I produced a racing car game and I created a dominant signifier image that all genders would be intrigued to play. In my games cover there is a connotation within the image to explain how there are varies of car games and alongside with a story line. This might target the audience more as people enjoy taking part in the story rather than just playing the game as it wont be as interesting. The only production there is a clear focus on my female character and the racing cars. This can be identified in the posture that I created for my main character, it is a slumped, which when I tested it on my target audience they recognised as “a typical female character!”.

Further to this I have exaggerated the feminine attributes of my character with thin arms, legs and torso. I also included clothing that was simple but intriguing and comfortable. In some ways this inverts Laura Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze in that my main character is there to be objectified and looked at, in the words of Laura Mulvey she is a character “establishing ways of looking and spectacle” (Mulvey, p. 883, 1999). However, the notion of the male gaze is quite distinct as it relates to the sexualisation of the dominant signifier, which is not the case for my character as I am trying to keep the game clean.

Nevertheless, I believe that it is generally accepted in society that females should be seen as less violent and aggressive rather than males. This is because there have been many games that males tend to save the mistresses in distress, however i also believe that females can be portrayed as how they want to be as they all have different personality’s. Therefore my games cover is a radical image for my main character and my dominant signifier is the car as it stands out to everyone who will play the game as you can simply tell what sort of game it is.

I think this is a positive image as I think that it influences females that they can do whatever they enjoy and shouldn’t be ashamed of something they are not capable of doing. This is also seen as saying males are better drivers than females. My games cover represents to all genders as i think society has a wide range of ideology, however I disagree to agree that, ‘yes’, there are more things that males are better at doing but that doesn’t mean that females weak and always in distress. I avoided the stereotypical of representation so that my image would stay radical rather than reactionary. The reason for creating a female character is because I want to target my audience to all genders without having to sexualise my character.

Semiotics:

1. Sign – Possible to stand for something else
2. Code – Technical and Symbolic codes
3. Convention – the general ways of doing something
4. Dominant Signifier, – Something that stands out
5. Anchorage – an image with context to give meaning

Ferdinand de Saussure:

1. Signifier, – the material form, seen, heard, touch etc
2. Signified, – the mental concept

C S Pierce:

1. Icon, – looks like the object
2. Index, – something that relates to the object
3. Symbol – random link to the object, numbers, colours, alphabets

Roland Barthes:

1. Signification, – a code that we read
2. Denotation, – a description of what you can see in the image
3. Connotation – the meaning we have with the image
4. Myth – to communicate cultural and political meanings
5. Ideology, – a world view of how society should function
6. radical – challenges dominants ideas
7. reactionary – confirming dominants ideas

1. Paradigm – create differentiation in meaning
2. Syntagma – an orderly combination of interacting signifiers which forms a meaningful whole