How does meaning get into the image? Isn't it true that one image can have many meanings? Roland Barthes categorizes the different types of messages at play within the scope of an advertising image. She identifies 3 messages: linguistic, coded iconic and a non coded iconic. When you deconstruct one advertising image, it's crazy how much messaging is going on for the viewer on different levels. The field of market research has only continued to intensify in the recent decades as the competition for consumerism has really become global with a level of accessability never dreamed possible before the internet exploded. Still photos, like the ones we see in print ads, allow the view to keep a constant image in its gaze. Unlike the moving pictures of watching a short or feature length film, a still photo might only have an engaged viewer for 15 - 30 seconds. What messages need to be present to lengthen the time a viewer is willing to consider or take note of an image. What makes us pause and focus on what message is coming from certain images and completely ignore other images?
In reading Barthes I recgonize there a system at play in the total of the image. There is the system of the person or group who have created the image or symbol and then there is my system of how I receive the image. My guess is sometime those messages align and sometimes they are completely opposite. There is complexity in the visual, textual, implicit and explcit messaging, that given consideration goes far beyond one dimension. Even frequency of viewing an image or symbol adds a layer to the interpretation. Why is it my first impression is often not the same as my 3rd or 30th look at an image? Am I different? Is the image different?
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