Introduction: Semiotics of New Media Literacy

• Rationale
• Research Strategies
• Definition of Semiotics
• Brief History of Semiotics
• Defining Semiotics Terms
• Media Literacy Education

Rationale

"As we enter the twenty first century, it is essential that the schools be places that help students better understand the complex, symbol-rich culture in which they live in." (Hobbs, 1997) Hobbs continues, "A new vision of literacy is essential if educators are serious about the broad goals of education: preparing students to function as informed and effective citizens in a democratic society; preparing students to realize personal fulfillment; and preparing students to function effectively in a rapidly changing world that demands new, multiple literacies."

In the millennium, we are going to be surrendered by more and more images from bulletin boards to Internet, from advertisements banners to book covers. Internet and new technologies require us to study those images, icons, and symbols to make sense on the Cyberspace. 

Why do we need to study Semiotics? Why is Semiotics necessary in digital literacy age?

Humans learn more by watching then being lectured about the topic. However, in order to be considered literate in the information age, in addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, new literate person needs to be media literate. 

Human beings created a world of messages and meanings and continue to create new ones to look for the meaning of life. In order to communicate with each other and leave their stories for the new generation, humans have been using the power of images and symbols since the beginning of the human history. From stone surfaces to animal leathers, from paper to Internet, "the story of humankind has been written, is being written, and will be written upon its virtual walls (Albertson, 1997)". These electronic images now being shared all round the world and the necessity to understand and study these signs are becoming more important.

Every single thing has meaning and gives a different message depending on where it is located and who sees it. For instance the color “red” implies different things. Red means stop when it is on a traffic light, stands for blood in medicine. If a woman wears a red dress, or a man wears a red armband, it means something different. So red in western culture means usually danger, hot, sexy, embarrassment, left-wing or radical. Whereas red brings different things in my mind since I grow up in Turkey. Traditionally, red was the color of the wedding gown for woman Still in some villages it is possible to see red gowns. Also, during the Sacrification Festival, the blood of a sacrificed animal can be put on the face. 

Semiotics has been applied to film, theatre, medicine, architecture and other areas and generated interesting results. It includes study of how animal communicate (zoo semiotics), of nonverbal communication (kinesics and proemics), of aesthetics, of rhetoric, of visual communication, of myths and narratives, of anything that allows us to make meaning and sense of the world. (Danesi, 1994)

Semiotics is concerned how the meaning is generated in "texts" (films, television programs, fashion, foods, etc.). The meal with steak, mashed potato, and apple-pie conveys meanings beyond the food. It shows status, taste, sophistication, nationality, and so on. (Berger, 1982). 

Semiotics is one of the approaches to Media Education and new media literacy. It opens a new way to the study of Media Literacy. We can not only study the alphabet of deaf-mutes, religious symbols but also study the commercials, sit-coms, soap-operas, and bulletin boards. In a sense, we all are using, deconstructing, learning, and reading signs even though we never studied Semiotics. We learn new signs everyday as the signs evolves continually in their meaning or significance all the time. 

Imagine a web page which will be viewed by many people. How could these people from many backgrounds, cultures view this page? First the language of the web page becomes an issue not everybody in the world is fluent in English. So our page should include more than one language to help the users.

Although many words in the world of computing sound friendly such as mice, fields, bugs, turtles have connotation of the natural world, or some from everyday life queue, address, bus, network, (Gerver,1986), the audience still will face many obstacles in viewing our web page. Just reading the text may not be enough to decipher the message, the pictures, animation, video, etc. needs to be designed for international community. The audience may feel, unjustifiably, that difficulties in use result from their own failure to understand rather than from the failure of the computer specialist or a instructional designer to communicate effectively (Gerver,1986).

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Research Strategies

This web page is designed for my comprehensive exam in the School of Education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. 

Phase I. When I first started my research, I could not find the right articles. I had to read more about the theory about Semiotics to understand and clarify my research direction. Initially the idea is to write a 40 page article about the Semiotics of Digital Media. Since the digital so called New Media is a new term, I have not found research papers or articles about this topic, but found many interesting resources, related with Hypertext, Multimedia, Semiotics of Television,...

In addition to above key words, I wanted to find out some articles for international perspective on Web Pages. Is the page designed to communicate with an international community?... So far, I could not find anything on this topic.

