Research and Planning: Semiotics research

Semiotics is the study of anything that can be interpreted as a sign. It is used to show the meaning behind a sign. These signs can be anything at all. For example there is text, images, colour and a series of pages in a magazine. Each of these are signs and semiotics can be used to discover their meanings. These signs can define items. They can be used to make clearer target audiences, genres, and they can give meaning to a body of text or an image. Semiotics is used in many forms of media. For example, rock music tends to have a unique, dark coloured look to a lot of its images. An example is below.

Semiotics here shows that the dark image is of a musician involved in the rock genre of music. It fits in with the rest of the scene. The bold fonts which strongly contrast to the other the image behind them, making them stand out link to show that they are all linked to the rock scene. The fonts are large and very upfront which is a continuous feature with rock music. The other images have lots of the colour black on them which yet again links itself to fit in with the stereotype of rock music. Semiotics here uses the characteristics of rock music and shows that the way it is portrayed throughout the magazine relates it to rock music.