Visual Culture and Film: Images and Ideology

This flashcard set covers the core concepts of semiotics, structuralism, and the relationship between images and ideology as presented in Class 3 of ENGL 361.

Structuralism

A theoretical approach, drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure's work, that suggests there is an underlying structure to culture which allows for the identification of meaning.

Sign

Something that invites someone to think of something other than itself; composed of a combination of the signifier and the signified.

Signifier

The material form of the sign, such as a sound, written word, or image.

Signified

The mental image or concept evoked by the signifier.

Relational theory of language

The idea that signs are arbitrary and have no natural meaning; instead, meaning is made through cultural convention, agreement, and difference.

Langue

The linguistic system, including the rules and conventions that organize it, viewed as a social institution.

Parole

The individual use of language, which works within the linguistic structure but allows for variations.

Semiotics

A theoretical and methodological tool used to arrive at meaning through the analysis of structure.

Primary signification

A level of meaning that produces denotation, referring to the literal or explicit meanings of words and phenomena.

Secondary signification

A level of meaning described as connotation, which often requires cultural and historical knowledge to understand deeper meanings.

Myth (Barthes)

A body of ideas and practices that promote the values and interests of dominant groups to defend prevailing power structures, often making cultural meanings seem natural.

Paris Match (1955 cover)

An example of myth where an image of a Black soldier saluting is used to suggest France is a great empire and to suppress dissent towards colonialism.

Iconic signs (Peirce)

Signs that resemble their objects in some way.

Symbolic signs (Peirce)

Signs that bear no clear or natural relationship to their objects.

Indexical signs (Peirce)

Signs that coexisted with their objects in the same place at the same time, serving as existential evidence.

Ideology

The shared set of values and beliefs through which individuals live out their relations to social networks, often produced and affirmed through social institutions and images.

Kodak Shirley card

A tool used for calibrating skin tone on prints; early versions reproduced ideologies of racial dominant standards by only featuring white models.

Icon (Image Icon)

An image that refers to something outside of its individual components, carries great symbolic or universal meaning, and often circulates through visual networks.