Who produces images?

Sturken, M., Cartwright, L. 2009. Practices of Looking (2nd Ed.) Producers Intended Meanings. New York: Oxford University Press. [pp.52-56]

What is an Author?
Michel Foucault 1979

The author function

Author = Authority?

 Roland Barthes The Death of the Author 1967

There is no ultimate authorial meaning for readers to uncover in the text

 Once the author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes futile. Finding the author explains the text victory to the critic. Writing suggests meaning only to evaporate it. (The author and the critic are both undermined.) Refusing to assign an ultimate meaning to a text is revolutionary it refuses God; reason, science, law.

 Stuart Hall Dominant Hegemonic Negotiated Oppositional (Practices of Looking pp72-73)

Further reading
Sturken, M., Cartwright, L. 2009. Practices of Looking (2nd Ed.) Reception and the Audience. New York: Oxford University Press. [pp.75-82]