In every media text, semiotics come into play, influencing the way that we as an audience interpret media material. Semiotics refers to how meaning is created through symbols and signs that are used in various aspects of communication forms.
To further our understanding we can break this down into how meaning is associated to certain things.
Denotation and connotation are two key words to consider when breaking down any piece of media article, whether it be a photograph, a film, or book.
Denotation refers to the literal meaning of the text. For example if you look at a photograph of family, what do you see? You see people, perhaps a surrounding background, what are the individuals wearing? How are they standing? This may seem banal, but it’s crucial to recognise the literal elements of any media text before we can associate certain meanings to the image. This leads onto the next word, connotation. Connotations refer to cultural meanings, secondary meanings attached to the literal ideas being presented. Connotations are abstract thoughts, ideas, reactions or feelings that are generated from a media artefact. Considering connotations, allows an audience to break down the hidden intentions and elements that are trying to be conveyed. For instance, when you examine the photo of a family, perhaps it is trying to present an image of an archetypal family, a nuclear family, an image of purity, trust and content.
Every media piece produced is open to interpretation in a different way, although there are dominate values and meanings that are often associated to a text, our individual perception of media content is unique in our own rights, enriching our knowledge of a text by drawing on our memory and what we have encountered before.
The intention of any text will determine how we view, relate and interpret the meaning that is intended to be conveyed. ‘Communication is a gamble’, not everyone is going be influenced to feel or react in the same way. It is hard to generate media material where everyone has the same idea of what is going on, there are always new concepts to consider when interpreting anything. This is what makes media so interesting, it’s ability to be read in so many different ways, there is so much diversity in the world and if everyone had the same ideas and reactions… well, what a boring world we would live in, we would lose all the culture that encompasses our world today.
It is important that we continue to share our interpretations of media, often, I think we get stuck in a mindset believing that there is only one way to look at something. There is no wrong interpretation, of course some understandings may be more absurd or perhaps mis-guided, but at the end of the day, interpretation is subjective to the individual and their experiences.
