This week’s reading is Rhetoric Of The Image by Roland Barthes. In the article, Roland Barthes uses semiotics to analyze all kinds of information contained in Panzani advertisements.

Roland Barthes divides the information in Panzani advertisements into three types

1, The linguistic message； The linguistic message refers to the text in the advertisement, which is used to guide the audience to understand the image because the image contains many meanings. If there is no text to expand a specific meaning on the image (or product), the advertisement will not be easy to be understood by the audience. In addition to guiding the audience, the text can also add meaning to the image. An excellent text can echo with the image, so as to add meaning to the image through the text. In the advertisement of Panzani, the linguistic message mainly comes from the label on Panzani products and the slogan in the lower right corner. This information let the audience know that this is an advertisement for Panzani products. Roland Barthes also mentioned that the word ‘Panzani’ connotes italianicity in his article. At first, I didn’t understand why the word is italianicity, but after I heard the pronunciation of “Panzani” and “Italy” in French after Google translation, I found that the pronunciation of these two words in French is very similar, That’s why Roland Barthes (he is French) wrote the word ‘Panzani’ is connotes italianicity in his article. From this point, we can see that the linguistic message has certain limitations because it requires the audience to understand this language and text that the linguistic message can play a role. If you don’t know French you probably don’t understand why the author said the word ‘Panzani’ is connotes Italianicity

2, The literal message; The literal message refers to the surface information in the advertisement that the audience sees without deep thinking. When the audience sees an image or advertisement, in fact, the human brain has analyzed and understood the image, because human beings will see all kinds of things when they grow up, and then give them a meaning or name. For example, in the advertisement, we see tomatoes, which is the result of the brain’s thinking, because if there is no thinking at all, it is just a red sphere. This primary thinking is hard to stop because it happens automatically unless it’s an infant or someone with amnesia. So the literal message refers to the information you see without deep thinking, such as tomatoes, onions, spaghetti, cans, and so on. Although we know what these things are, they still belong to information without its meaning. There are actually many kinds of media about the literal message, such as painting and photography. I think the literal message can even be text or sound. However, Roland Barthes believes that photography is the only medium that can not add other information to things, but I don’t fully agree, because I think the artificially set light and the photographer’s photography method will still add other information to the thing. I think the media that can see the most “pure” information may be that people see things directly through their eyes, but this is still not the most “pure” information, Because people are sometimes changeable, different physical conditions and moods may also add additional information to things.

3, The symbolic message; The symbolic message refers to the audience’s deep thinking through the surface information in the advertisement, so as to obtain the deep information in the advertisement. In Panzani’s advertisement, Roland Barthes analyzed four signs. For example, the half-open net bag symbolizes the return of the market; Tomatoes and peppers represent Italy; All kinds of food represent a complete cooking process; The composition in the advertisement is reminiscent of still life. Although Roland Barthes only analyzed four signs, there may not be only four or less than four in this advertisement, which is related to the thinking of the audience. I think there are many hidden meanings in an image, but it’s not entirely up to the author who created the image, but rather how the audience thinks about the image. For example, a person randomly takes a photo, but the person who looking at the photo may read information from the photo that even the author did not expect, or a poster carefully designed by a designer with many deep meanings fails to It is possible for the audience to read the meaning that the designer wants to express, but I think the images produced by an experienced designer plus detailed planning and investigation will definitely make the audience understand it better deep meaning contained.

After reading this article, I learned to analyze advertisements or design works through the linguistic message, the literal message, and the symbolic message, so as to get more information.