Phase II. Having collected all these wonderful articles, and read many Semiotics Theory, I started to form an opinion about the topic and explored new keywords in my research. Especially, using the references of the papers led me more interesting articles. After meeting with my advisor and showing all these resources, creating open text (hypertext) environment for this topic, and writing articles for the articles that I found shaped the final decision.

Phase III. I learned how to use Front Page -- web page creating software, linked my findings, and organized abstracts for the articles I read. Abstracts grouped under Author or Topics/ Keywords/ Phrases. 

I have used the following resources for my research.

• UMass and Five College Library Resources (Journals, Books) and with the help of Inter Library Loan, I received dissertations and books from other libraries.

• ProQuest -Dissertation Abstracts.

• PsycINFO 

• OVID

• InfoTrac (http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/mlin_w_umassamh)

• Lexus Nexis

• Eric Clearing House www.askeric.org

• Articles ordered trough EDRS

• Internet search engines: Alta Vista, Yahoo, InfoSeek,...

• Articles on the Internet Newspapers.

• Voice of the shuttle Web Page for Humanities Research Semiotics

• Media Literacy listserv (media-l@nmsu.edu) in order to receive online information, suggestion for books,...

• and the contributions of scholars on the Internet whom I responded their articles.

The key word/ Phrases selected for the research:

• semiotics

• media/ new media

• electronic

• digital sign

• technology

• education / literacy

• visual communication

• hypertext/ hypermedia

When I used "Semiotics" and "Technology" or "Internet", sometimes I received zero response. I used various combinations of the phrases I have selected above. Sometimes, I was distracted finding very interesting articles related with educational technology, or media literacy not necessarily about Semiotics. 

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Definition of Semiotics

The etymology of the term semiotics is form Greek word sema- “marks, signs” (singular semeion). It is defined as the science of doctrine of signs. 

The English philosopher John Locke (1696), first used Greek word ‘seemeiootikee’, in the modern sense. The word semeiotica is still used in Italy to refer to the study of symptoms in medical science. 

The most widely used definition of semiotics comes from Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) who is considered to be the co-founder of the semiotics along with Saussure. He defines semiotics as the “doctrine” of signs which “stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity” (Peirce, 1958).

That's why the physical property of red light stands to somebody (a motorist, a pedestrian, a political demonstrator, or a Turkish woman, etc.), for something in some respect or capacity (stop, political radicalness, wedding, ext.) (p5 Danesi, 1994)

Another definition of Semiotics includes not only signs but also communication; however, the systematic study of signs is different form communication science. Although the two have some common concepts and methods, semiotics deals with what a message means and on how it creates meaning, whereas communication studies focus on the study of message-making process. 

Semiotics asks not what signs mean but how they mean.

Science is made up from knowledge of facts of the natural world, verified by exact observation, experiment, and ordered thinking. On the other hand, semiotics studies the artifacts that human beings produced.

Umberto Eco defines semiotics as “the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie,” in his book, A Theory of Semiotics; because if  “something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth; it cannot, in fact, be used to tell at all. (Eco, 1976).” He also says "Semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign. A sign is everything which can be taken as significantly substituting for something else". Just like how statistics lie, (give quote) any piece of information can be used to distort the meaning. 

A sign is anything – a word, a gesture, an object, …– that stands for something or someone.

Semiotics is the study or the science of signs and sign systems of all kinds. It involves the production of signs; communication through sign; the systematic structuring of signs into codes; the social function of signs; the meaning of signs. The sign and sign systems are arbitrary and culturally bound.

Semiotics deals not only with the most obvious signs of our environment, but also with how we think and act with signs, how signs penetrate into our innermost essence and determine our existence. As Marcel Proust said, of every person we maintain in our minds a 'double', a kind of sign. In fact our everyday communication takes place more with these symbolic representations than with the reality itself.  (http://www.helsinki.fi/~mrossi/semiotics.html))

Semiotics is a science concerned with signs. It deals with all processes of information interchange as far as signs are involved. Human beings talk, write, blink, wave, and disguise themselves. They put up signposts and erect barriers to communicate messages to other people. They produce and interpret signs. But even if no one intends to communicate anything, sign processes are taking place: A doctor interprets the symptoms of a disease, a dog follows a trail, and a thief triggers an alarm.

