Wednesday, 10 August 2011

asssignment 1


 This video is about the Heineken commercial that is titled "The Entrance". The song inside the commercial is called Golden Age by The Asteroid Galaxy Tour. The commercial was created by an ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy. This is one of the global rebranding schemes made by Heineken. They targeted this international commercials geared to a broader audience that crosses national, ethnic and cultural borders.
There are a lot of signs that indicate inside this ads. Such as :



The Man With The Eyepatch  is another character  that can be example of symbol in this video. For example  the man is wearing medals on his shirt represent the courage or winning a game medal. By wearing the eyepatch, this man is trying to imitate to be a pirate by using the eye cover.

The third symbolic  that we can see in this video is a man appearance which is he have a beard and thick mustache while wearing a hat can be describe him as a cowboy.  The sign from his hand which is he acts like shooting with a gun that can be symbolic of a cowboy that always cautious when dealing with enemies


For the main character in this walk in scene we can say that he is the “hero” icon inside this video. This is because he can do all kind of things in this video. He can also attract guests present from a party their having. From the image we can know that when a flash camera in the video can be symbolic that the main character is very famous.

From this scene, the hand sign shows respect among each others. The man then present an eye ball for the pirate to show that he is a pirate.



With the technical effects, they use different angles of camera to shows all of the signs and symbol. The cameras are expanded to zooms right up in their faces to see their expression face and body language.


From this scene, shows that the man is a professional in every trick and a caring loving person. How he wipes dirts on a woman face shows love and caring. The gorgeous woman also represent beauty of a woman.

In this scene, the body language and chinese character shows asian culture. The symbol is kungfu represent chinese  martial art.


In this scene, it is called the perfect gift. Why do it called perfect gift? This is because how the man switch the gold bird into a bird. From behind the scene, the bird represent symbol of this bald man family, pride of his country and polinator of all women.

In this scene, the bottle is a symbol for a trophy. This is because they fight for a victory to win the bottle.


For this scene, the english man imitates to be a musician to describe how he can change to be somebody else in other word cloning himself to be someone else. The significance in this scene is the flute, how he play the flute with his hand movement and whistling all around.

A sign also is something that implies a connection between itself and its object.The signs that we can see in the commercial is the sounds, gestures & images. The sound in the commercial can be related with the song performed by the band Asteroid Galaxy Tour titled Golden Age. The song suit with the Heineken commercial, “The Entrance” because of the characteristics as psychedelic emerged as a mainstream and commercial force it began to influence pop music, which incorporated hippie fashions, drug references, as well as the sounds of sitars, fuzz guitars, and tape effects, but often using the close harmonies of the California sound and applying these elements to concise and catchy pop songs.

In this commercial also include signs of body gestures of the characters. A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands,face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention.

Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to words when they speak. The sign of finger gun is a signal for threatening real violence, while in others they interpreted it as unacceptably supportive of gun violence in general, but in this case the Mexican guy used it to greed a person. It also a Mexican culture to say hello. On the next scene that consists of the sign of body gestures, the bartender uses a tablecloth to avoid any direct physical contact with the woman. After that when he looked at the Mexican guy, he raised his eyebrow. It happens when a person is surprised and their eyebrows are often raised.

This typically happens as a part of opening the eyes wider, perhaps to see more clearly what is going on. The more the surprise, the higher the eyebrows are raised. Raising the eyebrows asks for attention from others and can signal general emphasis. When as question is asked and the eyebrows are raised afterwards, this is a clear invitation to answer the question. Raising a single eyebrow is something that only some people can do and can be a bit more wry in its meaning.

Also not forget the connotative and denotative.  The meaning of Connotation is implied idea or meaning associated with a word. In this TV commercial we can see the connotative issue is when  in the scene which the Asian and the man  look like want to fight each other  to get the Heineken but then the man  give the Heineken to Asian and their smiling for it. It’s also same with the middle eastern guy which at first glance, he appears dangerous, but he's actually a really great guy who are main character embraces in a bro-hugs .

Denotative scene that we can see in that TVC is when the old American man with one eye covered, and he have the badge at his outfit , it shown that he have high status to be respect.
Next is the old man dress like Middle Eastern guy and it only makes sense for him to appear dangerous and have ridiculous facial .That's what Middle Easterners do.
The background information that important to see in that clips when all races are under one roof and they have no any issue to deal with. They can sing and dance together that’s was good enough to be role model by others.
In semiotics there are some types of codes. That is social codes, textual codes and interpretive codes.  As what we see in this TVC  there are this one scene that is where the singer start singing, the camera focuses on her dress which shows social codes that is commodity codes (fashions) and bodily codes  (her appearance, facial expression, gestures and postures).  For textual codes, that is aesthetics codes (classic music played at the back).

Monday, 25 July 2011

Critical Thinking for Characters

Who is Rose DeWitt Bukater and Jack Dawson? 


