Sunday 8 November 2009

Essay Re-Draft




In this essay I will be deconstructing these two images by using the process of Semiotics, Binary Opposites and Symbolism. During one of our media lessons we learnt all about Semiotics, Semiotics, is the study of signs we use Semiotics when deconstructing photos like these because we can see if any of these photos have gone through a mediation process and in some cases we get to find out the significance of the photos and their true meaning. Charles Sanders Pearce was the founder of the philosophical doctrine known as pragmatisim.
We also learnt about Binary Oppositions, binary opposition is a pair of theoretical opposites. In structuralism it is seen as a fundamental organizer of human philosophy, culture, and language. In the mid-20th century, two major European academic thinkers, Claude Levi Strauss and Roland Barthes thought that the way we understand certain words depends not so much on any meaning they themselves,
The final thing we learnt about within this lesson was Symbolism; Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent things such as ideas and emotions. Symbolism is sometimes used to refer specifically to symbols that stand on their own.
The Statue Of Liberty is the heart of America, it gave immigrants a sense of well being and safety and hope of a better life, its something Americans look to for guidance and it reminds people of how fortunate they are to have gained there Independence. However on September 11th 2001 two hijacked planes launched into the twin towers shattering Americas hope and creating fear and panic amongst the nation. The main Binary Opposition within this photo is that of hope and fear the light shining on the Statue could almost be seen as Godly as if God is saying you will get through this, however there is part of this photo that makes me think why? why did this photographer decide to take this photo in this why? why did he decided to document this particular part of New York on September 11th and not the actual scene itself?