THE PROBLEM OF PHOTOGRAPHIC MEANING IN ROLAND BARTHES: FROM DENOTATION TO DISCOURSE

Abstract

One of the most relevant topics in the theory of photography is the problem of photographic meaning. Within its framework, Peirce’s semiotics of the indexical and iconic sign, R. Barthes’ analysis of photographic messages, and the study of the photographic signified within social discursive practices are recognized as milestones and defining.
This article is devoted to the analysis of the peculiarities of understanding photographic meaning in R. Barthes. The main object of the study is two works of the theorist: “Photographic Message” and “Rhetoric of the Image”. The main methodological tools of Barthes’s analysis of the problem of meaning in a photograph were structural linguistics (denotation, connotation) and the categorical apparatus of information theory (code, message, source, recipient).
According to the theorist, two codes operate within the photographic message: denotative and connotative. The definition of the first of these is quite controversial, as it ranges from its complete denial to recognition as a kind of primary visual analogue of reality. The main purpose of the code is to be the basis of connotation. Connotative codes are not only much more numerous and contribute to the deepening of photographic meaning, but are also often used for certain ideological manipulative practices.
Potential mechanisms for deepening or limiting meanings are the addition of visual codes to verbal ones. The first is practiced within artistic photography through a certain tension and divergence between the signified of the visual and verbal codes. The second is actively used in various mass communications in order to form a meaning ideologically necessary for the sender.
An important influence on the formation of photographic meaning is also exerted by both the process of creating a photographic message and the act of perceiving it. How a photographic message is understood and read largely depends on its creators, who, through the choice of the subject of the photograph, the use of lighting, angle, and editing techniques, significantly push the recipient to form the desired meaning. However, given that each of us is a certain historically conditioned set of subjects, which manifests itself at the linguistic level through different idiolects, we are capable of significantly expanding the possible meaning of a photographic message.