Semiotics explores all such processes with regard to common structures. Its scope reaches far beyond the area of cultural phenomena and involves the interaction of animals, the activity of orientation and perception of all living things, the stimulus and response processes of animals and plants and even
the metabolism of organisms and information processes by machines. The scientific disciplines concerned with different aspects of culture(s) (linguistics, literary science, musicology, art history, archeology, history, sociology, political science, religious studies etc.) and nature (chemistry, biology, physics etc.) are integrated in semiotics by exploring the sign character of the natural and cultural phenomena examined.

It describes the various sign phenomena (Descriptive Semiotics), systematizes them in theories and models (Theoretic Semiotics), and attempts to apply this knowledge in helping to find solutions to problems in science, society, commerce, and in everyday life (Applied Semiotics). (http://www.tu-berlin.de/~afs/index.htm)

Charles Morris viewed semiotics as an instrument for unifying all the sciences.

Semiotics – the science of signs-  -is a type of scientific inquiry that studies virtually everything we do, use to represent the world around us and to make messages about it. Semiotics or semiology is considered a subject, a movement, a philosophy, or science. The example of the color (and the word) red is a sign in semiotics. The semiotician refers to the meaningful location of this specific light-frequency property as context, to its meaning in specific contexts as signification, to the ways in which it generates meaning as a code-based, and to the ways in which a message is understood as interpretation. (Danesi, 1994)

Then, what is not a sign? Almost every action, object, or image will mean something to someone somewhere. From our gestures to what color dress we wear is a sign that has meaning beyond the object itself. 

Consequently, the meaning behind any sign must be learned. In other words, for something to be sign, the viewer must understand its meaning. If you do not understand the meaning behind the orange color of a jacket, it isn't a sign for you.  (Lester, 1995)

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Brief History of Semiotics

Interest in signs is not recent. Aristotle, Hippocrates, Locke and many others have contributed to semiotics. Medieval philosopher John Locke and many others shown interest in signs and the way they communicate. 

Modern semiotics emerged through the work of two linguistics theorist: Swiss Linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) and American philosopher Charles Saunders Peirce (1839-1914).

These two philosophers inspired Charles Morris, Thomas Sebeok, Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes.

Saussure published Course in General Linguistics in 1915. In his book, he started to talk about sociological analysis. For Saussure, a sign has two components, the signifier or "sound-image", and the signified, or "concept". The relationship between signifier and the signified is arbitrary.

I propose to retain the word sign [singe] to designate the whole and to replace concept and sound-image respectively by signified [signifie'] and signifier [signifiant]; the last two terms have the advantage of indicating the opposition that separates them from each other and from the whole of which they are parts (Saussure, 1966). 

Peirce, on the other hand, focused on the three aspects of signs: iconic, indexical, and symbolic dimentions. More

Although semiotics is both a sphere of inquiry and a meta-analytic tool which has been used in philosophy, anthropology, sociology and linguistics, examination of signs in an educational context is a relatively recent phenomenon. (Cassidy, 1982) 

The field of semiotics become popular since it has been used in theatre, puppetry, television, tourism, and now on the Internet.

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Defining Semiotics Terms

Semiotics versus Semiology and Semantics

Ferdinand De Saussure used the term semiology to refer to the systematic study of signs. Nowadays, the term semiotics is used.

Semantics is the science which studies how linguistic texts (words, sentences, etc.) are used to represent the world.

Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis

Semiotic method includes both the synchronic and diachronic study of signs. 

Synchronic refers to the study of signs at a given point in time. Diachronic refers to the study of signs change, in form and meaning, over time. Synchronic analysis of a text looks for the pattern of paired oppositions buried in the text (paradigmatic structure) while a diachronic analysis focuses upon the chain of events (syntagmatic structure) that forms the narrative.

 

Elements of Synchronic and Diachronic Analysis

SYNCHRONIC	DIACHRONIC
analytical	historical
simultaneity	succession
static	evolutionary
relations in a system	relations in time
paradigmatic structure	syntagmatic structure
Le'vi-Strauss	Propp

 

Denotation and Connotation

The relationship between the sign and the communicated meaning is indicated by denotation and connotation. 

