Semiotics

• Semiotics is the study of signs, &, Signs have two parts. 
• The signifier, which we see, hear and touch. 
• The signified which is the effect of the signifier.
• Denotation - The common sense/obvious meaning
• Connotation - The cultural/personal association

Roland Barthes

• Barthes's many monthly contributions that were collected in hisMythologies (1957) frequently interrogated specific cultural materials in order to expose how bourgeois society asserted its values through them. For example, the portrayal of wine in French society as a robust and healthy habit is a bourgeois ideal that is contradicted by certain realities (i.e., that wine can be unhealthy and inebriating). He found semiotics, the study of signs, useful in these interrogations. Barthes explained that these bourgeois cultural myths were "second-order signs," or "connotations." A picture of a full, dark bottle is a signifier that relates to a specific signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage. However, the bourgeoisie relate it to a new signified: the idea of healthy, robust, relaxing experience. Motivations for such manipulations vary, from a desire to sell products to a simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes in line with similar Marxist theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes#Semiotics_and_myth
• 3 Types of Sign
• Icon
• The signifier has a resemblance to the signified
• Index
• The signifier is connected, directly or casually
• Symbol
• The connection is arbitrary