Semiotics: Identifying the Text

What's a Text?

Daniel Chandler's Questions:

Wherever possible, include a copy of the text with your analysis of it, noting any significant shortcomings of the copy. Where including a copy is not practicable, offer a clear description which would allow someone to recognize the text easily if they encountered it themselves.
Briefly describe the medium used, the genre to which the text belongs and the context in which it was found.

Need to know about...

1. The Medium Used

What is a medium? We speak about these in the plural (media), as if they are all the same thing, but they aren't.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of the medium used?
Why was this particular medium chosen, rather than another?
Has this sort of text changed given the change of media over time? For instance, has an album changed in the move from LPs, to 8-tracks, to cassettes, to CDs? Since the emergence of videos or MuchMusic?

Examples:

2. The Genre

Introduction to Genre Theory: Daniel Chandler
- Genre Analysis DIY
- Taxonomies of Genres
Film Genres - by a critic

Outline the common features of the following genres:
Sitcom
Cop show/movie
Thriller
Spy book/movie (or more specifically, James Bond)
Horror movies (or more specifically, sub-genres of horror: vampire, zombie, alien, slasher, etc.)
Reality TV show
What type of material does the genre deal with?
How are these common features signalled to you? What are the formal features of the genre?
If the genre is visual, how does the visuality help to tell the story?
What assumptions are you supposed to have, in any particular genre? Can you think of examples where a director or actor "goes against" genre?
What responses are expected of you?
How does the genre change through history, and is it related to wider cultural meanings?

Examples:

Umberto Eco's "grammar" of Bond stories
What's the genre of this image: http://www.francescomorante.it/images/316a2.jpg

3. The Context

In what context was the text found? What is "around" it? What is the social situation in which you experienced the text, or in which the makers of the text assumed that it would be experienced?

How have some texts changed given the shift in their expected context of experience? E.g., have movies changed since the advent of videos? How about since the advent of DVDs?