Discourse and Ideology

Discourse and Ideology

Media has played a big and vital role in our society, it's everything to do with what we watch on tv, see on streets, education, etc. Over the years there was a lot of debate with how the media is a controversy and that it's being misused. But in the same time, people think it's one of the most important tools for nowadays. It influenced people on how they view things, and what information they absorb from various shows or certain criticisms. When one mentions the word media, one's head shifts towards the issue that relates to politics. Media is not politics only, take for instance an effective advertisement campaign for a car. Such an advertisement can influence one's choice of purchase, not only can it affect one's choice, it can convince and persuade one to do something that was never on their mind. Media overall has a great influence on people, certainly in every topic an in every issue that occurs in our everyday life (Gill 2007).

Semiotics

Ferdinand de Saussure came up with semiology/semiotics that pointed out how a sign could be analyzed: as a combination of a signifier and a signified. A signifier is the word and the signified is the mental concept associated with it. The signified isn't the thing, but the concept. He pointed out how the relationship between the two was arbitrary. And that the relationship between the signifier and the signified creates meaning with a system of language. How we talk about concepts matters. All signs are cultural constructs that take meaning from learned, social and collective use. Peirce built on Saussure's work and distinguished between three types of signs:

Iconic signs: Iconic signs resemble the object being represented. The signifier-signified relationship is one of likeness. A documentary photograph is an example.

Indexical signs: Indexical signs rely on a connection between the signifier and the signified. Smoke is an index of fire. These are used extensively in the media.

Symbolic signs: Symbolic signs are determined culturally and have no relationship other than the culturally constructed (arbitrary) one. Brand symbols are an example.

Denotation and Connotation are central concepts to semiotic analysis:

Denotation: Literal meaning -- 1st level of signification. Example: a picture of a rose denotes a type of flower

Connotation: Cultural meaning -- 2nd level of signification. Example: Rose connotes passion. Concept of connotation was proposed by Roland Barthes. Barthes claims that the reading of signs is culture bound. Myth is a form of 2nd level signification/connotation (Mills 2004).

Ideological Critique

Ideological critique is focused on the connection between cultural representations, meanings, and power relations that affirm the importance of images, values and discourses in constructing and reproducing the social order. Or, another way of thinking about ideological critique is as the ways in which meaning is mobilized for the maintenance of relations of domination (Marxism). Marxist scholarship is at the heart of ideological critique and looks at how social relationships are based on domination, antagonism, and injustice and how these are seen as natural, inevitable, and ...