Week 10 - Visual Communication Online

Formal Semiotics is the systematic study of the system of signs.  Social Semiotic embodies formal semiotics and also asks how people use signs to construct the life of a community.  Ferdinand de Saussure is the man known to have founded modern semiotics in the early 1900's.   Michael Halliday coined the term "social semiotic" in 1978.  The importance of social semiotics is to help a community clearly define terms, thoughts and ideas into symbols.  

 It was challenging to find written material that explained this topic well for me.  Two Scholarly journals I found to help me  were Social Semiotics by Jeff Bezemer and Carey Jewitt published in 2009, and Interpreting the Rhetoric of Visual Advertisements by Karen Ye et al. published in 2019.  The first journal assisted with the basic understanding and the second helped with the visual aspect.  One of the best videos I found to help me understand the basics of Semiotics is Semiotics Lesson by Loren Hanna. 

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There is importance placed on direction of focus and angle in images.  Directing attention toward the center is key.  Being mindful of where eyes and objects are directed is important as well.  As the above photo shows there are many components in creating an excellent advertisement or statement.  There are vectors, marginal, ideals, and real components that are combined to create a compelling statement.

G2

The Surfrider Foundation ad has a dramatic way of getting its message across by wrapping the sushi roll in plastic bags.  In the center of the rolls are more plastic bags.  The sushi rolls sit at the top of the spread with the chopsticks coming in from the right and pointing toward them.  Those would make up the primary vectors.  In the center, to the left, you have the primary words giving the written message.  Toward the bottom are the credentials and foundation logos that present the information.  

References:

Bezemer, Jeff & Jewitt, Carey. (2009). Social Semiotics. 10.1075/hop.13.soc5. 

IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and machine ... (n.d.). Retrieved December 4, 2021, from https://people.cs.pitt.edu/~kovashka/ye_kovashka_ads_tpami2019.pdf.