Semiology is very important because it studies the language and sees it as a system. It makes a complete systematization of the language in which there is a sub-category called “langue” (differing from society to society). The
langue also has a sub-category – the speech or “parole”: the way each individual uses the langue.
Semiology does not consider the language as universal, in the way of being equal to all and also because it is a product of historical and social factors, which are different in each area of the world. Besides, language is also arbitrary.
Language is composed of signs.
signs are a representation of what we want to refer to and they are not the real thing. They are composed of a
signifier (the written word, the sound of the spoken word, a photograph, a drawing…) and a
signified (what we think when exposed to the signifier). For example, in the CNBC-E magazine cover that I chose, “Housewives”, as the written word, is a signifier and when we read it, the image which comes to our head is the signified (it can be, for instance, the image of one of the characters of the serial “Desperate Housewives” or a
woman with an apron, cleaning the house and cooking dinner).
Another example is the CNBC-E symbol, the bird with colours, in the left upper corner. This is a signifier for the channel, and that
channel is what we immediately think about when we see the drawing. This happens even when the name of the channel is not written. Of course this does not necessarily happens if the receptor does not share the same background as people familiarized with the Turkish television. In the same way as people inserted in different societies do not share the same langue. This happens because signs are arbitrary, in other words, the relation between signifier and signified does not correspond to the universe’s, mathematics’ or physics’ rules but to arbitrary convention which derives from the sociological and historical conditions. And words are signs, therefore language shares all the characteristics of the signs.
Sometimes one
sign is the signifier of other sign. And this other sign is the signifier of yet another sign and so on. This is the process which generates the myth. For example, the picture of Eva Langoria is the signifier for the image which appears in our minds of the actual Eva Langoria, the actress (signified). This sign is also a signifier for the signified of her character Gabrielle Solis. All of this constitutes a signifier for a beautiful and sexy housewife, an ex-model, rich, living in the United States of America, in an expensive house, in one of the best neighbourhoods. In its turn, this can be a signifier for domestic happiness: economic stability, good love and sex life.
In conclusion, working wives are no longer in fashion. What is, is the housewife who even in the middle of the day, while washing the dishes, wears a sexy outfit and looks like she just got out of the hair-dresser. A modern housewife with all the perks of a staying-at-home married respectable woman and all the advantages of a happy and well-off seducer. She does her chores but the always has time to give her husband a treat when he comes home from his high-paid job. And look how happy she it to see him! Perfect timing to take a photograph…
Which man would not just love to come home to (t)his Eva and which woman would not just love to be like her: beautiful, happy, rich, sexy, successful, all because she has time for herself, she does not have to worry getting up early to go to work or about job presentations for tomorrow. And because we can not always get what we would like to, without quite noticing, we trick ourselves into believing that if we watch her (even in the television), we will be a little bit closer and we will have a small taste of what her amazing life must fell like…
More summaries about the SEMIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CNBC-e MAGAZINE COVER JUNE 2006