  • Rose DeWitt Bukater (1895 — 1997[1]) is the fictional heroine of James Cameron's 1997 blockbuster Titanic. She was played by British actress Kate Winslet, and the 101-year-old Rose was played by 1930s film star Gloria Stuart.
  • Jack Dawson was a character in the hit movie "Titanic" in 1997. His love was with Rose DeWitt Bukater, a first class rich person. Jack was third class. Jack got on the boat by winning a poker game with his two buddies. While Jack was on the Titanic, he was arrested as the boat began to sink, but Rose came to save him. Jack died on April 15, 1912, after the Titanic sank because of hypothermia. He was 16 years old, Clare. You owe me a dollar.
What stereotypes does he/she represent? 
  • Rose DeWitt Bukater was a noble character and she is a Cal Hockley fiance. Rose fall in love with a different social classes Jack Dawson. It happens aboard the ship during its ill-fated maiden voyage. 
  • Jack Dawson,  He wins two tickets onto the RMS Titanic in a poker game and travels as a third-class passenger with his friend Fabrizio. He is attracted to Rose at first sight and meets her when she attempts to throw herself off the stern of the ship. This enables him to mix with the first-class passengers for a night. 
  • CalHockley, Cal is Rose's 30-year-old fiancé. He is arrogant and snobbish, and the heir to a steel fortune in Pittsburgh. He becomes increasingly embarrassed, jealous, and cruel about Rose's relationship with Jack. 
    What complexities does he/she have, if any? 
    • In the film, Jack sketches a nude portraits of Rose wearing a fabled "Heart Of the Ocean" an necklace given by Cal Hockley. Two of them run to the ship cargo hold where they make love and witness the ship crush the iceberg. Cal know about the two of them by discovering the drawing, he had Jack arrested and handcuffed to a pipe. When the ship sinking Rose free Jack.


      Thursday, 7 July 2011

      Do semiotic systems have an effects on human behavior?

      Do semiotic systems have an effects on human behavior ?


      Semiotics is important because it can help us not take 'reality' for granted as something having a purely objective existence which is independent of human interpretation. Studying semiotics can assist us in becoming more aware of reality as a construction and of the roles played by ourselves and others in constructing it. It can help us to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio and visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us, we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware.


      Semiotics does have an effect on human behavior, and the manner in which people make decisions. (Chandler) Individuals, both consciously and unconsciously, are greatly impacted by advertising and propaganda, made available to them from countless forums and avenues. (Leeuwen) A precise example would be the Marlboro Man.  Advertising has illustrated this man as a strong, rugged, smoker.  In an attempt to cast smoking in a positive light, and in an attempt to cast the smoker as a favorable individual, advertisers have linked the two together.  The resulting effect in the observer is that smokers are tough, strong, all-American individuals.  Advertising can manipulate a mind, and using different methods of semiotics can easily attract individuals towards a specific product or even make individuals remember what the products represent. (Streeter)


      A single image can conjure up thoughts of a number of varying situations or events.  In fact, viewing a single image can invoke memories of an entire event or story in the mind of the viewer. (Danesi)  Likewise, an individual image can represent a goal, ideal, or end point for the viewer.  An illustration of this type of situation is observable in the case of girls and woman viewing magazines.  Magazines, with images of thin super models on the covers showing off their beauty and clothes, can easily be viewed by girls that will eventually think that being skinny and eating less will make them reach that glamorous career as a model or actress. Likewise, women viewing these images may change their own opinions of themselves and their perceptions of their bodies, ultimately impacting their food and exercise choices.  All these signs, in their varying forms, have meanings that can be interpreted in differing ways.  The model on the cover of a magazine may simply be a pretty woman for one viewer while others may have thoughts related to wealth, luxury, body image, status, and internal feelings about oneself. 

      Denotation.Connotation.Myth

      Roland Barthes, a semiotic theory, gave us the notion of

      myths -the hidden cultural values and conventions through which meanings are made to seem natural, to seem universal, even though in reality they are specific to certain groups. for example think of our cultureʼs "myths" regarding beauty and thinness


      Denotation: the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it. What it actually is. for example's ‘red’ denotes a certain colour, a ‘car’ denotes a vehicle for moving people and things around, the McDonalds golden arches denote a fast-food restaurant

      Connotation:the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning.Lets get some example, ‘red’ connotes danger/passion/communism,a ‘car’ connotes freedom, .This is very often cultural and can depend on context.



      example of video denotation/connotation  found on youtube.

      Wednesday, 29 June 2011

      Index .Symbol. Icon


      Peirce's ideas about semiotics distinguished between three types of signs:

      ·  index
      .  Symbol· 
      .  icon 

      a)Index is a one that he also calls a real relation in virtue of its being irrespective of interpretation and also sign that denotes its object by virtue of an actual connection involving them. An index which compels attention without conveying any information about its object is a pure index, though that may be an ideal limit never actually reached. 

      b)  Symbol·is consists in a natural or conventional or logical rule, norm, or habit, a habit that lacks or has shed , dependence on the symbolic sign's having a resemblance or real connection to the denoted object. For Peirce, every symbol is a general, and that which we call an actual individual symbol e.g., on the pageis called by Peirce a replica or instance of the symbol.

      c Icon  is  a meaning which is based upon similarity or appearance for example, similarity in shape. In the specific context of semiotics, a type of sign, wherein the signifier physically resembles the signified. For example, a photograph (signifier) is a mechanical reproduction of what is photographed . The icon has, of itself, a certain character or aspect, one which the object also has (or is supposed to have) and which lets the icon be interpreted as a sign even if the object does not exist.



      Tuesday, 21 June 2011

      What is Media?

      Media Semiotics is a lucid investigation of the critical approach in contemporary media studies.

      1. Consuming an infinite number of symbol.
      2. Broad categories of sign systems which is:
          - language
          - images
          - music
          - text
          - video
          - tacticle

      What is Text?

      Text in Semiotic: was the system Bathes used to interpret or ‘read' texts. This is highly developed analytic system and we will draw on only few of its concepts here to aid our analysis. Textual analysis is the main methodology used in this unit. It includes semiotics and contend analysis, although we shall be concerting largely on the former. In conducting textual analysis is media studios we slow down our automatic reading of a text in order to identify how it is that we make meaning from it, and also how it is that the meaning we make is likely to be similar to that made by other people from similar culture; we may also look for major potential variants. 

      Text is also a sign system.  Text can be written on spoken in various ways that is phonology, lexis, semantics, stylistics, graphology, psycholinguistic, syntax and morphology.