ANALYSIS OF VISUAL IMAGES

Adapted from Roland Barthes, “Rhetoric of the Image” (1977)

In Roland Barthes' classic essay on the analysis of advertising images, he uses two terms
to name the primary kinds of meaning conveyed by linguistic and visual signs:

denotation is the dictionary meaning of the sign or word; it denotes something in the real
world
connotation is the culture- and context-dependent associations that are conveyed by the
sign or word.

He identifies three kinds of message within the image:

1. The linguistic message (the text, present in the caption and elsewhere), comprising
a denoted linguistic message (the dictionary meaning)
a connoted linguistic message (the associative meaning)

2. The symbolic message or connoted visual image:

is the visual, non-linguistic part of the image that conveys an associative, connoted
meaning.

3. The literal message or denoted visual image:

is the image that represents only itself, so the signifier and the signified are the same. The
literal message of the denoted image, within the overall image structure, works to
“naturalize” the symbolic message of the connoted elements, by suggesting that there is
no ideology at work in the image and that it is “ neutral ,” “ innocent, ” and “ realistic. ”

The multiplicity of potential meanings made available by the complex image (through the
interplay of denotation and connotation in the linguistic and non-linguistic messages) are
controlled by two functions:
1. Anchorage – where the linguistic text is used to focus on one particular meaning or
to direct the viewer to one dominant meaning;
2. Relay – where the linguistic text works with the visual imagery to focus on an overt
meaning.