After reading "Semioties and Television" by Ellen Seiter I was momentarily thrown off by all the rhetoric but I was able to wrap my head around the the theory. I think of symbols within the forms of media we interact with as things that hold meaning. Symbols can be used for foreshadowing and also to identify something to the viewer that calls our attention. I want to use my one of m favorite shows to explain how I understand signfiers. "Breaking Bad" is a show aired on AMC network. The plot of the show for those who do not know it, pertains to an over-qualified chemistry teacher named Walter White who discovers he has cancer and uses his intelligence to become a crystal meth manufacturer to provide his family financial stability before he dies. Walter White starts off in the series as gentle family man, however as time passes and his prominence as a great meth cooker becomes established his character evolves into this persona of Heisenberg (his drug alter ego). I noticed that when Walt had to go from family man to meth lord he's put on this black porkpie hat. Throughout the series I noticed that this hat was a symbol for his transformation. What started as gentle high school teacher turned into a manipulative mastermind. The black hat to me signified that Walter White was no longer on screen but rather Heisenberg. The Heisenberg porkpie hat could be categorized as an iconic symbol. Because "the structural resemblances involved in iconic signs must be learned, and with TV images this involves learning to recognize many conventions of representation"(Seiter,22). This simple hat became a representation of Walter's character transformation throughout the series and was only seen when he was involved with crystal meth business.
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