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Showing 2 results for Roland Barthes
Pejman Dadkhah, Haniyeh Abedinzadeh,
Volume 3, Issue 3 (3-2024)
Abstract
Photography was created to make the world easier to understand, but the result was the opposite. A photo that was taken in America and had concepts of culture, language, race and even climate created a different understanding for a viewer on the other side of the world. So that it was necessary for him to understand and decode the image in the details of those cultural and linguistic concepts. Lack of complete knowledge of these concepts leads to misunderstanding.Roland Barthes proposed the method of semiotics of "explicit meaning" and"implicit meaning" and said that in order to understand both of these, all the surrounding information of the work should be understood and then analyze that work. This research analyzed the photos of Dian Arbus. In this way, according to the elements in the photos, gestures, age, culture, etc., the signifiers have been determined and the primary and then the secondary signifiers or the implicit signifiers have been described based on the background of the photo. The research method in this study was analytical-descriptive and based on the library method. The photos of Arbus were black and white and had a definite square shape, and in most of the photos, the subject was placed in the middle of the frame, staring at the camera lens and frozen, bringing the viewer into the cold and soulless world of the photo. What was the purpose of Dian Arbus photography? According to the analysis and interpretation of Arbus's photos and taking into account the historical conditions of America in the 60s, he depicted another world so as not to be forgotten. Despite the flaws and defects of most of the Arbus subjects, they were still beautiful and remarkable. Arbus showed in his photos that humanity, kindness and love exist above everything else in this world.
Yeganeh Amiri, Amir Dastmardi,
Volume 5, Issue 8 (6-2025)
Abstract
This article adopts a semiotic approach to analyze one of Henri Cartier-Bresson's iconic photographs, focusing on the representation of a child within a documentary yet ideologically charged context. The theoretical framework of this study integrates Edmund Feldman’s four-step model (description, formal analysis, interpretation, and evaluation) alongside Roland Barthes’ semiotic theories—particularly the concepts of "ideological meaning" and "myth." In the first stage, the image is described based on visual elements such as composition, lighting, the positioning of the child, and the presence of posters in the background. This descriptive phase offers a neutral and technical account of the photograph's formal qualities. The second phase involves analyzing the structural relationships among these visual elements to reveal how they affect the viewer’s perception.The core of the article lies in its semiotic interpretation. Here, the child is examined not as a neutral subject, but as a cultural and social sign that conveys ideological meaning. The final phase evaluates the image based on its effectiveness in transmitting meaning and its broader socio-cultural impact. From Barthes' perspective, this photograph—despite its seemingly objective appearance—functions to reproduce and naturalize dominant ideological discourses. The child, as a visual signifier of innocence, vulnerability, or moral worthiness, is situated within a web of signs that subtly reinforce class-based, social, or cultural assumptions.
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