Assignment 2A - Rhetoric of the Image

The reason that this part of the assignment has been done a bit later than b-d is because I had to read "Rhetoric of the Image" by Roland Barthes a few times before it started to sink in. Like everyone else I found this quite difficult, thinking about it most of the reads this semester are quite difficult, this is possibly to make our minds think and try to understand more. Anyway this was a difficult read but I'm not sure if this is down to Roland Barthes but more to the translating of his piece. Like a few others I know I had to find a summery of the text then go over it again, slightly understanding it a little better.

So the "Rhetoric of the Image" goes on about linguistic message of how the text of an image can end up relating to the feel of an image. This can be down to anything such as a familiar word being used that can hep identify it. This is done by the image Barthes used of the Pates Panzini products where the products are clearly by an Italian company, but this is also conveyed by the text, just by the word and font used helps express the companies origins. This is the way it was meant to be. With this it makes you think that a word can explain it all, an image can explain a great many things, but a single piece of text can give an understanding that we can all immediately recognize and know. This can be the same with how we perceive colour in an image, the logo is in red and green like the Italian flag, but it would be a bit difficult to see if it were in black and white.

The Coded Iconic Message is about how the important parts of an image are perceived by a viewer. In the image of the pasta products the coded message is that of reliability and how fresh, ripe and appealing the food is, this is done by using the best products allowing us to get the impression of the standards they produce.

The Non Coded Iconic Message is basically what you see is just what you see, there is no coded message for us to see, only what is there is important and nothing else. I would say that from the image, the products that we see is what they do.

After we had read this my seminar group got together and discussed what it was about and what we ended up talking about was the latest in Diet Irn Bru adverts. We all talked and said what we thought about the adverts, whether they worked or not. People had different opinions about this. It is a spot the difference ad where one picture is the original and the second has sugar free on it. I personally do think this works and understand how it works and what it does but think it has not been done well. Diet Irn bru is supposed to be similar to the full fat stuff, as seen in the adverts images, it is supposed to look the same and meant to taste the same but the only difference that it is sugar free. Maybe not having sugar free may have worked better but a slightly less obvious thing could have worked better.