Using Semiotics.

"One of the broadest definitions is that of Umberto Eco, who states that 'semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign' (Eco 1976, 7). Semiotics involves not only the study of what we refer to as 'signs' in everyday speech, but of anything which 'stands for' something else. In a semiotic sense, signs take the form of words, images, sounds, gestures and objects. Contemporary Semioticians study signs not in isolation but as part of semiotic 'sign-systems' (such as medium or genre). They study how meanings are made and how reality is represented."

Chandler, Daniel. Semiotics: the Basics. Routledge, 2002.

I will be using semiotics, the study of signs, throughout my studies. Semiotics is used to determine how things are represented in a 'text', from a semiotic standpoint a text can be anything from an actual body of text, to an image or a video or a piece of music. Semiotics looks at how things are shown in the text and the meanings behind them, such as the colours used, clothes worn by people in the text, poses and gestures, sounds used etc. Semiotics tries to determine why the things shown are shown in the way they are.

Ferdinand de Saussure said that a sign was made up of two parts, the signifier or the form which the sign takes and the signified or the concept it represents. Such as red on a roadsign, usually indicating some form of warning, the colour red is the signifier, while the warning is the signified.

Since I will be focusing my studies on visual images, I will be focusing on using semiotics to look at pictures. I will be looking at men and womens portrayals in a series of digital game trailers and game boxes. I will also be looking at a series of movie posters from throughout the 20th century. Semiotics will be used to determine how the men and women are shown in these images, not only of themselves but in relation to each other.