Denotation: It describes the commonsense meaning of the sign, usually understood as a proper or literal meaning. The literal definition of and expression. (word, image, sign)

Connotation: It is the meaning derived by an individual receiver. The suggestive or associative sense of an expression (word, image, sign) that extends beyond its literal definition.

The greatest difficulty for international language of signs is that the same denoted sign can have many different connotations. Within a culture, denotations often match connotations. But when messages are attempted across cultures -whether based on age, economics, gender, ethnic background, location -- aberrant decoding often results. For example, in many cultures eye contact between two individuals talking to each other is a sign of interest. In other culture, it may indicate disrespect, insult,...Humans always see and hear through the filter of who they are within a community. (Lester, 1995)

Syntagmatic Analysis and Paradigmatic Analysis

Claude Levi-Strauss, the distinguished French anthropologist, suggest that the syntagmatic analysis of a text gives the text's manifest meaning and that the paradigmatic analysis of a text gives its latent meaning. The manifest structure involves what happens and the latent structure involves what a text is about.

	Syntagmatic Analysis	Paradigmatic Analysis
Definition	a syntagm is a chain, a syntagmatic analysis of a text looks at it as a sequence of events that forms some kind of a narrative	a text involves searching for hidden pattern of oppositions that are buried in it and that generate meaning
	Manifest meaning	Latent meaning
	what happens	what a text is about
Example

 

from Semiotics for Beginners

http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem03.html

 

According to Saussurean semiotics, signs are organized into codes in two ways: by paradigms and by syntagms.

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Metaphor and Metonymy

Generally it is Metaphor and metonymy all mixed together, and some times a given object might have both metaphoric and metonymic significance. In order to interpret metonymic communication, people use codes in their heads.

 

The Codes

Codes are complex patterns of associations we learn in a given society or culture. These codes or secret structures in our minds affect the way we interpret signs and symbols found in media and the way we live. (Berger, 1982)

In order to drive on the highways a code is needed. (Berger) The code is a collection of rules that tells us what to do in all conceivable situations. We carry over our rules and understanding about life to media production and "mass mediated culture".

Since people bring different codes to a given message [because of their social class, educational level, political ideologies, world view], it is possible for misunderstandings to arise between the sender and the receiver of the message. 

In media and new technologies, there are more specific codes, such as aesthetic, iconic codes.

See example at http://found.cs.nyu.edu/andruid/chainsWeb/theCode.html

Semiotics Framework

"The subject matter and the key concepts of semiotics has always been the 'sign'.

Saussure  

The difference between a sign and a symbol according to Saussure is that a symbol has a signifier that is never wholly arbitrary. He divided signs into two parts. The signifier is the drawing, sound, or direct or mediated image
 

Sound-image (signifier)	"tree"	"picture" tree
Concept (signified)	Arbor	Arbor

 

Language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing., the alphabet of deaf-mutes, symbolic rites, polite formulas, military signals, etc. But it is the most important of all these systems.

A science that studies the life of signs within society is conceivable; it would be part of social psychology and consequently of general psychology; I shall call it semiology (from Greek semeion "sign"). Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them. Since the science does not yet exist, no one can say what it would be; but it has a right to existence, a place staked out in advance.
(Saussure, 1966)
 

Sign
Signifier Sound-image	Signified Concept

Saussure offers another important point about the relationship between oppositional concepts. Thus "poor" does not mean anything unless there is "rich", or "big" unless "small". "Concepts are purely differential and defined by not their positive content but negatively by their relations with the other terms of the system" (Saussure, 1966). He continues " the most precise characteristics (of these concepts) is in being what others are not" (Saussure, 1966).

Langua and Parole

Saussure as a linguist distinguishes between Langue and Parole. Langue is the rules of sign system (which might be grammar) and parole is the articulation of signs (speech, writing, ..). Language consists of langue and parole. Parole is visible, but the langue is hidden (structure and rules). 

In order to communicate our ideas we need to know the rules and conventions but langue itself is not enough to create meaning. Chomsky's famous phrase 'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is grammatically correct but meaningless.

Without studying the language and grammar of media (langue), we may only understand the surface of the production (parole).

Signification Process by Peirce

Sign/ Representation (something used to stand for something else)
Interpretant (the individual's comprehension of, and reaction to, the sign/referent association)
Object/Referent (what is referred to by the sign)
(give an example)

Emblem is a highly formalized symbol, usually in the visual modality.

