Signifier - Signified

February 2016

Roland Barthes (1977) The rhetoric of the image (pp269-282)

Source 
http://98.131.80.43/home/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/barthes_rhetoricofimage.pdf

accessed 16th February 2016 

Find an advert from a magazine, newspaper or the internet, which has some clearly identifiable signs. Using the example above to help you, list the signs. What are the signifiers? What is the signified? Read Barthes' essay to help you clarify your understanding of these principles. OCA course material

Main points from essay:

• "In advertising the signification of the image is undoubtedly intentional; the signification of the advertising message are formed a priori by certain attributes of the product and these signifieds have to be transmitted as clearly as possible." (Barthes 1977)

• My understanding is that a signifier is the physical form of the advert, for example the peppers in the string bag with the pasta on a red background. The signified is what it means to the viewer.This could imply healthy, "fresh" ingredients forming part of a balanced diet.

• Barthes described a linguistic message as being a coded or non coded iconic message, meaning that both were read together with a cultural and perceptual message. The linguistic message may be text and is usually constant. Text tends to be linked to the image to anchor the product. Barthes describes signifiers as being a "floating chain" of signifieds.They can be dysfunctional as in a play (polysemous) where the viewer can choose the meaning. The text helps to fix the floating chain by making it relevant to today's culture by identifying the "elements of the scene and the scene itself." e.g a recipe with a title helps to fix the gaze, understanding and level of perception.

• A symbolic message relies on interpretation from proliferation or dysphoria (opposite of euphoria.

• Using Barthes example of a jar of jam (d'Arcy preserves), the caption reads "as if from your own garden." This banishes a possible signified frugal harvest and makes the viewer think of home grown and fresh compared to it being artificial. The meaning is chosen in advance for the viewer because they are directed through the looking. The text is repressive and the morality and ideology of society are invested into it.

• Anchorage is found in press photos, adverts, cartoons and comic strips.

• In advertising, the literal meaning is never pure because you can't remove signs of connotation (ideas or feelings). The photograph is a literal meaning showing the relationship of the signifiers to signified by capturing the image mechanically. Drawing would add in or miss out certain things depending on what the artist wanted to show. With a photograph, there is a sense of having been there. Space / time, here / now, real / unreal. Photo is not an illusion or magic trick but a film could be. "The denoted image naturalizes the symbolic message, it innocents the semantic artifice of connotation, which is extremely dense, especially in advertising."e.g Panzani advert - being there, pseudo truth, nature. "the more technology develops the diffusion of information (and notably of images) the more it provides the means of masking the constructed meaning under the appearance of the given meaning."

• The third message (symbolic) was discontinuous panzani advert - string bag - plenty of fishes, from cultural code. So the message will reach out to different people based on their cultural understanding or attitudes. Must also include surprises -e.g italianicity - made up word but gives the viewer an idea.

Cosmopolitan March 2016

It appears this product was launched last year (March 2015). The subbrand is the first product within the Muller Light range to use the twin pot. Coley Porter Bell's design brief was "to create a concept which clearly differentiates the brand from other products in the Mullerlight range."

 http://www.thedrum.com/news/2015/03/09/m-ller-introduces-new-m-llerlight-goodies-range-following-uptick-sales Accessed 16th February 2016)