Hello everyone.
I'm trying to select the optimal approach to my research study and I'm having some doubts about solely using semiotics. My plan is to carry out a semiotic analysis on a small selection of visual texts (video ads), however I intend to not only analyse the mise-en-scène, sound, and camerawork, but also examine the text that appears on screen and what the voiceover says throughout the length of the commercials.
Thus, my question would be if I look at let's call them verbal aspects, would that mean I will also have to adopt discourse analysis or rhetorical analysis as a research method along semiotics? I'm asking this because I feel like a semiotic analysis would only help me to uncover the visual meaning and if I look at 'written text' I should employ a different approach. But on the other hand, I'm not trying to go in depth with the analysis. I would say that much of what I would do would involve an interpretation, similar to analysing a metaphor.
Thank you in advance for your answers. Any help is appreciated.
You may need an eclectic approach and keep an open mind about discourse methods and tools that can help you carry out a thorough analysis. As such, you can analyze the written text from a purely discourse perspective. However, I suspect that an in-depth examination is indispensable.
I suggest you try applying some stylometric methods to the texts you wish to analyse. As these are video ads, I assume they won’t be very long. These methods may help you uncover collocation links between words that can possibly serve you as a springboard for your interpretations.
Hi Adelina, you could also adopt a theory that enables you to do both video and audio. Or you could use a mixture of semiotics and rhetorical analysis. Sounds like you are on the right track. Best of luck with your research :)
Hello Adelina, I suggest social semiotics first, and if you are looking for ideologies, you can add a critical discourse analysis approach. And lexicometric approches like Quantitative Discourse Analysis should be a plus to highlight representations, stereotypes and ideologies.
Good luck
Just a follow-up for this question in case someone else is dealing with the same dilemma. I decided to use multimodal discourse analysis or alternatively, I was told I can use discourse analysis in combination with social semiotics. But the former kind of incorporates the last so choose MDA. If you decide to use MDA you can read articles/books from O’Halloran, respectively Kress and van Leeuwen.
In the field of semiotics, spoken and written texts are studied in relation to the semantics of the image, and to what extent the written text is semantically and metaphorically homogeneous with the image. And the most important idea is to study staging as well as photography and sounds and to what extent they relate to the written text, and does the image refer to the text or vice versa?
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Methodology
- Research Methodology
- Qualitative Research