The Four Aspects of Signs- Symbol, Icon, Index and STOP

Gill and van-Zoonen analyze gender in media text with semiology as the study of signs and signification. Semotics originated in studies of language. Gill states that, “It is both a theory and a method, and works by unpacking and making explicit meanings that we all – as lay semiotics – create through our engagement,” (45). As semiology is the science a signs it is important to understand what such signs mean. There are obvious and subliminal signs throughout media texts, music, flags and fashion. Such signs are arbitrary and certainly issue feminists see that needs to be covered by a red stop sign. Because such signs vary from ionic, indexical and symbolic codes get messaged. Due to the fact that encoding is such a great component to our culture it is important that such sign are decoded correctly and honestly analyzed as best as possible. Within advertisement we see constant signs constructed by myths. In advertising we can distinguish who was such advertisement intended for and how does the advertiser send the message successfully in such a short span of time. We see the meanings of such signs by the presentation of the ad.

In this Super bowl ad for Teleflora we this dark haired, thin, ethic women being completely hyper sexualized. As there are hints to this ad targeting men, in heterosexual couples, to purchase flowers. We know that this ad is for men not only because she is seen as a sex object but also she hints that the man should give his girlfriend flowers but there also hinting at the fact that he should also give her sexual pleasures. In another ad we see women discussing their participation in objectifying another woman by simply using her piece of paper to paint on her body. The women who are painting state their tactic as a way to draw attention to the ad with a woman’s body.  The only sign that I saw while watching these ads was STOP. That is exactly why while watch these commercials I spoke to my friends accompanying me about the objectification and the meaning to such signs.