Introduction to media language using the Tide advertisement. As well as this there is an introduction to Barthes and his theories.

2. What is meant by
denotation and
connotation?

7.  The idea that texts communicate
their meanings through a process
of signification.
 The idea that signs can function at
the level of denotation, which
involves ‘literal’ or common sense
meaning of the sign, and at the
level of connotation which involves
meanings associated with or
suggested by the sign.
 The idea that constructed
meanings can come to seem self-
evident. Achieving the status of
myth through a process of
natualisation.

8. Barthes claimed that narratives work with codes which activate the
audience to make sense of it.
 Proairetic (or Action) Codes (pronounced pro-a-ret-ick)
– we follow narrative, observe actions & anticipate what might happen.
Examples:
- Someone plants a bomb in an office. Will it explode or will anyone find it
first?
 Hermeneutic (or Enigma) Codes (pronounced her-men-u-tick).
– narratives progress through a process of revealing truth by solving
enigmas.
 Cultural codes
– ideas shared by a culture.
Examples:
- If we didn’t know that the Eiffel Tower was in Paris we wouldn’t know
where the action was set

9.  Suspense is created through the
enigma of “what women want”
(Barthes’ Hermeneutic Code) and
emphasised by the tensionbuilding
use of multiple exclamation marks
(Barthes’ Proairetic Code).
 • Barthes’ Semantic Code could be
applied to the use of hearts above
the main image. The hearts and the
woman’s gesture codes have
connotations of love and
relationships. It’s connoted that this
is “what women want” (in addition
to clean laundry!).
 • Hyperbole and superlatives
(“Miracle”, “World’s cleanest wash!”,
“World’s whitest wash!”) as well as
tripling (“No other…”) are used to
oppose the connoted superior
cleaning power of Tide to its
competitors.

10.  This Symbolic Code (Barthes) was
clearly successful as Procter and
Gamble’s competitor products
were rapidly overtaken, making
Tide the brand leader by the mid-
1950s.

11.  Structuralism – Claude Lévi-Strauss
• The latter point above links to
Lévi-Strauss’ theory, whereby texts
are constructed through the use of
binary oppositions, and meaning is
made by audiences understanding
these conflicts.
 • “Tide gets clothes cleaner than
any other washday product you
can buy!” and “There’s nothing like
Procter and Gamble’s Tide”,
reinforces the conceptual binary
opposition between Tide and its
commercial rivals.
 • It’s also “unlike soap,” gets
laundry “whiter… than any soap or
washing product known” and is
“truly safe” – all of which connotes
that other, inferior products do not
offer what Tide does.