Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Appendix 1
Methodology of analysis
The purpose of this appendix is to present the methodology used to analyse the films
and comics in this research. As discussed in the introduction, comics and cinema are
similar enough to analyse them using the same tools. However, as might seem obvious,
we should be aware of the differences and consider them at the moment of the analysis.
Films and comics were considered as ‘text’, understanding them as ‘a network
of different messages depending on different codes and working at different levels of
signification’. 1 Referring specifically to comics, the text is ‘a collection of units-
sentences or panels. This means that, between one unit and the next, there is an
interruption, a white space, in which something is left out’. 2
If films and comics are texts, then according to Umberto Eco, they were created
in order to be interpreted by someone else (the reader, the audience). 3 The criteria for
interpretation starts by knowing what the target is, otherwise it would not be possible to
know what to look for or how to find it. 4 When examining the films and comics, the
idea was to find acts of humour which were social and politically critical. With the
ability to recognise an act of humour, and by knowing the context in which they were
created, so the approach was to look for specific acts of humour which addressed social
and political concerns.
An interpretive analysis with a semiotic perspective seems ideal to combine the
theory of humour, the historical context in which the films were created, and the
1
Umberto Eco, The Role of the Reader. Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts (London: Hutchinson,
1987), p. 5.
2
Mario Saraceni, The Language of Comics (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 51
3
Eco, The Role of the… p. 4.
4
Francesco Casetti and Federico di Chio, Cómo analizar un film, trad. by. Carlos Losilla (Barcelona:
Paidós Comunicación, 2007), p. 25.