Roland Barthes (Semiotician)

Roland Barthes was a French theorist and Semiotician (study of cultural signs and symbols).

He described text as: "a galaxy of signifiers, not a structure of signifieds; it has no beginning; it is reversible; we gain access to it by several entrances, none of which can be authoritatively declared to be the main one; the codes it mobilizes extend as far as the eye can read, they are indeterminable...the systems of meaning can take over this absolutely plural text, but their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language..."

Barthes stated that text can be either 'open' or 'closed', in my case my text would be open as the whole production would tend to leave audiences asking questions as opposed to being given a conclusion.

Linguist Roland Barthes narrowed down the action of a text in to Five Codes which are woven into any narrative:

• The Hermeneutic Code (HER) - Is the way the story avoids telling the truth or revealing all the facts, in order to drop clues in through out to help create mystery.

• The Enigma/ Proairetic Code (ACT) - The way the tension is built up and the audience is left guessing what happens next.

• The Symbolic Code (SYM) - This is very similar to the Semantic Code, but acts at a wider level, organizing semantic meanings into broader and deeper sets of meaning. This is typically done in the use of antithesis, where new meaning arises out of opposing and conflict ideas.

• The Cultural Code (REF) - Looks at the audiences wider cultural knowledge, morality and ideology.

• The Semantic Code (SEM) - The semantic code points to any element in a text that suggests a particular, often additional meaning by way of connotation which the story suggests.

PC vs. Mac:

Narrative - Closed

Action Code - Wanting to see PC's movie after seeing Mac's

Enigma Code - What the 'movies' will look like

Semantic - Clothes giving additional meaning

Cultural - What IT males and models are seen as 

Symbolic - Models and Macs top of the tree

Binary opposities - Young vs. Old, Trendy vs. Smarter

Audience - Young people and visual things

Codes that connect to my AS Production:

Firstly, my production's narrative would be open as he whole production would tend to leave audiences asking questions as opposed to being given a conclusion. Secondly, cultural codes would be involved in my movie from a religious perspective as some religions such as Islam look down on factors such as suicide and the consumption of drugs. An action code could also be seen as the whole movie keeps the audience questioning who was really behind the murder and who's framing the main character.