Visual Approaches to the Media

Question 1

Barthe’s semiotic approach
- Aiello and Parry

Answer 1

• Constructing meaning from visual text/media
• Images function as tools for persuasion

Question 2

Methods discussed in visual communication (Aiello and Parry)

Answer 2

Content analysis, semiotics, discourse analysis, social semiotics, visual rhetoric, visual framing analysis

Question 3

Different parts of visual analysis

Answer 3

Production: ‘The makers’ - the industries themselves
Image itself: Visual, content, text
Circulation: Platforms, technologies but not looking at an image for the first time. E.g picture of ‘the fist’ and how its meaning has transformed over time
Audiencing: visual reception and renegotiation - encoding/decoding process, how does the audience receive its information and reinterpret it?
–> Recontextualisation: How do they get recirculated on different platforms?

Question 4

Understanding visual images and their meaning

Answer 4

Focusing on their abundance in their media, focus on content AND platform, possible meaning, intended ideas, cultural aspects: issues and debates

Question 5

Semiotics

Answer 5

The study of signs: Signified vs signifier
E.g: tree - do people imagine the same thing? What meaning is shared by humanity? What symbols do we all share and understand?

Question 6

Signified vs signifier

Answer 6

Signifier: form of the sign - E.g colours, shapes etc.
Signified: The concept or idea it represents - E.g the idea of a tree

Question 7

Denotation and connotation
- Barthes

Answer 7

Denotation: First order of signification - what is objectively is (literal meaning of an image, immediate meaning and what does it represent)
E.g ad of pasta is literally pasta
Connotation: Second order of signification - symbolic or ideological meaning of image
- This corresponds with cultural codes
Cultural/ personal meaning: cozy dinner nights with family, date-night
E.g Connotated meaning of pasta: Italianicity, ‘essence of being Italian’, must work in culture - ad is published in U.S or France, works there, but not in Italy where ad looks commercialised

Question 8

Signified and signifier vs.
Denotation and connotation

Answer 8

Signified and signifier are the study of symbols and meaning