Semiotica

Photographs in the news This section is a discussion of the signs and codes of news photographs, based on an essay by Roland Barthes called ‘The photographic message’ (1977) which deals with newspaper photographs in semiotic terms. Some oi the issues considered here have already been touched on in earlier chapters of this book, for instance the fundamental argument that photographs always denote something, but that what is of more interest in decoding their meanings are the connotations which photo-graphs generate. The connoted message oi these iconic signs depends on what is denoted, but goes much furthtr‘ in providing a mythic significance which contains and shapes the decoding of a photograph’s connotations. Press photographs will have been carefully selected from a number of possible choices, and may have been ‘cropped’ (cut down to emphasise particular parts of the image), or technically processed to alter contrast, colour or some other aspect ol the photograph. So the photograph ‘is an object that has been worked on, chosen, composed, constructed, treated according to professional. aesthetic or ideological norms which are so many factors of connotation’ [Barthes 1977: 19). Each photograph will not be a ‘pure’, ‘natural’ image. but one which has been selected and processed in order to generate particular connotations. This recalls the status of photographic signs in advertising. Where obviously the picture is used hecause its connotations support particular mythic meanings. The photograph denoting Charlie the dog in The Sun. for example, has been separated from its background so that the dog appears to be looking soulfully at the reader, supporting the connotation that he is sad to be excluded from the party. Photographs must gain some of their meaningfuhiess from the newspaper context in which they appear. This contest is the channel through which their messages are transmitted, which shapes their significance for us. The newspaper is a message too, for more accurately a collection of various messages which surround the photograph. The newspaper in which the photograph appears will give rise to certain expectations about the kinds of picture we expect to see (pictures of royalty. criminals. popstars. or politicians, foreign wars, diplomats etc.). One kind of photograph may seem ‘out of place’ in a particular newspaper. but be routinely used in another paper. For instance, it would be unusn al for a photograph of the topless Lady Victoria Hervey to appear on the front page of The Times. but not unusual in The Sun. In the same way, diflerent pages and sections of newspapers deal with diiferent kinds of news. So a photograph may connote different meanings when used on a ‘hard news’ page than when it is used on a page dealing with personality stories.

Photographs usually appear whith personality a news satory, and the text of the story “anchor” the meanings of the photograph, supporting some readings of the photograph while discounting others. From the point of view of our analysis of the photograph, the text will provide connotations from its linguistic signs that set limits to the meaning of the picture, and directed us to construct its mythic significance in a certain way; the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination. The caption underneath it similary provides a set of linguistic meanings which shape our reading of the picture. The role of the linguistic message is to load down the image with particular cultural meanings. But since photographs bring with them the assumption that they simply record something which ‘naturally’ happened. the meanings which the text loads onto the photograph are themselves ‘naturalized’, rendered innocent and apparently self-evident. The photograph functions as the ‘proof’ that the IIC‘ll'lI'3 message is true. Moving to a more detailed analysis of the nearing of photographs. Barthes proposes six procedures through which connotations are generated. The first three procedures relate to the particular choices about what. is in the photograph, and the ways which the photograph was produced condition the ways in which the photo is decoded. These three procedures therefore affect what the photograph denotes, and thus how we read the connotations oi‘ what it shows. The final three connotation procedures relate to the context of the picture, and depend on the relationship between the signs in the photograph and other signs outside it. The first connotation procedure which Barthes identifies is what he calls ‘trick ellects’. Here the photograph has been altered specifically to produce a particular mythic meaning. Perhaps parts of two photographs have been combined, so that two people who never actually rnct. appear to be present in the same place. or the facial expression of the subject of the picture has been altered ro give the person a guilty, evil or dangerous look. The use of trick effects in such a blatant manner is rare, but is sometimes discovered in the sensationalising coverage of crimes. for instance. This kind of trick effect is now much easier because of the widespead use of computer technology to ‘brush out’ unwanted blemishes in pictures. or to enhance the colour or definition of the picture.trick effects then intervene without warning in the plane of denotation, using our assumption that photographs simply denote what was really there to load the image with connotations, to code it in a particular way.

The second coding system in Barthes´list of connotation procedures is pose. In photographs of people, their physical pose very often provides connotations which affect our reading of the picture, and thus the mythic meanings attached to the person. These gestures and facial expressions mean something to us because they belong to a cede or language of gestureand expression which is recognised in our culture. Denoting someone's hands clasped together connotes ‘praying’ for us, and might generate the mythic meaning ‘piety’ tor the person in the picture. The photograph oi Lady Victoria Howey on the tront page oliflhe Sun denotes her with her shorts unzipped to expose her knickers, and with no other clothes, looking out at the viewer. This pose is commonly seen in men's magazines lilte those discussed in the previous chapter) and in the ‘glamour’photographs regularly published on page three oi The Sun. Likethe Wonderbra ad discussed in chapter 2. it invites to viewer toregard her a sexual object. but Lady Victoria's confrontation agaze also challenges the viewer. Clearly, these connoted meanings support and relay the connotations oi the story as discussed above, in terms oi the distance from the reader which is connoted. at the same time as an intimate and erotic invitation is made. The choice oi which pose to photograph someone in is achoice of what to denote in the picture.

...