Semiotics

 1) What meanings are the audience encouraged to take about the two main characters from the opening of the film?

They are two friends who have each others back
2) How does the end of the film emphasise de Saussure’s belief that signs are polysemic – open to interpretation or more than one meaning?

The ending displays that indexes are shown everywhere and are visual .

Part 2) Media Magazine theory drop: Semiotics 

Greenford Media department has a subscription to Media Magazine - a brilliant magazine designed exclusively for A Level Media students and published four times a year. We strongly recommend you read it regularly and also set plenty of work for the course based on the articles inside. You can find our Media Magazine archive here and for this task need to go to MM68 (page 24) to read the introduction to Semiotics. Once you've read it, answer the following questions:

1) What did Ferdinand de Saussure suggest are the two parts that make up a sign?
The signifier - the thing that does the communication
The signified - that which is communicated
2) What does ‘polysemy’ mean?

The coexistence of many possible meanings for a word or phrase.
3) What does Barthes mean when he suggests signs can become ‘naturalised’?
Barthes meaning of signs becoming naturalised is that teachings that are taught over time.
4) What are Barthes’ 5 narrative codes?

Hermeneutic, proairetic, cultural, connotative, and symbolic code.

5) How does the writer suggest Russian Doll (Netflix) uses narrative codes?

The title acts as a symbolic code here. The symbol of the Russian doll helps us (eventually) to make sense of the narrative.

At some point, fairly early on, the camera pans past and lingers on a close up of a bowl of fruit that is entirely rotten – only the most observant viewer (usually the student or teacher of film and media) sees this. This is an example of an enigma code

Part 3) Icons, indexes and symbols

1) Find two examples for each: icon, index and symbol. Provide images or links.

Icon:

Index:

Symbol: 

2) Why are icons and indexes so important in media texts?

Icons are important because icons are a representative symbol and indexes are important because they are shown what being representative 
3) Why might global brands try and avoid symbols in their advertising and marketing?
They may be misunderstood as symbols have t be taught 
4) Find an example of a media text (e.g. advert) where the producer has accidentally communicated the wrong meaning using icons, indexes or symbols. Why did the media product fail? (This web feature on bad ads and marketing fails provides some compelling examples).
Pepsi mistook social justice movements for opportunities to sell soda, which is pretty disrespectful to the people who have suffered and sacrificed for the sake of protest and change.
5) Find an example of a media text (e.g. advert) that successfully uses icons or indexes to create a message that can be easily understood across the world.
A social media logo as they are well known around the world