Denotation and Connotation in Images

Images carry meaning on two levels: a denoted, literal layer of what is depicted, and a connoted layer of cultural associations and values that the depiction evokes — which can harden into ideological 'myth'.

Definition

Denotation and connotation in images is the analysis of pictorial meaning as operating on two linked levels — the literal subject denoted and the cultural associations connoted — with connotation often functioning ideologically to make culturally specific values appear natural.

Scope

This topic covers the layered meaning of images as analyzed by Roland Barthes: the denotative first-order message (the literal scene), the connotative second-order message (its cultural overtones), and the way connotation can naturalize ideology as 'myth'. It examines how advertising, photography, and art mobilize these layers, and how a semiotic reading exposes the values smuggled into apparently neutral images.

Core questions

• What does an image denote literally, and what does it connote culturally?
• How does connotation attach cultural values and ideologies to images?
• How does Barthes's notion of 'myth' describe the naturalizing of ideology in pictures?
• How can semiotic reading make visible the persuasive work of an image?

Key theories

Orders of signification and myth

Barthes distinguishes a first-order denotative meaning from a second-order connotative meaning, and argues that connotation can become 'myth' — a second-order semiological system in which historically specific, ideological content masquerades as natural and self-evident.

History

Roland Barthes adapted the Saussurean signifier/signified distinction to images in essays of the 1950s and 1960s, notably 'Myth Today' in Mythologies (1957) and 'Rhetoric of the Image' (1964). Stuart Hall and the cultural-studies tradition later extended the denotation/connotation model into a broader account of representation and the social production of meaning.

Debates

Whether denotation is ever truly innocent

Barthes himself came to doubt a pure denotative level, suggesting that the 'literal' meaning is already a coded effect; critics debate whether denotation and connotation can be cleanly separated or whether all pictorial meaning is connotative from the start.

Key figures

• Roland Barthes
• Stuart Hall

Seminal works

• barthes1972
• barthes1977

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between denotation and connotation in an image?

Denotation is what an image literally shows; connotation is the layer of cultural associations and values it evokes. Barthes argued that connotation can turn into 'myth', making culturally loaded meanings seem natural and obvious.