Interpreting Connotations in Visual Culture by Barrett

In reading Barrett's paper on connotation and denotation, we learn about how influential visual culture is for school aged children and really, for all ages. We are not immune to what is being shown to us on a daily, if not minute basis. From our homes to work, we constantly see visual imagery. It can be as mundane as a stop sign to a billboards selling wares, from our phones to our computers; visual culture is everywhere. Barrett breaks down understanding our visual culture by defining it into two categories: connotation and denotation. Connoting means what is implied or suggested. Denoting means what you literally see.

This brought to mind Vygotsky's theory on making meaning and how we need to be directly involved in the learning process in order to help to understand the basic forms of imagery and understand what is being implied. Vygotsky wrote, "learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function" (1978, p. 90). By having those universal codes we can apply them to media, art, literature, story telling and understand what is being shared and discussed and ignored by the people create this imagery.

Culture affects us deeply and if we are not paying attention and reassessing our thought processes, we can blindly follow trends, ignore serious issues of injustice, and worst, feel we have no choices in contributing in our world. In other words, we become watchers in a machine rather then active participants; buyers instead of creators. In the article, Barrett breaks down a magazine image of women while showing the irony of a war-like, sexualized woman with a topic about the Dali Lama to be found on page 23. On some level, it is asserting that women are sexualized but on their own terms and their supposedly, freewill while existing with the Dali Lama (who is known for sexist perspectives on women) means that both can exist at the same time but becomes merely a way to sell wares to buyers looking to be tantalized and condemned. This brings up ideas of our Protestant history and fits right into the Scarlet Letter mentality about women.

When we have strong coding based on literature, stories, art history, we can understand what it is that is being conveyed and what it is that is being hidden. By understanding this and discussing this in groups, we help each other to see things in deeper meanings as well as from fresh viewpoints.