The Three Levels

Advertising relies heavily on not only the images it presents, but the connotation of those images and how well the receiving audience is to perceive them. In Roland Barthes’ “Rhetoric of the Image”, he argues that images have more than just spontaneous meaning. There are, in fact, three levels to the image which can be broken down and analyzed to find what the image is truly saying, or its creator is trying to get us to see. They are linguistic (connotation and denotation), coded iconic, and non-coded iconic.

The linguistic meaning is simply thus, the text in or on the image, such as a brand name in an advertisement or a slogan on the bottom of an image. For example, in the Panzani advertisement, it is the labels on the products and the text on the image which evokes a number of different perceptions. First, it helps the reader to understand that it is an advertisement for a specific product, and in order to understand only that much, all the viewer requires is “a knowledge of writing and French” (Barthes). This is true for ads in all different languages, as long as you can read the language, you are essentially able to understand the basic message. But though the ad is in French, the word Panzani itself gives “by its assonance, an additional signified, that of ‘Italianicity’” (Barthes). The ad, through the use of the brand name and the text, is trying to persuade their viewers to buy their product on the basis that it speaks of “Italianicity”, or authentic Italian cuisine.

The second meaning is coded iconic. That is to say, that depending on the target audience and the context, the image holds “icons” which help people form connotations within the image. Following the Panzani advertisement, someone in Italy would brush off the ad, noting its French brand and creators, and also not get the connotation perhaps that a working American parent would. As they have authentic food in Italy, the scene of a string sack tossed among fresh ingredients would smack strongly of stereotype and hold no real meaning, as they eat actual authentic Italian food for most of their lives. A busy American parent, however, may see the image as a representation of a company’s products which are authentic and provide a well balanced meal as the product is depicted with fresh vegetables.

The final level is the non-coded, or, to put it simply, that it’s the literal image. That what you see is essentially what you get. That all the messages combined, that of the linguistic and coded, come together to form the overall perception of the image, which allows the viewer to truly understand what the creator was trying to present to them.