Language Visual Essay

Every medium has its own language or combination of languages that it uses to communicate meaning. Television for example uses verbal and written languages as well as the languages of moving images and sound. We call these 'languages' because they use familiar codes and conventions that are generally understood by an audience.

Josh Fiske and Hartley
Suggest that ideology is the third meaning of signification combined from denotations and connotations. There is a strong connotation of women empowerment, this runs throughout the music video as the women are breaking the glass ceiling of having a job- which is the ideology and connotation but the denotation of this is that the women are breaking the gender stereotypes of how men normally have control over women and can have authority over them. This video challenges the generic conventions and certain ideologies. As the audience we see this challenging stereotype from the denotations and connotations, from the ideologies.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1931)
According to this philosopher, we think only in signs and they take form in words, images, sounds, odours, flavours, acts or objects but such things have no intrinsic meaning and become signs only when we invest them with a meaning. Signs can be interpreted in any way and it is the conventions that help the audience process and recognise signs in music videos and films. In artist’s song lyrics, they will have discrete particular signs for the audience to pick up and recognise, the artist uses certain lyrics that appeal to the target audience. For example in the Fifth Harmony’s ‘Worth it’ they would have had the lyrics set for that song to satisfy them and make them want to consume the artist’s music. The lyrics in this single are trying to get the audience to create an ideal world in their minds by just listening to the lyrics. 'Nothing is a sign unless it is interpreted as a sign'

Roland Barthes (1967)

Barthes noted that Saussure's model focuses on denotation rather than connotation. Therefore Barthes went on to offer an account of the importance of the connotation of a sign. He argued that in photography, connotation can be analytically distinguished from denotation. Related to this is what Barthes called a myth. He said that deeply rooted signs are based on audience expectations derived from prior knowledge of old tales or myths. In the Fifth Harmony’s music video ‘Worth it’ the connotations of the video would reflect the time period that it was produced in, which is 2015. In modern day pop music videos are all about fun, positive but also relatable.