REPRESENTATION

1. Roland Barthes Mythologies (1964): state what you learned about his approach and how you 'read' this image. 

This is a quote from Roland Barthes explaining his views on the image:"I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young Negro in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore again faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a purposeful mixture of Frenchness and militariness); finally, there is a presence of the signified through the signifier... In myth (and this is the chief peculiarity of the latter), the signifier is already formed by the signs of the language... Myth has in fact a double function: it points out and it notifies, it makes us understand something and it imposes it on us..." (Barthes 1964)Personally

 I agree with Barthes that, the meaning of the picture is everything that you can physically see with your eyes, but that you can also see more if you look deeper into the message of the image. Again agreeing with Barthes that its showing that France is an Empire that does not there is no colour discrimination as anyone can salute the French flag. From this exercise I have learnt that it is important to look at an images meaning in the media, what you can physically see and why they have wanted you to see it in this way. Then you also have to be aware that there can be a message behind the things you can physically see and how the publisher would want his image to be interpreted. 


2. This Panzani avdertisment is an example of a denotation, it persuades the viewers that the product if fresh and almost home cooked produce although it is just a dry and tinned products. Some ways that is effect is carried out is by firstly placing the products in a while string bag making it look as if the food has been purchased from a local market. Furthermore, at the bottom of the string bag there is a selection of fresh looking produce including tomatoes, mushrooms and potatoes this helps the publisher convince the viewers that the product is as fresh as vegetables brought from a fresh market stool. Plus the way that the product is flowing out from the bag makes it seem as tho they have brought so much of it that it does not fit in one bag making it seem popular and that other people will enjoy the product. Finally the method of using the Italian colours for the logo of the brand makes the product again look more wholesome, natural, homemade and fresh. 

This is a still from Silver Linings Playbook.  This image,shows that the two dancers in white are ammeter in comparison to the others. We know this by firstly what the man is wearing ( ordinary suit trousers and a white shirt) where as the other male dancers in the background are wearing flared dance trousers and sparkly black silk shirts. Furthermore another way that the two dancers in the middle look out of place and ammeter is the way they are reacting to their scores, their arms are lifted and they are shouting with joy. Due to the reactions of the people around them and the location this is not the way you react and behave at a formal event. Likewise one of the more professional looking dancers has his man on the mans shoulder as a sign of comfort as their scores from the judges are low where as the dancers show the opposite and are extremely happy and excited by their score showing they are not at the standard of the other dancers.