In the reading, “Semiotics and Television,” by Ellen Seiter, the author discusses the definition of semiotics as “the study of everything that can be used for communication.” In class, we discussed how semiotics analyzes how meanings are created and determined that there a signs that go along with everything. What I took from the discussion was that meanings are in the signs and not in the words or the thing itself, which is something I think about often. It baffles me that the entire population, or at the very least, the vast majority of society, follow the rules and meanings assigned to words or objects, with little to no objection. While I was watching TV, I saw an advertisement for Bruce Rauner during a commercial break. On the screen, there was an image of the politician’s wife, saying, “I’m a life-long Democrat and I’m voting for Bruce Rauner.” In this 20 second advertisement, semiotics strongly comes into play. First off, the image is of Diana Rauner leaning against her kitchen counter, with a clean, white back-drop. Like we discussed in class, there is a detonation and a connotation with signs. In this example, the denotation is the obvious, the white background. The connotation could be that the neutral and clean background represent class and a clean agenda perhaps, since this is a political campaign. Another example of semiotics in this advertisement is the statement itself. I interpreted the reading to mean that words are empty without our signifiers behind it. Diana Rauner’s statement lies in the context that her husband is going to do great things, such great things that she, a Democrat, is even going to vote for him, a Republican. The commercial is a great example of an iconic sign, since it resembles the expected attitudes of voters (or the signified), but uses Diana Rauner as a symbol of a voter (or the signifier).