roland Barthes) as a primary method for understanding texts. Semiotics is defined as “the study of signs, or of the social production of meanings and pleasures by sign systems, or the study of how things come to have significance” (Branston 2010, p12). Texts are filled with a variety of signs, signifiers, signifieds, referents, connotations and denotations which create meaning. These terms suggest that whilst there are intended messages, all texts are highly interpretable across different demographics and cultures.
Branston links the study of texts to the Structuralism theory prominent in Psychology. This theory deals with audiences subconscious responses to texts and how they react to them in ways that they aren’t fully aware of. This is the genius of advertising, pinpointing target demographics, and convincing them to purchase a specific product, or instilling subconscious beliefs.
What Branston provides is a variety of methods used to understand different media texts. He quotes McKee as saying “textual analysis [is] an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of [a] text” (2011). This sentence reinforces the notion of texts being very ’roundabout’ in nature. Although information is presented to an audience in a specific way, there’s no guarantee that the intended audience will fully comprehend the desired message.
Just as a side note on the topic of subliminal marketing, advertising and blatant brainwashing, a friend of mine showed me this video:
“TRUST THE US GOVERNMENT”
The message doesn’t shock me as much as it first did. But I think that’s just because Tony Abbott is running the country.
References:
- Branston. Gill, Stafford, Roy. The Media Student’s book, (p, 9-26, 31) 5th ed. New York, NY : Routledge 2010
– Gabriel