The types of sign systems within which a particular news story is encoded in Internet news
A logical place to start may be to ask "what is news?" Bignell (1997:81) suggests that "news is not just facts, but representations produced in language and other signs like photographs." The newspaper is just one medium of news communication; other media include television, radio, magazines, and the Internet. This essay will discuss on a particular news story as covered in New Zealand daily newspaper's web site, namely The Dominion. The story that is being covered is that of a TV personality whose car was towed and he tried to wreck his car. The medium of the Internet news is particularly interesting as signifiers are presented simultaneously thus offering a concrete display of signs which the reader can browse at his/her own pace and can also be downloaded, unlike television or radio news which possibly can be watched or listened to at particular time.
Internet is a universe of opportunities for semiotic to occur. Notice that we are no longer speaking about a specific medium like radio, television, newsprints. Internet is more like an environment or a complex system engineered for the act of signification to take place. It is not the real universe, it is a virtual universe made out of signs. It is a semioticians heaven. Take as an example the following statement from Elmer-DeWitt's article in Spring 1995 Times Magazine: "Stripped of the external trappings of wealth, power, beauty and social status, people tend to be judged in the Cyberspace of the Internet only by their ideas and their ability to get them across in terse, vigorous prose."
This essay will attempt to examine the types of sign systems within which a particular news story is encoded in Internet news, and how these different sign systems may affect meaning. It is clear that when looking at the story has attached significance on The Dominion's web site on May 9th, 2001, which shows the ex-television personality and entertainer Garry McCormick wrecks his car. As can be seen with the story is clear as it dominates most of the available space on the news web page.
Connotations of the linguistic and visual signs that are presented by ...
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This essay will attempt to examine the types of sign systems within which a particular news story is encoded in Internet news, and how these different sign systems may affect meaning. It is clear that when looking at the story has attached significance on The Dominion's web site on May 9th, 2001, which shows the ex-television personality and entertainer Garry McCormick wrecks his car. As can be seen with the story is clear as it dominates most of the available space on the news web page.
Connotations of the linguistic and visual signs that are presented by news web page are perceived with a coded framework. The article uses orally based vocabulary, and dramatic and sensational language. This can be seen in the first sentence of the news item, which reads 'Tow rage: McCormick wrecks his car'. The linguistic codes of the news item certainly connote speech which in turn connotes reputation, informality, and anger. The article also implies with the person who involves is referred as 'McCormick' where as a distance is created between the reader and the offender who is referred by 'towie'. The article implies reputation with the victim Gary McCormick who is referred to throughout as 'McCormick', whose name is very well known by New Zealanders. This strategy of distancing the reader from the story is blatantly employed by The Dominion, clearly suggesting that the preferred reading of the texts should involve no sympathy with the offender.
Another noticeable of the news item is the typographic device used to break up the text. The story uses bold text to start the article, serving to extend the role of the headline in attracting the attention of the reader to the topic of the news story. The use of bold which is employed throughout the text serve to direct the reader in making meaning of the text and make blatantly obvious the points which the medium deem to be of particular significance to the understanding of the news item. The narrative of the news story uses the same type and size of font throughout the item. This connotes authority and formality to the reader, which is also demonstrated by fairly long sentences, the lack of colloquial language such as 'bully-boy'. This perhaps the medium aiming to connote an attitude of telling it how it is.
Linguistic and typographic codes are not the only codes employed in news discourse. Graphic codes is also considered. The photograph used on the Internet have also undergone a process of selection. One image will be chosen over another as it connotes a message that the selectors of the photograph want to communicate. Barthes (cited in Bignell, 1997:98) suggests that the newspaper photograph is 'an object that has been worked on, chosen, composed, constructed, treated according to professional, aesthetic or ideological norms which are so many factors of connotation.' The Dominion uses the picture shows the victim McCormick is in anger and wrecks his car by a hammer which connotes conflict, provocation and tenacity. This is also connoted by the size of the photographs, with the graphic representation dominating a large proportion of the overall available space on the page. Paradigmatically, photographs involve connotations, and thus the significance of the particular photograph which has been chosen can be seen more clearly when considering what other paradigmatic connotations might have appeared in their place. For example, the connotations of the picture of McCormick would change considerably if he was wrecking a Mercedes. Likewise, the connotations of the picture would change if McCormick was looking directly at the camera and smiling, instead he is pictured looking at the car with an angry expression, connoting lack of emotion.
The contrasted pairs which seem to be involved in the paradigms are right and wrong, legal and illegal. These contrasted pairs are made more clear by the way in which the meanings of the photograph is anchored in a small amount of text beneath the photograph. The Dominion offers its own contrasted pair in the text beneath the picture, namely 'acting on behalf' and 'bully-boy tactics'. As Bignell (1997:99) suggests, the caption underneath the picture enables the reader to 'load down the images with particular cultural meanings and the photograph functions as the proof that the text's message is true'. In the text, 'tow rage' being represented in capital, it emphasis the cultural sign which most reader will be able to relate to, and connotes sympathy, support and injustice.
This discussion of the news story which shows how semiotic analysis can determine the meanings of such news item, as a result of the linguistic and visual signs used within the texts. However, semiotic analysis cannot determine how an individual reader might interpret the representations of the news items in a real social context. Semiotic analysis does offer an insight into the factors at work in the production of a news item and distinguishes the various codes which are employed by the medium when representing a particular news item.
References
http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,785852a1700,FF.html
Bignell, J (1997): Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press
