Semiotics: A study of signs

A Semiotic Study on War Posters

Acknowledgement

This report wouldn’t have seen the light at the end of the tunnel had it not been forDr. Seema Khanwalkar who encouraged & challenged us & settled for nothing lessthan our best efforts.

Focus

The following study is set during the times of World War II when the bigger nationalpowers ‘sceptre’ed the world colosseum & used war propaganda to score high onthe sympathetic quotient of the nation & in turn the world. The focus of this study isto understand & analyze this phenomenon through the U.S. war propaganda & howthe super power used it to their advantage to turn tables amongst the global audi-ence.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis statement for the entire study is ‘

USA used propaganda posters dur-ing the war with subliminal texts so that the civilians would get influenced, in turnmobilizing opinion the way the ‘thought leaders’ had anticipated’.

Introduction

A historical backdrop

The face of human kind got a deep ridden scar in 1945 when the universal mayhemnamed World War II came to an end with the explosion of an atom bomb in the Ja-panese territory of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. The world wide turmoil which commencedin the late 1939, divided the world into two powers viz. Allies & Axis till the unfortu-nate event happened in the Asian quarter of the world. The Allies emerged victori-ous & as a result United States of America & the Soviet Union grew to be super-powers of the world. Their quest for global dominance left their clothes stained with

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: Karan Chandna (e7019), Komal Lath (e7023), Kshitij Pandey(e7024), Niyati Sharma (e7036), Rajeesh R. (e7041), Shradha Agarwal (e7056),Subhamoy Das (e7058), Varun Attrey (e7062)

Semiotics: A study of signsthe blood of innocent civilians across the globe. However, in order to have an upperhand in the political arena as well, these superpowers resorted to use of lens, propa-ganda & dynamic war journalism in order to mobilize the masses. Propagandaposters were deployed in order ‘to paint the town red’ so as to capture nation’s mil-itary triumph over axial powers around the world so as to connect with the patriotic& sympathetic side of people back home. To cut the story short, the United States of America went in with full gusto to propagate a general hatred & an implied supportfor the nation’s military forces campaign towards world dominance.

Why have we chosen this topic?

Semiotics as an application can be extended to the fabric of many…in-fact everysphere. We decided to test waters on our knowledge of semiotics by applying it tosome very basic visual texts like posters. It is not unknown that United States of America had been acting the Big daddy of all nations and the World War II just ce-mented the power structure of that nation. However such global supremacy neces-sitated mass killing in the other, poorer countries, which needed to be put in a com-pletely different light to fellow citizens to garner political support. As a result of which, the photographs of mass suffering in the Asian lands of Hiroshima & Naga-saki post the ‘Atom Bomb’ incident were suppressed in the US media circles & thetriumph of their military coups were projected to a ‘Herculean’ pedestal. The meansof propaganda were many…journalism, posters, photographs etc. In our opinion wewanted to analyze how a very basic medium like posters could also be semioticallyanalyzed to convey rich, deep yet latent meanings. It was an interesting thing tonote the play of form, visual imagery and paradigms that cohesively gave way to analtogether new construction of meaning…the way USA wanted so as to justify theirbrutalities and negate Nazi Germany & other Axial powers.

Methodology

The methodology adopted to analyze the posters, (refer appendix) that were issuedby the US government to mobilize the masses in their own country, would restrictthe universe of our analysis within the quadrangle of signification, paradigms asso-ciated, denotations & connotations & finally iconification. The posters would be ana-

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: Karan Chandna (e7019), Komal Lath (e7023), Kshitij Pandey(e7024), Niyati Sharma (e7036), Rajeesh R. (e7041), Shradha Agarwal (e7056),Subhamoy Das (e7058), Varun Attrey (e7062)

Semiotics: A study of signslyzed under the lights of the signifiers in the posters & in turn what did it signify forthe general public, the paradigms associated which are communicated through thegenerous use of codes & symbols, the denotative & connotative meanings of theseposters & finally the negative iconic quotient imparted upon the axial powers to putthem in the bad eye of the general public so as to justify mass killing in these partsof the world.

Analysis

This analysis concerns a semiotic analysis of posters whose similarity is based onthe fact that all concern the posters prepared as propaganda by the USA (In con- junction with the Allied powers) to coerce the Axial powers, and all were found inthe within the textual context of war posters.We therefore present a ‘semiotic deconstruction’ of the posters that have beenchosen (please refer to the Annexure) in terms of their status as signs, whose asso-ciative meanings not only gave a favourable impression of the country, but also thesublime power context in which they were situated and highlighted; thus illustratingUmberto Eco's claim that the medium and message may be 'charged with culturalsignification’.

Paradigms

The use of Umberto Eco’s theory is very significant in this regard as the ‘paradigm’in which the war posters have been based, are heavily influenced by the socialparadigms (the angst against USA which was rising and therefore to mellow it, Ger-many was made to look like a devilish country) , economic paradigms (the economicunrest). The medium being posters used for propaganda and the message being‘exuding power by USA among the nation and the rest of the world through sings,symbols, iconography etc.

Iconography and Codification through symbols…Signifiedand signifier

Submitted by

: Karan Chandna (e7019), Komal Lath (e7023), Kshitij Pandey(e7024), Niyati Sharma (e7036), Rajeesh R. (e7041), Shradha Agarwal (e7056),Subhamoy Das (e7058), Varun Attrey (e7062)