Exercise 4.5: Signifier – Signified

We are tasked to find an advert from a magazine, newspaper or the internet, which has some clearly identifiable signs.

 A semiotic analysis of an image or a piece of film is the quantification of how meaning is constructed or a message is communicated. 
Before writing ‘Rhetoric of the Image’ Barthes wrote the essay ‘Myth Today’ (1972), in which he described two levels of meaning: sign and myth: 

• The first level of meaning, sign, comprises a signifier and a signified – or a denoted object (the actual thing depicted) and the connoted message (what the thing depicted communicates). 

• The second level of meaning, myth, takes into account the viewer’s existing contextual 

knowledge that informs a reading of the image. 

The image I have selected is as follows:

Signifier                                                                            Signified
The dominant colour of yellow                                           A sandy beach
A skinny, attractive and youthful female                            Sunbathing with a slim body

Warm colour of yellow                                                        Heat and thus less clothes worn

The model looking and judging you                                   A requirement so do something   
An assessment of your body                                            


The product is almost lost by the in your face statement that you are being judged and you don't match up to the model contained in the advertisement.  The product needs to be found in the advert and perhaps because of this effort itr will stay in your mind. However very clearly the message most of the population would take away is that they DONT have a beach body and need to do something about it. The product owners anticipate you will buy their product to attempt to achieve the beach ready body.

The advert was very controversial

Writer Naomi Firsht wrote:

"Fashion freebie magazine Stylist practically dedicated a whole issue to it. Its front cover was a mock-up of the Protein World ad, but instead of a super-skinny model there was a smiling model around two dress sizes bigger, a beach ball under one arm next to the proud declaration: ‘Tell me I’m not beach body ready!’ and the tagline: ‘Go on, we dare you. Why no body-bashing ad campaign will ruin our holidays.’The ad-bashing continued inside Stylist, with an editorial titled ‘Your body is not up for judgement’ and then a four-page feature analysing the advert.The feature begins by smugly announcing that Stylist has always been a ‘diet-free zone’ because it wants ‘to give women a break from the relentless pressure to fit that particular week’s body ideal’. Very noble. Except I couldn’t help noticing that within the first 15 pages of the magazine, there were no less than five adverts featuring skinny models wearing bikinis or less. In most of the perfume ads the models were completely naked apart from some strategically placed jewellery.".