A Semiotic Analysis of a Story Published in Newspapers on April 18th 1998 in Britain - Term Paper Example

 A Semiotic Analysis of a story published in Newspapers on April 18th 1998 in Britain INTRODUCTION A text is a reconstruction of reality, whether it is a depiction through fictional or non-fictional means and in literal terminology, media text refers to any product of media that is to be examined, for they convey reality to the consumers from the creator’s viewpoint via television programs, books, newspapers, posters, radio etc. (Canadian Council of Teachers, 1992, 2-3). From this ever increasing range of media texts, this paper focuses entirely on newspapers, and analyzes the construction of a specific newspaper item that featured in three renowned British newspapers: The Sun, The Telegraph and The Times (UK Newspapers, 2010). The story under consideration is that of a female police officer who was on duty when she was stabbed to death by a man. The research methodology used is that of semiotic analysis, and the essay culminates with a justification for using this particular research method. SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS After the formulation of a research question, the next dilemma faced by a researcher is the methodology to be used to answer that question. Qualitative and Quantitative methods are two ways of research (Stokes, 2003, 51-97), which further branch into specific modes of analysis in order to make the research more specific. From amongst these categories, semiotic analysis method, first introduced by Ferdinand De Saussure (Saussure, 1916) from the branch of textual analysis is concerned with all those things which can be recognized as a sign, and also encompasses anything that symbolizes something else (Eco, 1976, 7). Semiotics is applied mostly in the analysis of texts; here text refers to any message that has been recorded with the intention of conveying it to the receiver. There are also other forms of textual analysis besides semiotics, namely rhetorical analysis, discourse analysis and content analysis (Chandler, 2005). IMAGES OF THE STORY IN THE THREE NEWSPAPERS The Sun: The Telegraph: The Times: Source: Helen Gambles (1998) ANALYSIS OF THE STORY FrontPage As according to the images, it is quite evident that the story occupies most of the front page in The Sun, whereas this is not evident in the other newspapers. While determining which the front page is, the customer may on the font size of the headline or the size of the picture, and this varies from individual to individual. This is due to the varying code sets of every individual with which they decode a particular text, and hence the interpretation of the entire story is dependant upon the ideological stance of the consumer as well as the familiarity of the reader and the authenticity with which they are able to decipher the meaning being conveyed by the particular brand in accordance with the set of codes used by the manufacturer. Connotations of the Linguistic and Visual Signs A connotation is ‘the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning’ (Dictionary, 2010). Hence connotations are crucial to the reader since they portray the meaning of the text, which can be interpreted according to easily recognizable codes within the various newspapers. As every newspaper conveys its message through differing narrative skills, the headlines of the story in these newspapers can be interpreted accordingly. The Sun headline finds it appropriate to state that ‘SCANDAL OF PSYCHO FREED TO KILL HERO COP NINA’; The Telegraph portrays the story with the headline ‘WPc was knifed to death after removing armour’; and lastly, The Times states ‘WPc paid with her life for dedication to duty.’ These headline target to grasp the attention of the potential consumer, and hence the linguistic signs in the headlines are the means adapted by the manufacturers to feature the story while seeking attention. ‘The Times’ and ‘The Telegraph’ are almost similar in their language use, but are in start contrast with the linguistic set applied by ‘The Sun’, which focuses on more emotional, sensitive, and dramatic oral vocabulary and attempts to appeal to the emotions of the reader. It refers to the offender as the ‘violent cop-hating nut’ in the opening line of the feature, and also uses terminology like ‘catastrophic catalogue’ and ‘scandal of psycho’; it refers to the victim with her first name ‘Nina’ and the offender with his surname ‘Elgizouli’, thus connoting informality of language, familiarity with the victim while distancing with the offender, it also shows sympathy towards the victim, and comradeship. The other two newspapers under discussion also refer to the offender with his surname; however they talk of the victim in professional terminology and her post or by her complete name. This strategy of showing no familiarity with the offender illustrate that there is no room for sympathy towards him. Typographic Devices Typography is the arrangement and the appearance of the printed material, and again there is a significant difference between the typographic devices employed by the three newspapers. ‘The Sun’ resorts to using bold font with block lettering for the headline and thus aims to attract the attention of the reader towards its emotional and sensitive headline to the story. In addition, the use of bold subheadings are aimed at making the reader form a perception regarding the text of the newspaper prior to reading it, and thus makes obvious the sensitivity of the case. Whereas, ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Times’ only focuses on using bold font for the heading and references, which are not block letters, and otherwise they have published the story with the same font throughout, this method shows their authority and formality towards the reader, furthermore the lengthy subheadings and sentences and rare use of colloquial linguistics such as ‘cop’ make them stand in contrast to the typography employed by ‘The Sun’. This might imply that ‘The Sun’ is more a tabloid than a quality news reporting medium, while ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Times’ can be perceived as quality oriented. However, this is a value judgment, which might not be perceived in the same way by another reader with a different ideological stance. Graphic Code Other than linguistic and typographical codes, the graphic code employed by a newspaper carries immense significance in the interpretation of its publication, because the message is used as a connotation of the message that the newspaper wants to communicate to the reader. Barthes states that a newspaper image is ‘an object that has been worked on, chosen, composed, built, dealt in accordance to professional, aesthetic or ideological norms which are so many factors of connotation’ (Bignell, 1977, 98). As according to the images of the three newspapers, all three have interestingly printed the same images for the offender and the victim, however