• First question made in the reading is, “can analogical representation (the “copy”) produce true systems of signs and not merely simple agglutinations of symbols?” 
  • Barthes believes that the, “mythical idea of Life: the image is re-presentatiory which is to say ultimately resurrection, and, as we know, the intelligible is reputed antipathetic to lived experience.”
  • In advertising, there is always a signification
  • The Panzani advertisement is a good representation of the three messages
  • The message being the brand’s lingo or name and the image being the poster ad itself
  • According to Barthes, the linguistic message is found in every ad in the present day.
  • “What are the functions of the linguistic message with regard to the (twofold) iconic message? There appear to be two: anchorage and relay.” Barthes believes these two functions create the linguistic message.
  •  “Polysemous” –  “poses a question of meaning and this question always comes through as a dysfunction, even if this dysfunction is recuperated by society as a tragedy”
  • Anchorage is found in press photographs and advertisements.
  • Relay is more in cartoons and comic strips.
  • “In the photograph-at least at the level of the literal message-the relationship of signifieds to signifiers is not one of “transformation” but of “recording,” and the absence of a code clearly reinforces the myth of photographic “naturainess” Barthes admires photography and he states how images are captured mechanically, not humanly. Meaning we guide the machine and the machine does its magic.
  • Barthes mentions how photographs are all about memory and all about “being there” and having to experience that moment.
  • Back to the Panzani ad, Barthes admires the natural being of objects in the ad, it helps get the message out.
  • “What is a lexicon? A portion of the symbolic plane (of language) which corresponds to a body of practices and techniques”
  • Here Barthes explains how connotators can’t complete the whole of lexia, “The most important thing, however, at least for the moment, is not to inventorize the connotators but to understand that in the total image they constitute discontinuous or better still scattered traits’ ‘