The Power of Emojis

While reading Ellen Seiter's "Semiotics and Television," at the beginning, I was just so confused about the theories being presented in what I was reading.  I couldn't grasp the topic that the author was trying to persuade to her readers. I had to of been over thinking it.  I had to of been over-analyzing the material too much.

For her basic example, she used the word "rain." Now, I know what the word "rain" means, so does everybody else, but when she incorporated her semiotics to the word it just threw me off track even more.  I couldn't understand that there is possibly more than one definition to the simple word, "rain."

She was explaining to her readers that each letter of the word "rain" is the signifier, and the whole meaning of the word, well, that was the signified.  After reading that particular part in the reading, I sort of had a clue, but I was still shaky on the whole concept.   

I knew I had to make sense of all of this, so I kept on reading, and studying the material to get a nice hold of the theory.

Finally, after feeling confused as all hell, I made sense of the idea…well Seiter helped me make sense of the idea.  

As Seiter states, there are multiple definitions to the word "rain."  Like she says, "The signified is meaningful because of its difference from sprinkle, drizzle, downpour, monsoon."  I feel that as she said that, it all sort of started to make sense.

To help myself out, I started to generally think about rain.  I've seen rain, obviously, and I've seen it in different "forms" too.  When it's drizzling, it's raining.  When there is a massive downpour, that is still considered raining too.  

I then wanted to find an good example for myself to base this theory off of.  I looked no further to my iPhone 5.  I am one to use emojis all the time; I use them to create emotion, and set a tone through my texts.

"Flushed-Face"

This particular emoji right above is a great example of semiotics.  Even though it is one solid face, it can be used in several different situations, meaning that it has more than one meaning.  The sign is the face with wide eyes, blushed cheeks, and a straight mouth.  The signified interpretation of this emoji can go in several different directions as well.  To me, I use this emoji as a tone of embarrassment, being alarmed at a situation, the classic “Oh shit I’m in trouble”, or finally, the “I made a mistake”.