Literary theorist who influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, social theory, design theory, anthropology and post-structuralism. Barthes examined cultural materials in order to expose how bourgeois society asserted its values through them. His investigations included the example of how wine was viewed by French society as robust and healthy, offering the idea as a bourgeois ideal -- though it stood in contradiction to the reality that wine can be unhealthy and inebriation can be a root-cause of socially unacceptable behavior. To build his theory, Barthes found semiotics, the study of signs, useful in his examinations.
Roland Barthes
(1915 - 1980)
Through the lens of semiotics, Barthes found that bourgeois cultural myths formed "second-order signs," or "connotations." For Barthes purposes, a picture of a full, dark bottle is a signifier that relates to a specific signified: a fermented, alcoholic beverage. However, the bourgeoisie will relate the same full, dark bottle to a new signified: the idea of healthy, robust, relaxing experience. Motivations for such manipulations varied from the capitalist desire to sell products to a
simple desire to maintain the status quo. These insights brought Barthes studies in line with similar Marxist theory.
In emphasizing the viewers active role in creating meaning, one of Barthe's principle contributions to understanding film narratve includes identification of five narrative codes based in the "culturally formed expectations" of viewers. The narrative codes are: Action, Enigma, Semic, Symbolic, and Culural.
MOTIVATIONS / IDEAS
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Literary theories have been expanded to carry over to cultural and ideological reading of film.
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Interrogated specific cultural materials in order to expose how bourgeois society asserted its values through them.
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Viewed bourgeois cultural myths (like wine being healthy) as "second-order signs," or "connotations."
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Saw motivations for connotative manipulations vary, from a desire to sell products to a simple desire to maintain the status quo.
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His semiotic insights brought Barthes in line with similar Marxist theory.
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Published book, Mythologies, a collection of essays taken from "Les Lettres Nouvelles," examining the tendency of contemporary social systems to create modern myths.
RELATED STUDY NOTES
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Mythology –Stories found within cultures, ranging from personification of nature, personification of natural phenomena to truthful or hyperbolic accounts of historical events, to explanations of existing ritual.
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Cultural Myths -- Traditional, typically ancient stories dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serve as fundamental in the worldview of a people, by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology, customs, or ideals of society; these often account for myth surrounding the discovery of arts and sciences.
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Denotations -- The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
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Connotations (second order signs) – An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.