Week 4: Connotations & Myths

Connotations

Connotation, in short, produces the illusion of denotation, the illusion of language as transparent and of the signifier and the signified as being identical. Thus denotation is just another connotation. From such a perspective denotation can be seen as no more of a 'natural' meaning than is connotation but rather as a process of naturalization. Such a process leads to the powerful illusion that denotation is a purely literal and universal meaning which is not at all ideological, and indeed that those connotations which seem most obvious to individual interpreters are just as 'natural'.

For example based of picture above. This is showing a negative connotation for Internet Explorer. Unlike an advertisement, which promotes a product directly to consumers, propaganda hopes to change people’s views in order to get them to buy something else. One major difference between advertising and propaganda is that propaganda is typically used to support different causes or used in politics.

Myths

Myths can be seen as extended metaphors. Like metaphors, myths help us to make sense of our experiences within a culture. They express and serve to organize shared ways of conceptualizing something within a culture. Semioticians in the Saussurean tradition treat the relationship between nature and culture as relatively arbitrary. For Barthes, myths serve the ideological function of naturalization. Their function is to naturalize the cultural, in other words to make dominant cultural and historical values, attitudes and beliefs seem entirely 'natural', 'normal', self-evident, timeless, obvious 'common-sense' - and thus objective and 'true' reflections of 'the way things are'.

The above picture is an example of display art that clearly demonstrates the use of myth in order to sell a product. The mythological semiotics represented by the cowboy are those of freedom, independence, the pioneer, hard work, leadership, rebelliousness and alpha male masculinity, taking control of the herd. Nowadays we are more likely to see a Marlboro smoked by a gangster in an Hollywood movie, but cigarettes have long tried to exploit the mystery cool of the rebel.