Chapter 1; Images, Power, and Politics

Our culture is inundated with visual stimulation making it difficult to organize and navigate through them and come out with some underlying principle or some maxim of uniformity. Throughout history, we can see the different uses of photographs, art, and a plethora of other mediums and most of these images have a common thread - they are designed to attract our attention and convey a message of some sort. Photography has evolved from a highly exclusive art form into a common occurrence, seen everywhere from advertising to Facebook (which may be some form of self advertising...but that's another can of worms). Images have the ability to canonize and memorialize an entire decade or generation or war, and etc... For instance, Dorothea Lange's Migrant Mother has, in many ways, epitomized the Great Depression. Among many reasons for the popularity of this photograph, the way it portrays confusion and desperation hits at the raw, stark reality of the Depression and put this image in the hearts and minds of the general public, and perhaps more importantly, the wealthy.

The signifier and the signified are not always what the creator of a particular object had in mind. In most cases, the agenda of the creator is transparent (as in demasculating Marlboro Man anti-smoking ad). Another example would be the fact that Dorothea Lange asked this small family to pose for her famous Migrant Mother photo, obviously having preconcieved notions about what sort of reactions her audience would elicit from her photo. An example of the converse (a photo that was candidly born), is Tiananmen Square. It is not considered an artistic, or valuable piece, in that its denotative meaning "is simply a young man standing before a tank." It is in the connotative meaning that this photo proves its worth. It became a contagious icon for courage and defiance against the government.

Three discussion questions:

What is more important, the artist's intended meaning or the audience's immediate reaction?

Have pictures only become more inclined towards shock value and sensationalism because of the sheer volume that an average American takes in on a daily basis...Does it take more (a relative term, I know) to truly fix our attention?

How can we draw a line between iconic images and denotative images?