A Semiotic Analysis of a Story Published in Newspapers on April 18th Term Paper

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