Signification: the meaning or sense of a message.

Abduction 

 

This is a term used by Peirce to refer to a form of inference (alongside deduction and induction) by which we treat a signifier as an instance of a rule from a familiar code, and then infer what it signifies by applying that rule. 

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes defined semiotics and myth in a different way. Barthes explored from Greek myths to legends, also how signs present value system or ideology in a particular society and make these values seem natural.

A flower with a red pedals, green leaves and a thorny stem signifies the mental concept of rose in denotative level. However, if itis used in the context of Valentine's day, it signifies romance, creating a connotation.
 

Adopted from Roland Barthes, Mythologies

	1. Signifier 2. Signified
Language	3. Sign I SIGNIFIER	. . II SIGNIFIED	Picture of ROSE	Denotative Level (1st level of signification)
MYTH	III SIGN		ROMANCE	Connotative level  (2nd level of signification)

Commutation Test

“Commutation test is a method for finding invariants”. /tails up/ and /heads up/ are invariant in the example of coins, whereas /located in the middle of the table/ and /located at the edge of the table/ are variants. Exchanging one for the other does not entail a change of a content.

Examples of signification

OK (OKEY) vs 0K (ZERO Kilobyte)

In a high school, teachers first required to write students' progress reports on a floppy disk, then they were supposed to send the PRs on school wide information system. As a media specialist in the school I was helping teachers in their technological problems. One day, one of my friends told me that the registrar received her PRs with no data in them. She followed all the directions accept she forgot to attach the file. So when she sent her electronic message, she saw "Her name", "the date it was sent" and "0K". It took us a while to find out which step she missed and why she thought she was right.  When she saw "0K", she thought it was "OK" meaning the message arrived safely not understanding there was zero kilobyte of information had been sent.

How much toothpaste we need to use to how much vitamins we need to take...

Another example is from Media_L Listserv: Laurie Mullikin (watchNact@aol.com)  wrote "Ask how much toothpaste he uses every time he brushes. If he identifies anything more that a little dab (most people will), ask how he got into that habit ... dentists tell us just a little dab is all we need. It's ads from the toothpaste companies that have taught us to go the whole bristle length ... often a fat wavy worm of paste wiggles across the brush". 

Laurie continued "Now for the quick media literacy lesson ... the "paste endowed" toothbrush is a constructed image using a popular ad technique (the picture "lie") from which we make meaning (assuming the ad is selling a brand, unaware it is also selling excessive use) ... and it was constructed with the point of  view/economic interests of the  toothpaste company who wants us to consume lots of toothpaste! Have you changed your attitudes or perceptions about toothpaste use? Consider using less tooth paste in the future? Would you use less toothpaste if it presented a health hazard?"

Dance 

When I attended a presentation given by a dance teacher Luana in National Association of Multicultural Education conference in fall 1996. Luana talked about the differences in art and dance among cultures, and gave very interesting examples, even encouraged us to dance and present ourselves through dance. Through dance and movement, humans define themselves. In western culture, the dance especially bale has upward movement. The dancers try to reach to the sky. In Africa, the dancers dance toward to the earth. For instance, whirling dervishes (Sufi) try to reach to the sky (God) with one hand and the other hand points to the earth. The movement in dance reflects cultural differences. As one teacher points out, African decent students walk as if they are reaching to the ground. Some may interpret this as an attitude towards a system or teacher, but as the speaker points out this is just a movement comes from the student's culture. 

A Semiological Checklist for Analysis (Adopted from Berger)

• Isolate and analyze the important signs in the text

What are the important signifiers and what do they signify?

What is the system that gives these signs meaning?

What codes can be found?

What ideological and sociological matters are involved?

• What is the paradigmatic structure the text?

What is the central opposition in the text?

What paired opposites fit under the various categories?

Do these oppositions have any psychological or social import?

• What is the syntagmatic structure the text?

What functions from Propp can be applied to the text?

How does the sequential arrangement of elements affect meaning?

Are there formulaic aspects that have shaped the text?

• How does the medium (new media) affect the text?

What kind of aesthics, technical elements are used?

How are special effects, fonts, animation, graphics, colors, music, sound, video used to give meaning to sings?

