REPRESENTATION

In this image we see a young, black, french boy who is saluting to probably the french flag (the tricolour). To make a myth, the sign itself is used as a signifier, and a new meaning is added. The signifier in this picture is the young black soldier. But it has been chosen by the magazine to symbolise more than the young man; the picture, in combination with the signifieds of Frenchness, militariness, and relative ethnic difference, gives us a message about France and its citizens. The picture  demonstrates that the combination of the signifier and signified perpetuates the myth of imperial devotion, success and thus; a property of 'significance' for the picture. From this poster a story/myth is constructed as we look deeper into it, this is semiotics. 

This image shows a bag containing, mainly, bags of pasta, with some fruit overflowing from the sack. He turns to a particular advertising image, one in which a mesh grocery bag lies on the table; its contents: beautiful, fresh vegetables and a box of pasta displaying a brand name. This image is designed to incite us to buy the pasta and it attempts to do this by signifying on several levels information that will provoke desire. Barthes proceeds by breaking this system of signification into three parts, that of the linguistic message, the coded iconic message, and the noncoded iconic message. For the linguistic message you need cultural knowledge to decode the text. The picture it self is advertising the brand of pasta, Panzani. The coded message shows us an open bag, signifying freshness and domestic preparation. 










Choose a photo from a recent film and analyse the representations depicted. 

In this picture (from the film Jack Reacher) there is a lot of mis-en-scene, such as street and shop lights, roads, cars, darkness and people. Clearly, from this picture we are able to see that the person in the middle is being surrounded by 5 other men who seem to be picking a fight on him. From the mans stance we assume that he is quiet capable of fighting his own battles and he doesn't seem to show any vulnerability or fear, suggesting that he has been trained to fight in battles before and we assume from this that he is perhaps a military/ army man who has many skills.