the treatment of the images is where the difference lies. The image of the victim looks straight into the camera, while the image of the offender looks away from the camera, the representation is different because ‘The Sun’ has depicted the images in coloured form while ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Times’ have kept them black and white. Thus the former tries to depict the dangerousness and the realism of the issue; this is also substantiated by the size of the pictures, which are relatively larger than those printed by the other two newspapers which do not focus on the pictorial images to depict the seriousness the realism of the issue. However, the usage of same images show that they have tried to show a venerated and revered image of the victim by showing her in the uniform and her dedication to the community, while the offender is shown as having lack of emotion appearing on his vacuous face, and no contact with the camera depicts aloofness. Text beneath Photographs The pictorial images have been visibly contrasted in all three newspapers, and they both represent two extreme approaches: guilt and innocence, justice and injustice, law and crime etc. The meaning of each of the images has been embodied in textual form beneath the images in a very small font and short sentences. ‘The Times’ labels the victim as ‘the killed’ and the offender as ‘the killer’, thus portraying the serious offense through this harsh terminology. As according to Bignell (Bignell, 1997, 99), the caption beneath a newspaper image enables the reader to ‘load down the image with particular cultural meanings and the photograph functions as the proof that the text's message is true.’ The three newspapers also use different contexts to display the images, where ‘The Telegraph’ and ‘The Times’ have used same sized pictures for both the victim and the offender, whereas ‘The Sun’ depicts the offender as being larger than the victim, and it also has presented the victim’s picture in a frame-like manner thus denoting sentimentality and reverence, while the offender’s image does not have and thus portrays lack of emotions. This appeal to the emotions of the reader is intensified by ‘The Sun’ which has also displayed the image of the police officer’s coffin being carried away by her colleagues. This is a cultural phenomenon which the reader can relate to as being a natural calamity that everybody faces in their lives, it also stresses to have sympathy towards the victim who faced injustice, and develops a dislike towards the offender who brought upon the tragedy. WHY SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS The discussion and interpretation of the various newspapers, and their varied usage of devices to publish the same news item shows how semiotic analysis can be used to decode the meaning that the newspaper manufacturers have tried to convey to the readers, by appealing to their senses in an unconscious manner, and resorting to the usage of human psychology in order to grab their attention. In contrast to this, other forms of textual analysis such as the content analysis which is a prominent rival to semiotic analysis. While content analysis focuses on having a quantitative approach towards the analysis of the content in the media text, semiotic analysis focuses on the analysis of the connotative material in the text. Frequent repetition of a news item in a text does not increase its significance, it is the content and the meaning attached to it which makes it important, hence in this news story, it was important to analyze the meanings being communicated by the newspapers rather than the quantitative analysis of the publication. Hence the significance which the consumers would associate with the content, signs and symbols within a story are more important to analyze than having a fixed meaning attached to the quantity involved in the content analysis approach. Hence, semiotics is essential in this case because it would not give a fixed meaning to a sensitive matter, and it does not take reality for granted, and concentrated on the subjective interpretation rather than objective facts, while some researchers have also resorted to the combination of both these methods to widen the horizon of their analysis (McQuarrie and Mick, 1992, 180-97). However, semiotic analysis can not determine how a particular reader would interpret the message in the actual social context, it gives an insight into the factors which the publisher has utilized to convey the meaning, but it is not assured that the reader would interpret the message in the way which was intended by the newspaper publisher. CONCLUSION This study provided an insight into developing and formulating a specific research question, and has enables me to narrow down the wide topic of media texts to focus upon a one medium and then further reduce the scope to the analysis of a particular case in the past. It has provided me with the knowledge of the various research methodologies that can be utilized for the analysis of a media text and the proper implementation of a specific method to a case. Thus, it can be stated that different media texts and different issues can be analyzed in distinct ways, depending on the nature of the medium being used, and the type of analysis that needs to be conducted. The overall tenure of this study provides an in-depth knowledge of the intentions of the users of the different media texts, and how there is never an assurance that every consumer would interpret the message being conveyed in an identical manner, hence it can be concluded that there is a high probability that the aim of the seller would be fulfilled but there is never a certainty. References Bignell, Jonathan (1997): Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press Canadian Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts (1992) Teaching Media text with the key concepts. English Quarterly, vol. 25. Toronto, Ontario. Chandler, Daniel (2005) Semiotics for Beginners. Retrieved April 23rd 2010 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem01.html Dictionary.com (2010) Definition: Connotation. Retrieved April 23rd 2010 from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/connotation Eco, Umberto (1976) A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press/London: Macmillan Helen Gambles (1998) Newspaper Story. Retrieved May 23rd 2010 from http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/hlg9501.html McQuarrie, Edward F & David Glen Mick (1992): 'On Resonance: A Critical Pluralistic Inquiry into Advertising Rhetoric', Journal of Consumer Research 19. Saussure, Ferdinand de ([1916] 1983): Course in General Linguistics (trans. Roy Harris). London: Duckworth Stokes, Jane (2003) How to do Media and Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Chapter 3: ‘Analyzing Media and Cultural Texts’ UK Newspapers (2010) Daily UK Newspapers. Retrieved May 23rd 2010 from http://www.scottishlaw.org.uk/scotlaw/newspapers.html Read More