• What contributions have theorists made that can be applied?

What have semiological theorists written that can be adopted to new media?

What have media theorists written that can be applied to semiological analysis?

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Communication Models

Aberrant Decoding

A signified relationship requires emitter (encode) and receiver (decode). If a the receiver decodes the sign the way the emitter intended when encoding it, the message is successfully communicated. The opposite is called Aberrant decoding which is a term for poor communication. It actually occurs when the two participants come from two different cultures and speak different languages. A parent complaining about the noise level in a teenager's room is an example for aberrant decoding. (Lester, 1995)

The communication model consists of the following elements: (Silverblatt, 1995)

• The communicator is the person who delivers the message.
• The message is the information being communicated.
• The channel refers to the passage through which the information is being conveyed. For example, you use your voice, eyes, and facial expressions as channels for interpersonal communication. In mass communication, the media-newspapers, photographs, film, radio, and television serve as channel for the communication of information to large groups of people.
• The audience consists of the person or people who receive the message. The more familiar the communicator is with the audience, the more effectively he or she can tailor the message to the listener.

The two elements are critical to the communications process: feedback and interference.


Communication Models

Interpersonal Communication Model Communicator Message Channel Audience

Mass Communication Model Channel Communicator Message Audience

Keys to Interpreting Media Messages: Function, Comparative media, Media Communicator, Audience

Roman Jacobson's six elements present in any act of communication.



 

 

 

Semiotics for Beginners by Daniel Chandler

Encoding/Decoding http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem08c.html

Jakobson proposed that 'each of these six factors determines a different function of language:

 

• referential: oriented towards the context;
• emotive or expressive: oriented towards the addresser;
• conative: oriented towards the addressee;
• phatic: oriented towards the contact;
• metalingual: oriented towards the code;
• poetic: oriented towards the message.

_{Shannon & Waever's  Communication Chain}

_{Information Source ______ Transmitter ________Channel___________     Receiver _________ Destination}

                               _{Message                    Signal             Noise Source                 Received Signal}                     

Media Literacy Education

 

---

 

Semioticians ask similar set of questions Media Literacy teachers ask.

• Who created the message? 
• What medium was employed? 
• For whom it was intended? 
• In what context was it transmitted? 
• To what code does it belong? 
• How many meanings are possible under the circumstances in which it was transmitted?

Using a computer is not like watching a TV. It requires us to know how the conventions, icons, especially the language itself. If you do not know English you can still watch Oscar and understand what's going on, who is getting what award; however looking at the "oscar.com" sites requires some language skills as well as some technical rules. Web pages have pictures and icons to guide us, but it is not as easy as using a remote control. Although remote controls are fairly simple to use, it may be still hard for someone who never used it. 

For example, infants appear to understand TV images, months before they begin to improve their language skills. Clearly TV watching does not require intellectual competence in order to appreciate it on the at least surface level. Just like film and TV, Internet has its own conventions. People who are highly experienced in film and TV, and literate visually see more and hear more than people seldom go to the movies. Images must be read. 

As Aldous Huxley says "The more you know, the more you see". In a Turkish saying questions the wiser person. "Who know best, the one know loves longer, or the one who sees more". 

Moreover, there are cultural differences in perception of images. So we know that images are interpreted differently in different cultures. (Example: James Magnum's different bear pictures, the interpretation of Elian Gonzales' finger in the media).

Today, gaining Media Literacy skills is much more important. Preventing new generation to see TV or use Internet is not going to solve the violence or hunger. The more we learn about TV or use Internet, the more  likely we see and understand the world. 

Definition of Media Literacy

Media literacy is a burgeoning educational movement to teach analytical and critical thinking skills about television, video, advertising, print and the Internet. This is complemented by creative production activities to help young people learn to both "read" and "write" for full participation in their 21st century media culture. Elizabeth Thoman, President and Founder of Center for Media Literacy

Media literacy does NOT mean 'don't watch.' 
Media literacy means 'watch carefully, think critically.' 

Deciphering images are going to be more and more important.

Imagine a classroom in which 16 students are sitting and watching a McDonald’s commercial. After watching the commercial once, the students are grouped into different roles. (Environmentalist, feminist, etc.) See for lesson plan.

