Connotative codes link visual signs to ideology, history, and power.

Evidence

The visual sign is, however, also a connotative sign. And it is so preeminently within the discourses of modern mass communication. The level of connotation of the visual sign, of its contextual reference, of its position in the various associative fields of meanings, is, precisely the point where the denoted sign intersects with the deep semantic structures of a culture, and takes on an ideological dimension. In the advertising discourse, for example, we might say that there is almost no “purely denotative” communication. Every visual sign in advertising “connotes” a quality: a situation, value, or inference which is present as an implication or implied meaning, depending on the connotational reference. We are all probably familiar with Barthes’s example of the sweater, which, in the rhetoric of advertising and fashion, always connotes, at least, “a warm garment” or “keeping warm,” and thus by farther elaboration, “the coming of winter” or “a cold day.” In the specialized sub-codes of fashion, sweater may connote “a fashionable style of haute couture ” or, alternatively, “an informal style of dress.” But set against the right background, and positioned in the romantic sub-code, it may connote “long autumn walk in the woods.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 801 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In all media some of the problems of information-processing are taken out of the process of verbal communication and left to perception. Not only love but power too makes itself visible. Symbols of hierarchy, along with symbolically intended acts of violence, and not least the personal appearance, the presence, of the greatest power-holder in the interaction, all help in this. — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 684 (#expands, via linked claim)

The domains of “preferred mappings” have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings: practices and beliefs, the everyday knowledge of social structures, of “how things work for all practical purposes in this culture,” the rank order of power and interest, and a structure of legitimations and sanctions. Thus, to clarify a “misunderstanding” at the denotative level, we need primarily to refer to the immanent world of the sign and its codes. But to clarify and resolve “misunderstandings” at the level of connotation, we must refer, through the codes, to the rules of social life, of history and life situation, or of economic and political power, and, ultimately, of ideology. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 802 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• Visual sign connotation connects images to ideology through cultural deep structures (similarity 0.85)
• Connotative codes map a culture’s power structure into everyday signs. (similarity 0.85)
• Connotative codes are the linguistic means by which ideology enters culture (similarity 0.83)
• Connotation is where visual signs acquire ideology by intersecting with cultural meaning structures. (similarity 0.82)
• Connotative codes make social knowledge thinkable by mapping meanings onto signs (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Connotation is where visual signs acquire ideology by intersecting with cultural meaning structures. #corroborates (0.90) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 801
• Power operates partly through perception rather than explicit verbal communication #expands (0.82) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 684
• Misunderstandings at the connotative level require reference to social power and ideology. #corroborates (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 802
• Ideological unity forms through connotative condensation and an axial interpellation #expands (0.65) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 629
• Visual iconic signs are more universally readable than linguistic signs. #qualifies (0.55) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 800