Roland Barthes: Decoding Images and Image Rhetoric — Explained

Author: Lesley Lanir

· How do images hold and convey meaning?

· How do we understand them?

· What are they trying to say?

· How do they persuade and influence us?

Roland Barthes deconstructed a Panzani advertising image and extracted the types of messages contained within it in order to illustrate the ‘rhetoric’ of the image. Though advertisements have a deliberate ‘signification’ or meaning generated in order to sell a product, Barthes’ analyses can be used to understand how messages are conveyed in other types of images.

Decoding the Image

When looking at the overall sign of the advert, the reader understands from its composition and its placement in a magazine that it is an advertisement. However, beyond this, the Panzini advert sends three types of messages: the linguistic message and two types of iconic message.

Linguistic Messages: The Text or Captions

Within the linguistic message, which is the caption, the copy, or the title, are two types of messages at work:
a) The denoted message, which is the literal meaning of the labels on the produce — in this case the name of the company, Panzani.
b) The connoted message, which is the sociocultural and ‘personal’ associations drawn from the label or text. For example, the word ‘Panzani’ in the illustration…