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Semiotic Interpretation of Visual Images Used in Political Communication

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Semiotic Interpretation of Visual Images Used in Political Communication MEDIA-TIONS SÉMIOTIQUES ET COMMUNICATION _________________________________________________________________________________ Semiotic interpretation of visual images used in political communication Valentina CIUMACENCO Free International University of Moldova Résumé Le sens, comment est-il produit, transmis et interprété dans les messages qui sont essentiellement visuels? Cette question est particulièrement pertinente lorsque le message repose presque exclusivement sur des signes de communication visuelle. Cet article examine le rôle central que la communication visuelle a joué dans la campagne présidentielle américaine de l’année 2008 dans le but de promouvoir et développer une stratégie de lutte efficace. La présente étude constitue une analyse triangulaire de la relation entre la politique, la publicité et la communication visuelle. Cette analyse établit un rapport entre la théorie sémiotique et la communication visuelle ce qui permet de mieux comprendre le fonctionnement de la communication visuelle. L'auteur étudie comment les images sont utilisées dans les campagnes électorales modernes en tant que toile de fond de la publicité, des décors pour des séances de photos ou même des métaphores dans les arguments politiques. L'étude met en évidence la façon dont les stratégies utilisées dans la communication politique ont émergé de l'industrie de la publicité et comment la politique est devenue à l’heure actuelle un jeu d'images. Mots-clés : sémiotique, visuel, image, politique, communication, Obama, élection, campagne présidentielle. Abstract How is meaning produced, conveyed, and interpreted in messages that are primarily visual? This question is particularly relevant when the message is one that relies almost exclusively on visual communication cues. This article examines the pivotal role that visual communication played in the U.S. 2008 presidential campaign in promoting and developing an effective campaign strategy. The paper represents a triangular analysis of the relationship between politics, advertising and visual communication. This analysis relates semiotics theory to visual communication in an effort to better understand how visual communication works. The author investigates how images are used in contemporary election campaigns, as advertising backdrops, set for photo shoots or even as metaphors in policy arguments. The investigation highlights how the strategies used in political communication have emerged from the advertising industry and how politics has consequently become a game of images today. Key words: semiotics, visual, image, political, communication, Obama, election, campaign. Introduction In a review of the contributions of various philosophers on semiotics, Thomas Sebeok, founder and director of the Center for Language and Semiotic Studies at Indiana University observed that Bacon, for one, “did not commit the vulgar error of identifying language with communication”. (71) But if language is __________________________________________________________183 LA FRANCOPOLYPHONIE 8/2013, vol. 2 _________________________________________________________________________________ not identifiable with communication, then what it is? It is the primary thesis of this paper that visuals are equally as important as verbal language in communication, if not more so, and that Sebeok is right in asserting that privileging verbal language is narrow-minded, if not vulgar. The world is surrounded with mediated images in such a way that has never been witnessed in the history of mass communication. Every era has expressed itself in its own way since the beginning. Antiquity was the time of legends, epics and mythical narratives. During the sovereignty of this era, meaning was constructed with the word and its peculiar rules. Though the permanency of writing as opposed to the fleeting character of the word has grown to be the symbol of authority and power, literary narrative which was developed together with the Enlightenment and the invention of the printing process have brought out the freedom of written language. Whereas writing was fundamental to the construction process of meaning and the meaning itself at that time, with the invention of instruments like photograph, cinema and television which are used to record the still and moving images, whole world has been caught up in an ever-flowing process, which can only be explained through the unique rules of an audio-visual language. In this age when images gradually maintain their supremacy, cinemas, newspapers, magazines, books, posters, computer screens, television screens, clothes and even restaurant menus have been enclosed with images as it has never been before. In mass communication, the written culture has been step by step superseded by an audiovisual culture. Reading has increasingly weakened against watching and listening. Obviously, an emphasis on visual messages does not mean that words are less important than images. The most powerful and meaningful messages are combined with words and pictures equally. (Lester x) Considering the rapid developments in technology, we come face to face with an era widely dominated visually. Signs appear in various ways; they can be written and/or oral words or any kind of sound or visual image. Semiotic analyses of the images in the visual means of mass communication, that is, cinema, television, video images, posters, magazine and newspaper advertisements may help us to reveal their innate meanings. Of all the approaches used for the analysis of visual images, the most popular one is semiotics. In this paper, semiotics is used as methodology. In this brief analysis, after an introduction of the theory of visual semiotics and discussion of the role of visual communication in political media, we have th aim to clarify how meaning is produced, conveyed, and interpreted in visual political communication (Case study: Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign). Semiotics and Visual Communication Semiotics is the science of signs and semiotic analysis is used in studies of sign processes in such fields as communication, cognition, linguistics, anthropology, marketing, medicine and cellular biology. The contemporary focus 184__________________________________________________________ MEDIA-TIONS SÉMIOTIQUES ET COMMUNICATION _________________________________________________________________________________ that most concerns scholars today is on the communication aspects of semiotics, particularly the elements relevant to visual communication. The communication focus is reflected in the definition of semiotics given by Jakobson: “the exchange of any messages whatever and of the system of signs which underlie them”. (Sebeok 60) Fiske adds another dimension to this definition- the generation of meaning. (42) In other words, messages are made of signs and conveyed through sign systems called codes; the more we share the same codes in a communication exchange, the closer our meanings will be. But what is a Sign? In semiotic theory, a sign is anything that stands for something else; a sign stands for an object or concept (Hoopes 141; Eco 15) The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, who is known as the father of continental semiology, expressed this relationship as between a sound or image - called a signifier-and the concept for which it stands called the signified. (Fiske 43-44) Because of his linguistic background, Saussure saw the relationship between these two as arbitrary, in other words, the link between the sign and what it stands for is understood by convention. This arbitrariness is true in most spoken and written language, however, that may not be so for other types of signs, such as visuals that provide cues to stimulate recognition through resemblance, or mimesis, a point well argued by Paul Messaris in his book Visual Literacy (1994). From Saussure’s foundation of semiotics, other scholars have developed different variations on how to analyze images. C.S. Peirce, who is characterized as the founder of American semiotics, defines signs as something that stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. That's a tripartite relationship that includes Saussure's signifier (the sign) and signified (the object or concept) as well as the Peirce's notion of an interpretant (the “stands for” element or process). By interpretant he means the idea contained in the concept as it is decoded, or a subsequent thought to which the sign gives rise. (Hoopes 34) Because Peirce approaches semiotics as a cognitive philosopher, he is more interested in meaning interpretation and modes of cognition, and does not limit his analysis to only arbitrary codes. This is clear in his analysis of three types of signs: iconic, indexical, and symbolic. Iconic are mimetic representations, that is, they look like what they represent. With an indexical sign, there is a physical connection - evidence between the signified and the signifier. For example, a footprint means someone has walked by and smoke means there is a fire. An indexical sign cues something or is a clue or evidence of something. Only in the third category, the symbolic sign, (a flag, school colors, an abstract logo or trademark) is the arbitrary meaning. Images have a “polysemic” (ambiguous) nature, therefore variances in sign/symbol interpretation are influenced by factors such as: (1) culture; (2) the individual; and (3) elements of the image such as typography, captions and colors. (Penn, 2000) Penn notes that because of their polysemic nature, images sometimes require an accompanying
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