Three Types of Media Analysis

(examples from week on ads)

A: Semiotic

Approaches popular media items as texts and looks for the underlying meanings of the signs or symbols in texts.

Key words

Meaning
Sign
Signifier
Signified
Semiosis = meaning
Latent content versus
Manifest content
Barthes
Representation
Text

e.g. Williamson

B: Psychoanalsyis

Approaches media as having both a manifest content that readers are conscious of while it also has hidden messages which are understood by the subconscious minds of readers.

Key words

Psychoanalysis
Freud
Unconscious
Subconscious
Oedipus complex
Electra complex
Voyeuristic
Scopophilia
Repression
Sublimated
Sadistic

e.g. Gibson

C: Ethnographic

Looks at popular media by trying to find out what ordinary consumers of the media make of it. It depends on surveys and especially on interviews or participant observation of people using the media.

Key words

Ethnography
Interview
Reading (i.e. what is the reading made by a particular viewer)
Survey
In depth interview
Participant observation
Audience
Study
Transcription

e.g. Currie