Lecture 9: Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes, 1915 – 1980, was a French literary theorist, writer, philosopher and academic. His main writing pieces were written during the period of 1950 – 1960.

The main pieces of work that we focused on during today’s lecture were The Photographic Message, 1961, and The Rhetoric of the image, 1964. He proposed a way of ‘reading’ photographs based on a theory of semiotics.

What is semiotics?

·      Semiotics is understanding how language

·      ‘signs’ can be words, pictures, or symbols

·      analysing meanings by looking at the signs.

Semiotics reveal the hidden nature of verbal and visual communication.

Key theorists that used semiotics were Charles S. Peirce, 1839 – 1914, Ferdinand de Saussure, 1857 – 1913, and Roland Barthes.

Aspects of study in semiotics

1.     the sign itself (word or image)

2.     the codes or systems into which signs are organised (language)

3.     the culture within these codes and signs operate

Peirce’s icon, index, symbol:

Icon is the physical resemblance, visual. Index is the visual and audible, sensory feature e.g. smoke = index of fire. Symbol signifies the force of convention.

Saussure’s signifier and signified. ‘dyadic or two-part model of the sign

Eamples:

an ‘OPEN’ sign

Signifier – the word open

Signified concept – the shop is open for business.

‘Cat’

Signifier – the word cat

Signified – a four-legged, furry animal, usually kept as a pet.

The signifier doesn’t relate to a single individual. If the relation between the signifier and the signified is only defined by convention, then meaning or significance means socially nd historically constructed.

Barthes adapts the linguistic science of semiotics and uses it to interrogate culture. He makes the distinction between ‘messages’ and ‘codes’

The message is a singular unit of discourse (picture or writing) and the code is the abstraction created by the reader – reconstructed from the material provided by the message.

He argues that the distinction messages and codes is problematic when we deal with a photograph. The ‘reality effect’ of photographs e.g. “realism” makes appear “natural” rather than socially and historically constructed.

There are other messages without codes – drawings, paintings, cinema and theatre. Analogues* of reality. (* comparable, similar, related)

Photographs seem to carry a single message – denotated.  

Due to the ‘reality effect’ we are in danger of not realising the code of an image. Photographs appear to be objective and factual.

Photography paradox is without code – denotation and with code – connotation.  

Denotation is literally depicted elements in the photograph and the connotation suggested by the depiction to the viewer: extra association by knowledge or culture.

Forms of connotation:

1.     perceptive connotation – seeing and understanding (first look)

2.     cognitive connotation – factual elements

3.     ideological and ethnical connotation – elements or strongest and most complex messages

Walker Evans
A Graveyard and Steel Mill in Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaNovember, 1935

            Denotate: houses, cross, grave yard, power lines, industrial

            Connotation: life then work then death.

Photographic connotation’s six forms:

1.     pose

2.     objects

3.     aestheticism

4.     trick effects

5.     syntax

6.     ‘photogenia’

The Rhetoric of the Image

Hidden messages – adverts – three messages.