In his discussion of the "connotation procedures of the photographic image" (25), Barthes says that, by 1961, there had been "an important historical reversal, the image no longer illustrates the words; it is now the words which, structurally, are parasitic on the image" (25).
He goes on to say that "[f]ormerly, the image illustrated the text (made it clearer); today, the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination" (25).
How has this changed today? Does his description still hold?
On one hand, I think about my experiences in the production of news images. The captions for photos were the most frequent locations for errors within the paper. Part of the issue seemed to be that the photogs, as much time as they would spend choosing and processing their images, neglected to double check the accompanying text for errors. The desk kept up this cycle and would often mismatch the captions and photos. This process was only furthered by the AP's supposedly recent tendency to have significant errors within photo captions.
If this relationship isn't one in which the text is "parasitic on the image," it at least suggests ways in which the text has become secondary to the image.
Barthes says later in the essay that "[s]ometimes, however, the text produces (invents) an entirely new signified which is retroactively projected into the image, so much as to appear denoted there" (27).
Two things here. First, in my experience, errors in captions can also work this way. So, the fact that the text was seen as secondary sometimes led the text to accidentally "produce ... an entirely new signified." To be more clear, there were, shamefully, a couple times during my tenure that captions made it into print that erroneously said people had died in motor vehicle wrecks. Yikes.
Second thing. This passage from Barthes makes me think of LOL animals and the like. Just saw this new take on the adorably captioned kitten photos:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/cocaine-animals
It was one phrase a couple pages later, which truly gave me pause, however. Barthes says that "man likes signs and likes them clear" (29).
What is implied here? First, Barthes is suggesting, I would argue, that we uphold the Aristotelian distinction between man and animals; man, by this argument, would be the only animal that possesses language. This distinction seems implied not only by Barthes' choice to specify that it is man who does the liking but also that liking is involved. So, if we can agree that animals rely on some sort of sign system, this sign system would be more pure in a sense, more encompassing, and would not allow for the type of break and resulting awareness from the sign system that would be required in order to express preferences for signs and, specifically, clear signs. In other words, it seems that here, Barthes is upholding Aristotle's claim for man's privileged (?) position, while taking this distinction further. Why does man like "clear signs"? One way of reading this claim would be that man requires clear signs. (Of course, in this formulation, the philosopher would become the odd human out, with a preference for dwelling in zones of ambiguity). But, if man requires clear signs, perhaps it is because his language or sign system is prosthetic and not innate. There are no clear signs, in a sense, for animals, just signs.
This phrase could perhaps be unpacked further, but, all this to say, that if we are rethinking what the place of the visual is in relation to written or spoken language and traditional studies of rhetoric, it seems that we should return to this distinction between the sign systems of man and animal for hints on where to begin.
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