What is Semiological Analysis?

Semiology is the study of signs (Berger 22). Gillian Rose says, "A semiological analysis entails the deployment of a highly refined set of concepts that produce detailed accounts of the exact ways the meanings of an image are produced through that image" (Rose 106). In his article "Semiotics and Society" Arthur Berger quotes Maya Pines as saying, "Everything we do sends messages about us in a variety of codes, semiologists contend. We are also on the receiving end of innumerable messages encoded in music, gestures, foods, rituals, books, movies or advertisements. Yet we seldom realize that we have received such messages, and would have trouble explaining the rules under which they operate" (Berger 22). Berger goes on to say, "Semiotics teaches us how we find meaning in all the objects and other kinds of messages to which we are exposed" (Berger 22).

Why Semiological Analysis is Important for my Purposes

Before viewing the images, I would like to provide you with a brief introduction to semiology and how it will be employed in this analysis. Semiology questions "how images make meaning" (Rose 105). The convergence of meanings: literal, historical and emotional, give these images such import as to raise them to the status of iconic; allow them to become visual representations of events. How these images make converged meanings and allow them to stand out above all the other millions of photos taken of these events. Therefore, it is necessary to dig deeply into even the most basic denotative components of these images in order to work through why they are so powerful. Semiotic analysis is important to move through first and foremost in this analysis, because the photos are successful; they stand the test of time because the material meaning of these photographs have obtained second and third and fourth (etc.) associations between the visual signifiers and abstract ideas. These human constructed abstract ideas are what gives the photos importance.

Key Terms

Signs: anything used to stand for anything else (Berger 22). They are made of a signifier and signified(s).

Signifier: sound-images; material elements that are encountered.

Signified: concepts behind the signifiers.

Note on signifiers and signifieds: Berger says, "What complicates matters is that the relation between the signifiers and signifieds is arbitrary and based on convention" (Berger 22). In other words, meaning is not concrete, but rather meanings can vary between different individuals, cultures and time periods.

Icons: Icons are one of C.S. Pierce's trichotomy of kinds of signs. Icons "signify by resemblance" (Berger 23). A photograph is iconic (at the base root of what the word iconic means to Pierce).

Symbols: Symbols are the last of Pierce's three kinds of signs. Symbols "signify the basis of convention" (Berger 23).

Myth: Myths, according to Roland Barthes, are cultural stories we tell ourselves about the way things are.

Ideology: The cultural stories that we tell ourselves about the way things are (myths) become ideologies when they are believed to be true. Rose says, "Ideology is those representations that reflect the interestsof power. In particular, ideology works to legitimate social inequalities. Semiology, then, is centrally concerned with the social effects of meaning" (Rose 106-107).

Connotative signs: Connotative signs are second level signs, are an amalgamation of individual experience and cultural constructs that work together to produce meaning.

Note: to minimize repetition, I have placed Signified and Connotation together.

Tying Everything Together

Semiology is most interested in the "image itself as the most important site of meaning," therefore, because this analysis posits images as the most important site of meaning, it is necessary to produce semiotic analysis on the selected iconic images (Rose 108). In order to analyze the following iconic images, I will begin by presenting the "diegesis" ("Diegesis is the sum of the denotative meanings of an image" (Rose 120)) of each image, then I will identify their signs. Signs, according to Saussure, are broken down into signifiers and signified (Rose 113). Signifiers are the material elements that are encountered, while the signified are the concepts behind the signifiers. Objects become signs when the signifier and the signified are no longer separate. When one sees a photograph, for example, and automatically thinks "photograph," the photo has become a denotative sign. When signs become signifiers for different concepts, they become vehicles for second level signs. This can only happen through Barthes' concept of myth. The second order of signs occurs when "photograph" becomes a signifier for a different concept.

Please click on "Iconic Images Group One" to proceed to the first group of images

Works Cited

Berger, Arthur Asa. "Semiotics and Society." Society 51.1 (2014): 22-26. Print.

Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies. 3rd ed. London: Sage Publications, 2012. Print.