Every group depending on their perspective responds to the commercial differently. For instance, environmentalist group talks about the missing trash cans and producing so much garbage, or a feminist group criticizes the role given to girls in the ad. 

This exercise can also be used to take apart the grammar and language of media. The student discusses the elements (cuts, lyrics, stage,) of the ad in their groups. I called this type of exercises de-construction exercise.  By pulling apart the element of the ad and looking at the ad from a different role or perspective will provide more insight for and understanding of the ad to the students than just watching it.

After these exercises we hope that our students will be able to access, analyze, communicate, and produce media in variety of forms.

The definition of Media Literacy by Aspen Institute (1989):
"The ability to access, analyze, communicate, and produce media in variety of forms"

Do images tell the truth? What meanings do different people see in images? (Hobbs,1997)

 

"Media Literacy incorporates the theoretical traditions of semiotics, literary criticism, media studies, communication theory, research on arts education, and language and literacy development." (Hobbs,1997).

Digital Literacy

"Digital literacy is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide range of sources when it is presented via computers... (Not) only must you acquire the skill of finding things, you must also acquire the ability to use those things in your life. Acquiring digital literacy for Internet use involves mastering a set of core competencies. The most essential of these is the ability to make informed judgments about what you find on-line." (Gilster, 1997) 
 

Being literate in digital world is important because electronic/ digital media is like learning a language. The ones who use and practice, understand more.

We need to be Media Literate in the millennium. Deconstructing images is very important. That's why this study shows the importance of literacy in digital world.

Internet Communication 

Carmen Luke, Marshall McLuhan talked about audio-visual 'Grammar" (Luke, 1994) of moving images. Musicians use notes and scales to communicate, dancers use movement, and scientists use mathematical notations. Media producers also have a unique system of grammar and language, and learning to read it in all its complexity is crucial to being media literate. (Scott & Yildiz, 1996). 

Film, TV, commercials, and the Internet are texts and have its own language and grammar. Language is a social institution that gives us the rules and conventions and speaking is the action part that is based on language. 

"Being limited to ASCII texts, early Internet users developed a series of nonverbal symbols or signs. Such signs could signal play, emphasis, exaggeration, or shouting. The signs were informal and intended to facilitate communication. These signs are part of the construct which became known as 'netiquette' (Glister, 1993).

Development in these sings illustrates the evolution which can occur in semiotics understanding. With the introduction and penetration of computer mediated communication systems, human interactions are changing at rapid speed. According to Capputo, Hazel, and McMahon, this change could possibly be more rapid, "than any other time in history" and instant communication with people all round the world changes the way we perceive space and time. (Albertson, 1997)

Just as the introduction of sound into the medium of film brought change in theatrical form, so has the introduction of Internet communication into human discourse influenced semiotic forms throughout world cultures. (Albertson, 1997)

Grammar Of Television 

Just like film, TV, Internet has no grammar. There are however, defined rules of usage, syntax of Internet. 

Each medium because of its nature imposes certain limitations. For instance, Close up medium suits television in order to reveal characters than to capture an action, or a battle scene.

Here are some examples to represent "grammar" of television as far as shots, camera works, and editing techniques are concerned. (Berger, 1982)

Signifier (shot)	Definition	Signified
close-up medium shot long shot full shot	face only most of the body setting and characters full body of person	intimacy personal relationship context, scope, public distance social relationship
pan down pan up zoom in fade in fade out cut wipe	camera looks down camera looks up camera moves in image appears on blank screen image screen goes blank switch from one image to another image wiped off screen	power, authority smallness, weakness observation, focus beginning ending simultaneity, excitement imposed conclusion

 

How to read an Image
 

Charles Morris divided semiotics into three branches: syntactics, semantics and pragmatics.

 

	Syntactic	Semantic	Pragmatic
Definition	Structure of the image	Meaning of the image	Effect/ Impact of the image (uses and effects of messages)
Example	When we took the two curves and put them together to make a simple abstract fish, we were doing a syntax. The two curves are like a subject and a verb that combine to make a sentence.	While each of us may see the same general image, we each have our own understanding of the image and thus our own meaning. Catfish does not mean the same to each of us.	When an image causes us to have a response, we are aware of its effect on us. Most of us view a swastika in a generally neural manner, but had our relatives died in concentration camps, we might respond much differently.

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